Explore elements of fiction and plot with your middle schoolers through the Japanese short story The Wise Old Woman. Although this lesson is designed around the Holt Literature Book (which includes this story), the links and procedural...

The Odyssey is the core text in this unit study of the hero's journey motif. Along the way, kids research Greek and Roman history, mythology, art, and epic poetry. The 104-page packet is perfect for homeschool or classroom situations and...

Prepare for a mid-unit assessment based on Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club with a brainstorming and discussion lesson. Focused on two chapters from the novel ("Rules of the Game" and "Two Kinds"), the lesson guides tenth graders through the...

Combat hate online by bringing it into the light. Begin by giving learners a quiz, then lead a discussion based on the issues the quiz brought up. As a class, develop strategies to confront online hate. Assign different venues to groups...

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...

Why does Tim O'Brien arrange his stories as he does? Why mention the death of several of the soldiers before detailing the events? Readers are asked to consider whether the arrangement of the stories contributes to O'Brien's presentation...

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...

Readers reflect on enjoyable stories they know, brainstorm criteria that make a story "good," analyze a New York Times article about innovative children's performances, re-envision classics on their own, and peer edit drafts. Use this as...

Discuss and share opinions on violent computer games. After reading an article, your class will discover the controversy surrounding online games. They analyze the suitability of computer games and write their own letters to a developer...

Psycho, The Blair Witch Project, "The Most Dangerous Game." Even the titles of these tales create goosebumps and it's the setting, both physical and psychological, that instills this sense of dread. After reading Richard Connell's...