A View of Yourself Through Famous Writers

If You Come Softly, Jacqueline Woodson's poignant tale of interracial love, provides the text for a study of point of view. Groups consider how Ellie's first person and Miah's third person points of view impact the story.

Passages from Tracy Chevalier's Girl with a Pearl Earring, Ayn Rand's Anthem, Edgar Lee Masters' Spoon River Anthology, and Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game provide class members with an opportunity to examine how an author's choice of...

Understanding point of view is imperative when reading Willa Cather's My Ántonia. Divide your class into group and assign each group one discussion question about the points of view of various characters, as well as narrative and...

Get your writers composing their own short stories by following some or all of the ideas included here. You'll find short lessons and activities, handouts and assignment pages, sample paragraphs and sentences, and all sorts of great...

Football fans and ready readers will enjoy a lesson based on H.G Bissinger's Friday Night Lights. Focusing on chapter 4, the lesson encourages tenth graders to examine Mike's character development as it relates to the season opener, and...

Introduce expository writing with a unit that asks writers to craft an essay to explain a belief, value, or priority that is important to them. Mini-lessons within the unit focus on crafting thesis statements and conclusions, selecting...

A strong writing resource, designed for high school or college-level writers, guides learners through crafting persuasive arguments. The packet not only provides examples of a variety of argumentative strategies, it gives pointers on how...

Point of view is the focus of the third lesson in a ten-lesson unit on The Grapes of Wrath. After a review of the third-person limited omniscient voice, the class looks at the way Steinbeck alternates specific chapters about the Joads...

Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man is the most frequently cited novel for the Advanced Placement Literature and Composition Open Response Question. Those new to using the book and and veterans as well will find the teaching strategies, the...

Knock, knock, knock...Creep out your class with a critical thinking lesson focused on word relationships in Edgar Allen Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart." They investigate  the relationship between word choice, mood, and interpretation of a...