Analyzing and Developing Symbols to Create Meaning

Who says that reading has to involve text? Use non-print texts, including videos, TED talks, and podcasts in your classroom to teach skills associated with nonfiction reading, including evaluating claims, finding main ideas, and...

“I am. I think. I will.” Seek the secrets of words. Ayn Rand’s Anthem provides the text for a series of exercises that ask readers to analyze how Rand uses antimetabole, epistrophe, parallelism, and repetition to create meaning. Using...

Designed to accompany a reading of Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, the worksheets in this packet permit readers to keep notes on parallels between Lee's life and Scout's, on characters in the novel, and on chapter events.

How can a scene from a novel be different when represented on film? After creating a timeline from the plot of Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God, kids watch the first or last fifteen minutes of the film version, produced...

An allusion can help a writer get a complex idea across with just a few words by tapping into shared cultural knowledge and memory. Examine this phenomenon in Robinson Jeffers' poems "To the House" and "Hooded Night." Learners discuss...

It's a tale of life, retold by a genius, full of sound and fury. Akira Kurosawa's Throne of Blood takes center stage in a resource that spotlights how the director adapted the characters and themes in Shakespeare's Macbeth to Japanese...

Focus on symbols from Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club with a rich lesson plan. Young readers discuss the meaning of the section titles from the novel, including "The Twenty-Six Malignant Gates," and write a short essay about Tan's use of the...

Here's a must-have resource for anyone reading To Kill A Mockingbird or using Harper Lee's award-winning novel in a classroom. The packet contains Miss Hollace Ransdall's first-hand, factual account of the trials of the Scottsboro Boys,...

Prepare your class for creating their own documentaries. Before they get started, they'll need to know what a documentary is and what makes a documentary compelling. As a class, watch several documentaries from the point of view of the...

Known as one of the most iconic advertisements of the 20th century, Macintosh's "1984" commercial has become more of a social statement. Present the ad to a new audience of viewers with a lesson focused on identifying dystopian...