Curated OER
Animation Pre-Production
Does your class love reading cartoons? Use their talents and interests to examine the process of writing a story they wish to tell through a cartoon. They develop the beginning, middle, and end of a story based on their original...
Curated OER
The Children of Eric the Red Explore the West: The Norsemen Encounter Indigenous People of North America
Learners read about Viking exploration and complete activities based on the Indigenous people they encountered. In this Viking exploration lesson plan, students compare and contrast stories, write a character sketch, and more.
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Core Analysis Frame: Fiction
Dig into any piece of fiction with a series of analysis questions. There are two levels of questions provided: basic and in-depth. The basic questions can be copied double-sided onto a single piece of paper, while the in-depth questions...
Curated OER
Developing a Topic for Writing Using an Idea Web
Teach your upper graders how to use an idea web to develop a topic for writing. After reading a variety of stories about friendship (a list of stories with the theme of friendship is included), model using an idea web. Class members...
Curated OER
Same Theme, Different Story Using Fox by Margaret Wild
Middle schoolers work with themes in this lesson, which is based on Fox by Margaret Wild. Because the book has multiple themes, it is a great way to transition into exploring literary analysis and writing stories. A Six Trait writing...
Curated OER
James and the Giant Peach Plot Analysis
It's all about the plot, main events, and story mapping with this lesson. As the class reads the novel James and the Giant Peach, they create an excitement graph that actually charts key events and moments of excitement. After...
Novelinks
The Little Prince: Concept/Vocab Analysis
Focus on the literary elements of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's The Little Prince with a concept analysis sheet. With suggestions and explanations for many of the book's concepts, vocabulary, and other issues that may arise in...
Curated OER
"Your Son, Your Only One" - The Sacrifice of Isaac as a Motif in Holocaust Poetry
Class groups examine a series of poems that use Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice Isaac as a motif in Holocaust poetry. Included are questions, notes to the teacher, and bibliographical information on each poem. The activities could be...
Curated OER
Reading Primary Source Documents: Historical Content
Why do we read primary source documents? What can they give us that other writings cannot? Provide your learners with any of the primary sources attached here (there are seven), and have them complete the graphic organizer (which opens...
Fluence Learning
Writing About Literary Text: Pygmalion and Galatea
Is it crazy to fall in love with your own work, or is that the purest love of all? Compare two renditions of the classic Greek myth Pygmalion and Galatea with a literary analysis exercise. After students compare the similarities and...
Curated OER
Book Report Task Cards
With 52 task cards, learners will not run out of things to do with a book they are reading independently or with the class. Tasks include making a poster on a specific topic, writing a summary, drafting a sequel, creating a windsock,...
Curated OER
Daily Writing from Self Selected Reading
Second graders practice their reading comprehension by analyzing stories they read in class. In this children's literature lesson, 2nd graders are assigned to read a book for 20 minutes each day in class and also reflect on it in their...
Digital Public Library of America
Teaching Guide: Exploring Little Women
Louisa May Alcott's Little Women is a literary masterpiece as well as a timestamp of the formative mid-nineteenth century in America. Using a primary source set of photographs, letters, and portraits, readers discuss the ways...
Curated OER
Lesson: Differing World Views: Human and Animals
Kids challenge their understanding of the world around them and consider the impact man has on the environment and animal life. They examine a Tlingit piece, read two Tlingit stories about man and animals, then participate in a research...
Fabius-Pompey School District
Paired Passage Practice and the Extended Response Question
How do pupils relate paired passages to each other? Here's a resource that helps! The lesson includes a short story and a poem as a set of paired reading passages, followed by some analysis questions. It also includes an essay template...
Wordpress
The Inn of Lost Time
Test understanding of "The Inn of Lost Time" by Lensey Namoika with an assessment that includes true/false, multiple choice, vocabulary, short answer, and essay questions. The test is not entirely traditional since, for the first 10...
Curriculum Corner
Fiction Graphic Organizers
Analyze a fictional text with a four-page packet that explores a story's main character and moral, challenges scholars to ask and answer questions about the text, and to create a story map.
Curated OER
A Weave of Woods
Focus on vocabulary, comprehension, and analysis while reading A Weave of Woods, a colorful picture book by Robert D. San Souci. Young learners use worksheets to preview, predict, practice paraphrasing, and make comparisons. The...
Southern Nevada Regional Professional Development Program
Reading Literature - An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
“An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,” Ambrose Bierce’s short story, is used to model how structural moves, the decisions an author makes about setting, point of view, time order, etc., can be examined to reveal an author’s purpose. Groups...
Curated OER
Rudyard Kipling's Rikki-Tikki-Tavi: Mixing Words and Pictures
Create meaningful illustrations to accompany stories in a web-based art and literacy instructional activity focused on "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi" by Rudyard Kipling. The class takes a virtual art safari with the Museum of Modern Art and then...
Penguin Books
Teacher’s Guide: The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros
At first glance Sandra Cisneros' The House on Mango Street seems to be a charming collection of vignettes about a young Latina's observations about the people in her Chicago neighborhood. Developing questions that prompt readers to think...
Curated OER
How To: Friendly Letter Writing
Second graders investigate the proper mechanics of a letter by writing to fictional characters. In this friendly letter instructional activity, 2nd graders read the book Stars in the Darkness, analyzing the story and characters with...
Curated OER
Telling the Blue Angels Story
Pupils use the internet to research a recent Blue Angels plane crash. As a class, they list the various ways journalists list the facts of an incident and which one is most effective given different scenerios. They write a story on this...
Teacher's Corner
Is There a Wocket in my Pocket?
Accompany Dr. Seuss' Is There a Wocket in my Pocket? with this graphic organizer. Young readers make inferences about why the main character has certain feelings towards the creatures found in the story.