Analyzing and Developing Symbols to Create Meaning

Through a series of activities, learners are exposed to how artists use symbolic imagery to create the narrative of a subject’s life. They study The Birth of Alexander and some manuscripts kept at J. Paul Getty Museum. They then draft...

After identifying the most significant events in the To Kill A Mockingbird, readers create a plot map the reveals how Harper Lee orders events to create dramatic tension in her novel. To conclude the lesson, individuals either outline a...

“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.

What a great way to study symbols in a text! Give your class some support by offering basic pictures and the page number that is associated with symbols found in To Kill a Mockingbird. Readers analyze the mockingbird, Boo Radley, and...

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...

Identify the unique personal attributes of your class members. Begin by viewing the Visual Thesaurus and discussing displayed attributes associated with famous American leaders. Using these identity maps as models, pupils generate nouns...

Pupils can come to understand how the organizational pattern of a text adds to the overall meaning by following a few steps. First, they should reread a paragraph and identify how it's organized. Next, they can highlight words and...

"How does a poem mean?" How do various elements of a poem combine to create its meaning? A series of six videos using Edna St. Vincent Millay’s “Sonnet VII” as the anchor text, models for readers how a close reading of a poem can reveal...

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...