Mock Trial

Characters in a story are more than a name to remember. Use a character builder worksheet to write out a character's appearance, background, personality, attributes, and story relevance, including whether they are a main or minor...

Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles provides the text for a fishbowl activity. Class members to sit in concentric circles, with the center circle discussing the topics from the book, and the outer circle observing the...

George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, published in 1949, can seem strangely prophetic when compared to modern news events and politics. Readers of Orwell's dystopian classic sharpen their critical thinking skills by engaging in...

Challenge your class to hold a discussion about the theme of death in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead without direct teacher guidance. After going over the discussion protocols and quotes from the text, learners move in a circle...

Readers learn together with a group discussion activity. As they read William Shakespeare's The Tempest, high schoolers prepare for a fishbowl discussion in which three or four learners sit in the middle of a large circle and...

After reading through Act II of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, take some time to discuss the references to death in the play. For this fishbowl discussion, learners prepare questions, practice answering individually and with...

Students create an advertisement promoting good behavior. This character-development lesson plan from Boys Town High School involves students studying the history of the Got Milk?advertising campaign. After a discussion of marketing...

The ambiguity in Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre makes the novel a perfect choice for a shared inquiry discussion. Readers respond to open-ended questions with evidence drawn directly from the text. 

Do not let Julius Caesar be Greek to your pupils. Rather, make the play a dish fit for hungry minds. Encourage your class members to lend their ears to a series of rich discussion questions so that they can become masters of the play, as...

As Amy lament's Jo's decision to rid herself of her singular beauty, Marmee puts a hand to her mouth, awed by her daughter's generosity. Watch the pivotal scene from a Masterpiece production of Little Women, and lead a language arts...