Struggling to get your learners to understand irony? Try out this video, which clarifies each type of irony before going into more depth on dramatic irony. The narrator relates this type of irony to both horror and comedy films and...

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...

"How does a poem mean?" How do various elements of a poem combine to create its meaning? A series of six videos using Edna St. Vincent Millay’s “Sonnet VII” as the anchor text, models for readers how a close reading of a poem can reveal...

Pupils can come to understand how the organizational pattern of a text adds to the overall meaning by following a few steps. First, they should reread a paragraph and identify how it's organized. Next, they can highlight words and...

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...

How do artists affect and how are artists affected by the time periods in which they live? Learners examine the life and work of controversial and influential cultural artist Patti Smith as they seek answers to this essential question....

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...

Use the ideas here for a Valentine's Day activity (or anytime you study sonnets) with your 11th graders. Demonstrate how to analyze a love poem by conducting a think aloud about Shakespeare's Sonnet 29. Then small groups analyze Sonnet...

Middle schoolers analyze the speaker's ideas and tone in the Billy Collins poem "The Lanyard." After identifying how each of the five senses is addressed in the poem, they compare images to draw conclusions about the speaker and his...

Why just show your class a movie when you could teach them how to critique film the same way they do literature? While this lesson uses Battlestar Galactica as its visual text of choice, this plan could be used with any film selection....

Is it possible to tell a true war story? Tim O’Brien says that fiction is for “getting at the truth when the truth isn’t sufficient for the truth.” To get at the truth about war, class members examine primary source materials from the...

Annotations on a copy of excerpts from Plato’s allegorical dialogue, “The Cave” are used to focus attention on specific passages in the dialogue. Readers are ask to draw the cave as it is described, to recount what happens to the...

Who are "the most pernicious race of little odious vermin that nature ever suffered to crawl upon the surface of the earth”? Readers of Gulliver’s Travels will learn the answer, as the journey with Lemuel Gulliver to Lilliput,...

Class members have an opportunity to develop empathy as they assume the identity of one of the characters in Ernest Hemingway's short story, "Indian Camp." They write about one event in the story from the point of view and in the voice...

What elements make the short story a distinct genre? After generating a list of common elements and a working definition, class members identify the characters, setting, plot, rising action, crisis, climax, and conclusion in “The Three...

Tradition, the importance of rituals, and clearly defined roles for men and women as factors that provide unity in a community come under scrutiny with a reading of Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery." After a whole-class discussion of...

Words carry baggage (denotation and connotation) that influence a reader's perception and response to a text. Analyzing how a poet's diction and syntax contribute to the meaning of a poem is the focus of a short video that examines Edna...

What would happen if I structured this review by beginning in the middle of it? Or by flashing back to the dinner I had last night that gave me bad heartburn, and then transitioned into how the lingering burn of acid seeped into my...

Jamie Ford’s historical novel, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, explores the relationship between a young Chinese American boy and a Japanese American girl set against the backdrop of Seattle during World War II. The teaching...

“. . .different men often see the same subject in different lights. . .” but the great orator Patrick Henry used all the skills at his command to craft a speech to convince listeners to see things as he did--that liberty was worth dying...

Use this simple collaborative activity to introduce the definition, art, and poetry of romanticism. Educators will have to provide the poetry, images of the art, and the survey for the learners, but by using this resource, they won't...

Viewing Tent City launches a study of the frame story and how authors use this format to draw attention to their theme. The richly detailed plan from Futurestates Community Classroom includes pre-viewing activities, discussion questions,...

Explore the fascinating ways in which authors use specific literary devices to create interesting and realistic texts. Using non-fiction articles with the subject of rogue waves, an excerpt from The Perfect Storm, by Sebastian Junger,...

Protagonists, antagonists, stereotypes, and foils. Introduce your scriptwriters to major, minor, round, and flat characters, and how to create them. Rich in examples and activities, the packet includes the directions for an exercise...