Robert Hayden's poem "Those Winter Sundays" serves as the anchor text in a five-part activity that takes the mystery out of poetry analysis by modeling explicit strategies for pupils to employ to conduct a close reading of a poem. After...

Dream or nightmare? Class members craft a synthesis essay with textual to determine to what extent the United States has fulfilled the ideas embodied in the America Dream.

The house lights dim, the curtain parts, lights slowly come up, revealing the stage. Before the actors appear, before a word is spoken, the audience is drawn in by the lighting, by the colors, by lines of the set, by the props, and...

Stop, thief! Do your pupils understand the consequences of plagiarism? Lesson three of six in a series of college and career readiness activities demonstrates the dangers of taking credit for someone else's work. Learners engage in...

Several social activities provide showcase the perspective of many prominent figures in World War I history. Students read an assigned case study about a memorable person and complete several activities to further understand this...

How can something be true even if it didn't happen? Invite your classes to investigate the truths found in the world of magical realism as they analyze short stories, poems, informational texts, video, and art from this genre.

How does a society influence and shape individuals? Class members ponder this essential question as they read Lord of the Flies, as well as primary source materials about the historical background of the novel. As a final assessment,...

Imagine using narrative essays to encourage change. This multi-week unit plan does just that. After reading a series of articles from Tyson Miller's Dream of a Nation: Inspiring Ideas for a Better America, class members examine the...

What responsibility do we have to protect the privacy and safety of others when posting information about them online? This is an essential lesson for every learner today experiencing their social and professional worlds in an online...

In his 2013 introduction to Fahrenheit 451, Neil Gaiman states, “Fiction is a lie that tells us true things, over and over.” In this extraordinary unit plan, readers "explore the power of written language to educate and influence...

Learners analyze the evolution of cultural attitudes through the lens of transportation, examining several artifacts, documents, and photographs. Topics covered include how American attitudes have influenced society's evolution into a...

Got milk? Only two cultures have had it long enough to develop the tolerance of lactose as an adult. Learn how the responsible genes evolved along with the cultures that have been consuming milk. This rich film is supplied with a few...

Approach ethical online behavior with a series of activities geared toward teaching pupils about digital citizenship. After a brief discussion about ethics, small groups inspect a fictional social networking profile with ethics in mind....

What makes heroes and villains? A six-part unit plan asks young scholars to explore the concept of heroism and the characteristics they consider heroic and unheroic. Groups create character maps that focus on how characters are shaped by...

C.S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia is about far more than the adventures of a group of children in an imaginary kingdom. Find out what else it's about in a short Great American Read video.

Looking for Alaska is the subject of a short PBS video that encourages viewers to read John Green's award-winning young adult novel about first love. 

Published in 1813 and considered by many to be the first romance novel, Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice still tops the chart as a favorite read. Literary experts share why the tale of Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy continues to win the...

One Hundred Years of Solitude introduces readers to magic realism. Told in a series of flashbacks and flash-forwards, Gabriel Garcia Marquez's Nobel Prize-winning novel is a candidate for The Great American Read program and aficionados...

Douglas Adams' hysterical send-up of bureaucratic thinking, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, is the focus of a Great American Read video that urges viewers to vote for one of the greatest satires since Gulliver's Travels.

Rather than windmills, Ignatius J. Reilly, the hero of John Kennedy Toole's Pulitzer Prize-winning A Confederacy of Dunces, battles against modernity. Find out why Professor Walter Isaacson thinks Toole's novel should get viewers' votes...

While white literary critics praised her work, the black literary establishment trashed Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God. See what other writers have to say about the novel in a short video from the PBS Masters series.

Ready Player One has been praised as a novel that captures the vitality, the allure, and the essence of the virtual reality experience. Speakers in a short video share their rationale for why Ernest Clines' dystopian novel should be...

Reverend Katrina Foster offers her rationale for why Winston Smith, the tragic hero of George Orwell's dystopian novel 1984, is her favorite literary character.