Change slander to remorse: Unscripted Scenes

Is To Kill a Mockingbird a great book? To conclude a 10-lesson unit study of Harper Lee's novel, class members generate a list of characteristics of great books, suggest works that fit some or all of these criteria, and then measure To...

Tired of those blank stares after your class reads a particularly complex passage from a Shakespearean play? Help high schoolers untangle that prose with a literature circle activity. Ten different roles prompt class members to focus on...

Casting, setting, context, frame, camera angle, lighting, soundtrack. Every choice a writer or director makes is conscious. Here's a learning exercise that asks readers/viewers to examine these choices and consider how they are used to...

Martin Luther King Jr's " I Have a Dream" speech and Atticus Finch's closing argument during the trial of Tom Robinson both address the societal need to overcome racism. After examining the rhetorical devices and figurative language used...

Shake it up! Shake your tablet to bring up a unique writing prompt for journaling or blogging with your class. Shake again and a new one appears. Prompts can come from different categories (sketches, scenes, texts, words, news) to help...

Students study the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, view courtroom scenes in To Kill a Mockingbird and A Time to Kill, and determine factors which influenced the verdicts in each trial, in a writing assignment.

How does Hamlet's state of mind change over the course of Shakespeare's most famous revenge tragedy? After a close reading of Hamlet's soliloquies in Act III, scene 1 and Act IV, scene iv, class members engage in a Paideia/Socratic...

Students examine the function of exposition in play structure. They will be able to develop multiple interpretations and visual and aural production choices for Shakespearean scenes and choose those that are most interesting.

Students analyze Act 4, scene 1 from the play, Merchant of Venice. They hypothesize the content of an unscripted moment and response, look for evidence in the text to support their hypothesis, rewrite the scene, and perform it for the...

What do Robert Downey Jr., Basil Rathbone, Jeremy Brett, Fritz Weaver, Roger Moore, Benedict Cumberbatch, and Daffy Duck have in common? Why, it’s elementary, my dear Watson! They all have portrayed Sherlock Holmes. Literary detectives...