Standards Focus: Theme, Romeo and Juliet

Who's at fault? Friar Laurence? Lord Capulet? Friar John? As the culminating activity in a unit study of Romeo and Juliet, individuals craft an argumentative essay in which they assign blame for the deaths of Shakespeare's star-crossed...

Building off the homework assignment from the previous lesson in this series, class members explore themes in Ursula K. Le Guin's novel A Wizard of Earthsea through discussion and a writing activity. Pupils share their homework and...

Explore chapter nine of Tuck Everlasting with this two-page worksheet. Learners analyze six quotes from the text and identify the main idea of the novel. The focus of this worksheet is to explore theme in the text and how specific...

Jack London includes a great deal about the relationship between nature and civilization in his book The Call of the Wild. Ask your class members to examine this theme through discussion and writing. The resource includes quotes to focus...

Foster a healthy and kind classroom community with a series of literary lessons focused on the habits of mind. Each lesson features a picture book that shares a literary theme with one or more of the habits of mind.

Picture books aren't just for primary learners. Your scholars compare and contrast literary themes between the novel, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis, and the children's book, The Dream Tree by Winfried Wolf through...

Augment your unit on Carl Hiaasen's Hoot with a series of activities about the environment, civil disobedience, making an impact in the world, and growing up. A list of literary concepts and themes helps you to write your lessons to...

Explore with your class how Elizabeth Buhot develops the theme of alienation in the way she depicts the isolation of her characters in “A Start.” The richly detailed plan includes a reading check, discussion questions, vocabulary...

Open the floor for a discussion about what poetry can offer to readers. Invite your class to discuss Robison Jeffers' poems "To the Stone-Cutters" and "Love the Wild Swan" as well as what poetry can provide in general. To close up your...

What do Robert Downey Jr., Basil Rathbone, Jeremy Brett, Fritz Weaver, Roger Moore, Benedict Cumberbatch, and Daffy Duck have in common? Why, it’s elementary, my dear Watson! They all have portrayed Sherlock Holmes. Literary detectives...