"I Cannot Tell a Lie"

Edgar Allen Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart" is full of imagery and excitement for the reader. Review this passage with your class to discuss perspective, tone, and word choice. Then writers are asked to create their own piece: a one-page...

It is entirely fitting and proper that Wilfred Owen’s powerful “Dulce et Decorum Est” is the poem used for an exercise in close reading, discussion, analysis, and argumentative writing. Class members discuss focus questions in pairs,...

To do something to someone or something or not to do something to someone. That is the question. And it is the source of the confusion between lie and lay. The strength of this worksheet is in the clear, cogent explanation for the...

"Hate is why we cannot wait." Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s attorney and advisor Clarence B. Jones' six words on race are at the center of an article that reflects on the civil rights movement. After reading the article, middle schoolers...

Are your pupils caught in the lie/lay confusion? Give them extra practice with a learning exercise that defines the difference in meaning, conjugates the words, and gives examples of how the two verbs are used. Learners then practice...

Looking for some additional materials for Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart"? Included in a 14-page packet are an anticipation guide, a vocabulary list, exercise, and quiz, a list of literary terms, and an essay assignment with pre-writing...

A chilling look of Edgar Allan Poe's works may not be a dream within a dream, but it's certainly a review within a crossword puzzle. Look down and across to find references to "The Raven," "The Tell-Tale Heart," "The Black Cat," and "The...

What do a girl in foster care and a 91-year-old widow have in common? A crossword puzzle related to Orphan Train highlights some of the similarities the two characters share in the book. The puzzle pulls out key details from the novel to...

Using the open-ended discussion questions developed the day before, class members engage in a fishbowl discussion of the three texts that anchor the unit: “True Crime: The Roots of an American Obsession," “How Bernard Madoff Did it,” and...

Mold the perfect review session with a crossword puzzle based on George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion. As class members answer clues about Eliza Doolittle, Henry Higgins, and Colonel Pickering, they review key concepts from the play.