The Whole World

You could spend a full day discussing The Phantom of the Opera and not scratch the surface, but a set of lessons about the literary elements and themes of the musical production is a great start. Young thespians build upon the background...

If your language arts learners have a hard time determining the universal theme of a written work, use a straightforward activity to help them find it. After reviewing a list of common themes, kids note the title, character, plot, point...

Explore concepts of audience, purpose and symbols in this instructional activity from Media Smarts that asks students to consider all the functions of music. Through a series of discussions and activities, your class will brainstorm...

Readers decode and deconstruct political cartoons to heighten critical thinking, extra-textual literacy, and making meaning from symbolism and metaphor. A compatible activity to use in English class when your 8th or 11th graders are...

Christmas trees can be as large and elaborate as the tree in Rockefeller Center, or as small and understated as Charlie Brown's tree in A Charlie Brown Christmas. But where did the tradition of Christmas trees come from? An engaging...

Surrealistic painters like Marc Chagall and Wendy Rouse show viewers an expansive world in a small area. Young artists have a opportunity to create their own surrealistic paintings in response to a study of works by Chagall and Rouse.

Philip Pullman's The Golden Compass serves as the anchor text for a lesson on symbolism. Readers use the provided worksheets to examine the symbols in the novel as well as in the world around them.

Students explore word choice and its effects on symbolism and atmosphere in the poem "The Raven" by Edgar Allen Poe.

If you want some help with teaching themes and symbols in Animal Farm, this may be beneficial. After a class discussion about possible themes, class members write a paragraph explaining which they believe is the most important. Next,...

Lies, deceit, betrayal, criminality: these topics are just a few of the reasons that John Steinbeck's classic novel The Grapes of Wrath has captivated people since its 1939 publication. Scholars begin the lesson by reading background...