Little Stones
How Can Poetry Make People Think and Care?
Can beautiful words change the world? Literary scholars discover how to paint their visions of change using poetry in a series of three workshops. Each independent topic gives participants a chance to examine their feelings about...
Curated OER
Compare and Contrast Cultures
Using informational text to make cross cultural comparisons is a great way to build a global understanding and comparative analysis skills. With several handy worksheets and a Venn diagram the class will read to make cross textual...
Curated OER
Picture This
Give your littlest learners the opportunity to learn how to discuss, observe, and visualize. First, they determine if the image they are looking at is a photograph or a painting. Then they work together to brainstorm words that describe...
IPDAE
Themes in Short Stories
"What is the theme of this story?" The very question can spark fear in the minds of readers and incinerate confidence. Here you will discover an exercise that shows how writers use the tools of setting, plot, conflict, and...
Reed Novel Studies
The Wind In The Willows: Novel Study
True friends stick together. In the case of The Wind In The Willows, the friends just happen to be a toad, mole, rat, and badger who team up to beat the weasels. The resource covers the first chapter of their raucous adventures. Scholars...
Reed Novel Studies
What Katy Did: Novel Study
What doesn't break you
makes you stronger. Katy, in What Katy Did, learns this lesson the
hard way. After a terrible accident and a long recovery, Katy becomes what she always wanted to be—good and kind. Scholars learn
about Katy's...
Reed Novel Studies
The War That Saved My Life: Novel Study
Most people think of war when they think of casualities. However, Ada used war to regain her life. A ten-year-old girl in The War That Saved My Life is a prisoner in her own home. However. when her brother goes to war, she takes the...
Reed Novel Studies
The Underneath: Novel Study
Do you have a place that makes you feel safe and secure? Ranger, a hound in The Underneath, finds his new friend, a calico cat, and her safe place—underneath a porch. Scholars complete sentences using vocabulary from the novel as they...
Curated OER
Validating Votes
Explore the discrepancies in Florida's vote counting process in 2000 and 2002 with this New York Times reading lesson. Middle schoolers study the viewpoints presented in informational text, paying attention to how word choice can...
Curated OER
Scrambled Sentences
Here's a clever classroom game that will help learners with their sentence writing skills. It's a fast-paced game that is played in groups. Each makes up scrambled sentences that the other groups must solve. There are plenty of examples...
National Endowment for the Humanities
Tales of the Supernatural
Scary stuff! Whether approached as the first horror story or a "serious imaginative exploration of the human condition," Frankenstein continues to engage readers. Here's a packet of activities that uses Mary Shelley's gothic novel to...
Curated OER
Literature and Art Through Our Eyes: African-American Artists
Examine the contributions of African-Americans in the worlds of art and literature. Over the course of a few days, young scholars will read and analyze a poem, a short story, and a piece of art. They complete a range of...
Curated OER
Creating an Original Opera
This may be a lot to ask of a high schooler, but then again, who knows? Pupils work in groups to explore, write, and then perform an original opera. They view versions of The Magic Flute and La Traviata, then compose a plot, characters,...
Curated OER
Map It Out
Explore how illustrations add to a story. Young learners will look at picture books to see how the pictures tell the story. They create illustrations to go with a chosen story, and then flip the activity so they have to write a story to...
Curated OER
Casting Doubt: "Color-blind" and Nontraditional Casting Decisions
In his article about color-blind casting entitled, "Willy Loman Is Lost, Still Looking for Stimulus Plan and Some Dignity," Charles Isherwood quotes August Wilson as saying, "To mount an all-black production of a 'Death of a Salesman'...
Curated OER
Values...What's Important to You?
As your scholars begin their career study, it's important they understand their personal intrinsic values. What makes them feel rewarded? There are discussion prompts here to get learners thinking about specific careers, and they also...
Learning to Give
We Can Help to Make a Change!
The importance of accepting those who are different is the subject of a service learning project. Upper graders craft presentations for younger learners on ways to include everyone in the school community and to decrease the feelings of...
Curated OER
American Dream and The Great Gatsby
Is the American Dream alive and well or has it dried up and died? As part of a study of The Great Gatsby, class members search for articles on the state of the American Dream, analyze the arguments presented in those articles, and then...
Curated OER
Rural Life During the Great Depression: A Year Down Yonder
“Anyone who thinks small towns are friendlier than big cities lives in a big city.” Mary Alice, the fifteen-year-old narrator of A Year Down Yonder, is forced to leave Chicago and spend a year with her Grandma Dowdel in a small rural...
Curated OER
Before, During, and After Strategies For The Catcher in the Rye Chapters 21-23
Create a personal website for Phoebe. Play a song dealing with non-conformity. Have class members write an advice letter to Holden. Here's a teacher resource meant to accompany The Catcher in the Rye that is chock-full of strategies. It...
Curated OER
Discussion Web: Ender's Game
Designed to encourage readers to consider both sides of of the question of whether Ender is responsible for the death of all the buggers, individuals search for examples from Orson Scott Card's popular science fiction novel, Ender's Game...
Curated OER
Anticipation Guide: Life of Pi
Create an anticipation guide with your class for Life of Pi. They will have likely heard of the novel and maybe even seen the movie, but provide them with this guide to get them thinking. Eight statements are given, and your class...
Curated OER
Maniac Magee: Picture Book Strategy
Who would have thought to explore the concept of race through children's literature? After reading Bell Hooks' picture book, Skin Again, and chapter sixteen of Jerry Spinelli's Maniac Magee, class members consider whether skin color...
Curated OER
Mythology by Edith Hamilton: Silent Discussion
Get everyone up and participating! High schoolers reading Mythology, by Edith Hamilton, complete a graphic organizer independently, and then record one of their thoughts on the white board for a silent discussion. Decide how you're going...