Survivor: Illyria

Two sonnets provide seventh graders with examples of Shakespearean sonnets. After discussing the story of the poems and analyzing their rhyme scheme and rhythm, young poets craft a Shakespearian sonnet and share their work with two...

William Shakespeare penned some of the richest and most fascinating works of literature—or did he? Middle schoolers read three brief informative passages and conduct additional research to evaluate the claim that Shakespeare did not...

Get even your most reluctant pupils reading, writing, reciting, and maybe even enjoying poetry! A four day lesson plan, young writers learn about Golden Shovel poems: a poem format that uses borrowed words from other poems as the last...

Can we test whether lines ascribed to William Shakespeare were actually written by someone else? Science and linguistics join forces in this fantastic TED-Ed video to help us investigate the theory of whether history's...

Eighth graders focus on the Shakespearian sonnet as a form and analyze the sonnet in terms of structure, the particular rhyme scheme of the quatrains and the rhyming couplet, the rhythm of iambic pentameter, as well as any figurative...

Students explore and analyze the sounds and shapes of the words used in Shakespeare's works They participate in a charades-like memorization exercise in which they create "word plays" for each of the words in the monologue.

Eighth graders consider parallel relationships in Much Ado About Nothing and the structure of the play within an extended piece of writing.  In this point of view activity, 8th graders examine relationships and write a discursive...

Students explore the Project Gutenberg website and conduct a webquest to answer questions about well known literature and authors.

Learners are introduced to the types of characters found in short stories. They read a short story in class and produce sketches of the protagonist and antagonist. Finally, they create their own characters and write about them in their...

Who is Emmet Till? An important historical figure, your kids will be shocked by his story! Discover the details of his life and collaborate to write a crown of sonnets in the style of Marilyn Nelson.