National Endowment for the Arts
Teacher's Guide: The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
A 10-lesson unit takes high schoolers through a novel study of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. To start, students learn about Fitzgerald's background and gain historical context that prepares them for a reading of the book. The...
National Endowment for the Arts
Reader Resources: The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
A handy guide offers high schoolers support as they read the American novel, The Great Gatsby. Complete with a biography of F. Scott Fitzgerald, a timeline of the Roaring Twenties, discussion questions about the novel, and more, this...
Polk Bros Foundation
Answer the BIG Question with Cited Examples and Evidence
Close up your unit of study with an examination of one of the guiding or essential questions as it relates to what your class has studied and other research. Class members first write down the question. Then they note down information...
Polk Bros Foundation
Common Core Constructed Response Organizer
Get your writers ready to compose a constructed response essay in response to either an informational or fictional text. Pupils note down the big idea they wish to address as well as up to nine examples from the text that they wish to...
What So Proudly We Hail
The Meaning of America: National Identity and Why It Matters
Combining a close reading of a classic American text with the study of history can be a very powerful strategy, and this is most certainly the case with this resource using Edward Everett Hale's The Man without a Country. Consider themes...
National Endowment for the Humanities
Mark Twain and American Humor
“The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” is famous, in part, because it established a uniquely American form of humor. For this famous story, Mark Twain combines the tall-tale, the dialect story, and satire. Here is a resource...
Curated OER
The Poetry Archive
Listening to poems about feeling lonely and feeling like an outsider set the stage for a group activity that focuses on Stevie Smith's "Not Waving But Drowning." Groups examine the three stanzas of Smith's poem separately and identify in...
K12 Reader
"How Do I Love Thee?" Supporting Ideas
Show your class what poem the famous line "How do I love thee? Let me count the ways" comes from. Class members read Elizabeth Barrett Browning's poem and respond to one question with a short paragraph. The question asks learners to use...
Random House
Teacher's Guide: The Hobbit: The Enchanting Prelude to Lord of the Rings
The Odyssey, Star Wars, The Hunger Games. Odysseus, Luke Skywalker, Katniss Everdeen. Add The Hobbit and Bilbo Baggins to these lists, and you have a unit examining classic and contemporary myths, legends, and folktales with hero and...
What So Proudly We Hail
The Meaning of America: Freedom and Religion
The United States of America was founded on firm ideals of both the pursuit of happiness and a spirit of reverence. Through a close reading of Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The May-Pole of Merry Mount," you can examine what some consider was a...
What So Proudly We Hail
The Meaning of America: Equality
What if society sought equality by handicapping the gifted and dispelling any traces of diversity? Kurt Vonnegut Jr. offers one possible answer to this question through his incredibly engaging and thought-provoking satirical...
Poets.org
Love as a Two-way Street
Create an abundance of understanding, as your high school learners learn to analyze multiple love poems. Part one of this resource has learners define what love is, examine art that reflects the love between Robert and Elizabeth...
Shmoop
ELA.CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.1
Does your ELA class need some practice with the specific skills outlined in the Common Core standards? Then this is the perfect resource for you! One in a series of connected lessons that cover the standards for reading literature,...
Curated OER
Great Gatsby's Jazz
As Nick wanders the grounds of Gatsby's mansion, he observes the behaviors of the rowdy guests and listens to the music pouring over the lawn. Bring the music of the jazz age into the classroom with Louis Armstrong's "West End Blues,"...
English Linx
Textual Evidence Worksheet
Perfect for a unit on characterization and simple enough to use with any text. Your class will practice the Common Core standard of citing textual evidence to support their analysis by first making an assertion about a character from a...
Curated OER
From Light to Dark and Back
Experiment with light and dark in a series of interactive activities that lead up to reading and writing poetry. Class members have the opportunity to observe their feelings while sitting in the light and dark and to play with shadow...
Pulitzer Center
"Voices from Haiti": Using Poetry to Speak up for a Cause
Explore a real world use of poetry with your class! Young language arts pupils consider the concept of advocacy and how journalism, photography, and poetry can raise awareness for a cause. They read several poems about individuals...
Curated OER
Dracula: Directed Reading Thinking Activity (DRTA)
“There are often dangers from snow and wolves and night.” Bram Stoker’s “Dracula’s Guest,” which may or may not have been the first chapter of the original Dracula manuscript, is the focus of a Directed Reading Thinking Activity (DRTA).
Curated OER
Setting Details in Of Mice and Men
After completing John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, groups are assigned a chapter to reread. Members list major conflicts and events and quote setting details. They then make observations about how the setting prepares the reader for the...
Curated OER
Agriculture Awareness Through Poetry
Whether you are viewing a landscape painting of a farm, examining a still-life portrait of a bowl of fruit, or reading a descriptive poem about cultivating food, you can't deny that agriculture plays a major role in visual and language...
Curated OER
Flying Freudian Fun: A Look At Ethical Decision Making
There are not many more apt examples of ethics gone awry than William Golding's Lord of the Flies.. Ninth graders focus the ethics of decision making with the examples provided in the plot. They focus on the concept of the psyche and how...
Penguin Books
An Educator’s Guide to Gayle Forman
Sometimes a novel is the best way to tackle a tough topic. A helpful educator's guide for the novels of Gayle Forman discuss tough topics such as teenage suicide. Discussion questions and writing activities encourage readers to think...
National Park Service
Petrified Forest National Park
Poetry Soup, a reading and writing unit constructed by the Petrified Forest National Park, will have scholars hungry to learn about nature. The cross-content unit contains topics related to history, science, and language arts. Content...
Maryland Department of Education
The Concept of Diversity in World Literature Lesson 6: Culture Clash
To prepare for a Quickwrite on the question, "How do different points of view create cultural conflicts?" class groups draw examples of religious, cultural, and political conflicts from Things Fall Apart and The Poisonwood Bible to use...