Literary analysis is so much more than comprehension questions about the story! Learn about the elements of a story with activities and lessons designed for middle schoolers, complete with important literary terms for specific books and...

Kate Chopin's The Awakening is the focus of a three-lesson collection designed for readers of the novella. The first resource provides readers with background information about Chopin and Creole culture. The second resource explores how...

The UN Convention of the Rights of the Child (CRC) is the focus of a two-lesson collection that investigates the rights the document guarantees and groups whose rights have been violated. The unit concludes with individuals selecting one...

Reading takes place one word at a time. Increase scholar's word recognition fluency and create better readers with a collection of sight word fluency lists. Lists offer both new and review words and include space for teachers to record...

Linda Sue Park's A Long Walk to Water is the anchor text for a collection of 14 lessons that ask seventh graders to consider how culture, time, and place influence the development of identity. Lessons prepare scholars to read a text...

The second unit in a three-unit module introduces readers to the skills they need to determine the theme of a novel. Through close reading, discussion of related informational text, and evidence collection, students analyze how Linda Sue...

Bud Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis is the anchor text of a 12-part module created for sixth graders. Scholars read and examine the literature in the context of figurative language, tone, and meaning. Learners draw conclusions and...

A collection of resources challenges scholars to determine facts from opinion. Learners examine news reports and determine what is true and relevant to the subject.

Christopher Paul Curtis' Newberry Medal winning novel Bud, Not Buddy is the anchor text in a unit that asks middle schoolers to examine Bud's rules to live by. They compare these rules to those in President Barack Obama's 2009...

Help readers develop the ability to understand complex text. Thanhha Lai's Inside Out & Back Again serves as the anchor work in this first unit that focuses not only on how word choice impacts tone and meaning, but also how to draw...

Taking a stand is the theme of Module 2. Students continue to develop their close reading skills, study a speaker's perspective, and analyze how writers craft an argument. The core texts for Unit 1 include speeches by Shirley Chisholm...

Unit 2 of Module 1a continues a study of To Kill A Mockingbird with readers paying particular attention to the theme of taking a stand. A Mid-Unit Assessment asks students to compare a key scene in the novel with the same scene in the...

To end their study of To Kill A Mockingbird, class members craft a Readers Theatre script incorporating key scenes from the novel that develop the theme of taking a stand. Group's Readers Theatre performances represent the final...

Teach your sophomores how to compare the same ideas in two different texts with a unit that uses Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club and H.G. Bissinger's Friday Night Lights as central texts. Class members use their close reading skills to...

Machiavelli's The Prince challenges readers to ponder the role of leadership and to consider the qualities that make a good ruler. After a close reading and discussion of Machiavelli's ideas, the five-lesson unit concludes with class...

Ethan Canin's short story "The Palace Thief" is the anchor text in a unit that teaches 10th grades close reading skills. Class members gather evidence for an expository essay in which they analyze how how the author uses the interactions...

Julia Alvarez's autobiographical essay "A Genetics of Justice," describes the impact Rafael Trujillo, the president of the Dominican Republic in the 1930s, had on the her mother. Alvarez's essay is the anchor text in a short unit that...

Rebecca Skloot's The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks asks readers to consider whether the experiments on the author's mother's cells, without her consent, were worth the information gained about cancer, about gene mapping, and about...

Freshman take a stab at analyzing information texts in a unit that focuses on readers' fascination with true-crime stories and murder mysteries. Using Walter Mosely's Newsweek essay, "True Crime: The Roots of an American Obsession" as an...

Shakespeare's Macbeth is the anchor text in a unit that asks readers to consider the role the director plays in the presentation of a work. After a close reading of the play, class members compare how the interactions between the main...

Analysis of complex texts requires close reading. The six lessons in the first unit of Module 1 teach readers how to annotate text, as well as how to conduct evidence-based discussions, and produce evidence-based writing, the skills they...

The third unit in this module uses Virginia Woolf's "A Room of One's Own" as an anchor text. Learners continue to develop their close reading and analysis skill, this time with a nonfiction text. In addition, they work to improve their...

A continuation of Unit 1, the 25 lessons in this unit require learners to continue to practice the skills they will need in the English Language Arts Classroom: close reading, annotating text, collaborative discussions, and...

Tackle literature instruction with the help of a collection designed to meet every Common Core English language arts standard. Included is a unit, a video, and a variety of lesson plans and worksheets ready to drive, enhance, and support...