Massachusetts Department of Education
Nostalgia
To prepare for crafting their own memoir, class members examine poetry by Margaret Atwood, Billy Collins, Robert Hayden, and Claude McKay, stories by Richard Rodriquez and Willa Cather, and Barry Levinson's film Avalon. They examine how...
Curated OER
Sor Juana, la monja y la escritora: Las Redondillas y La Respuesta
Sor Juana, considered one of the first feminist writers and a great Latin American poet, is the topic and inspiration for this excellent lesson. Use the introduction, guiding questions, and learning objectives to lead your class into a...
Maryland Department of Education
The Concept of Diversity in World Literature Lesson 12: Author's Purpose - Yeats and Achebe
Is there such a thing as fate/luck? Can one fight destiny? As part of their study of Chinua Achebe's purpose in writing Things Fall Apart, class members answer these questions from Achebe's point of view and then from William Butler...
K20 LEARN
Identity: Characterization/Character Traits
"Who am I?" Guy de Maupassant's short story "The Necklace," Julio Naboa Polanco's poem "Identity," and a clip from a Jason Bourne film provide learners with a context to consider the traits that makeup identity. Scholars create a...
K20 LEARN
Voices from the Past: History and Literature
Art can enhance the understanding of history. That's the big idea in a lesson that has young scholars read Randall Jarrell's poem "The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner" and an excerpt from John Hersey's Hiroshima, which provide a...
Simon & Schuster
Curriculum Guide to: Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
An 18-page curriculum guide for Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice consists of five lessons. The first plan asks readers to compare the manners, social behaviors, and class issues in Austen's novel to today's. Next, pupils examine a...
Curated OER
The Poetics of Hip Hop
The Bard, Nikki Giovanni, Mos Def? “Sonnet 18,” Ego Tripping,” and “Black on Both Sides”? Sure! It’s the poetics. Class members compare the lyrics, rhythm, and rhyme in classic poetry to hip-hop in a richly detailed resource that...
Learning for Justice
Maya Angelou
Maya Angelou's poem, "Still I Rise", offers young scholars an opportunity to consider how poets use literary devices to create powerful messages. After a close reading and discussion of the poem, class members reflect on how they can...
EngageNY
Looking Closely at Stanza 3—Identifying Rules to Live By Communicated in “If”
Just as Bud, from the novel Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis, had rules to live by, so does the poem, If by Rudyard Kipling, but how do the two relate? Pupils delve deep into the poem's third stanza, participate in a grand...
EngageNY
Analyzing, Comparing, Sharing: Modern Voices
What do modern voices sound like? Scholars explore the topic, reading two concrete poems from John Grandit's Blue Lipstick and analyzing them using a graphic organizer. Next, they read a third poem and work with partners to look for...
Curated OER
Poetic Devices
Introduce middle schoolers to poetic devices with a lesson plan that asks them to find examples of alliteration, anaphora, onomatopoeia, metaphors, similes, and personification in various poems. Young scholars craft examples of these...
EngageNY
Author’s Craft: Poetry and Prose
During a drama circle, scholars closely examine the play created in the play A Midsummer Night's Dream. The pupils read Act 3 Scene 1 and turn and talk to their partners about the scene. They then complete a handout and discuss the...
EngageNY
Coda: What Gives This Story Power? Re-Examining Powerful Stories
Writers consider what makes a story powerful as they listen to a short story about Frederick Douglass. Once finished, small groups complete a worksheet to analyze what makes the story so enduring.
EngageNY
Grade 9 ELA Module 1, Unit 1, Lesson 8
You can often track a character's development based on others' reactions to their words or actions. Using Karen Russell's "St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves," ninth graders work in a jigsaw activity to analyze how Mirabella's...
Simon & Schuster
Classroom Activities for The Call of the Wild by Jack London
Three activities are designed for readers of Jack London's The Call of the Wild. First, class members research and create posters that reflect the setting of the novel. Next, groups create posters with images that represent each chapter...
Curated OER
Ornithology and Real World Science
Double click that mouse because you just found an amazing lesson! This cross-curricular Ornithology lesson incorporates literature, writing, reading informational text, data collection, scientific inquiry, Internet research, art, and...
Anti-Defamation League
Understanding and Analyzing “The U.S. of Us” by Richard Blanco
Current immigration issues and the rhetoric surrounding the controversies come into focus with a lesson that uses Richard Blanco's anthem, "The U.S. of Us," written after the August 2019 attack in El Paso, Texas, to open a discussion of...
Washington University in St. Louis
Teaching Jazz as American Culture
Jazz and the City, Jazz and the Civil Rights Movement, Jazz and Gender, Jazz and Literature, Jazz and the Arts, Jazz and Film. Here's a packet of unit plans organized around themes that reflect American culture. Each unit examines how...
Curated OER
Lesson: Double Album: The Collection and the Archive
An open discussion starts this lesson off. The class takes a critical look at five works of art that demonstrate the impact and purpose of identity through collections or archives. They then write a list or draw 10-15 items found in...
Stephen F. Austin State University, College of Fine Arts
The Ugly Duckling
It's not about what you look like on the outside! A study guide for the stage adaptation of The Ugly Duckling reminds learners that being cruel to those in need is not helpful—and that we all belong somewhere.
Secondary Solutions
Of Mice and Men: A Literature Guide
Whether you are planning on using Of Mice and Men for whole-class reading or as a selection for literature circles; whether you are new to John Steinbeck's novel, or it has long been a part of your curriculum, you will find a wealth of...
ReadWriteThink
Analyzing Famous Speeches as Arguments
A speaker, a message, an audience. After analyzing these elements in Queen Elizabeth's speech to the troops at Tilbury, groups analyze how other speakers use an awareness of events, and their audience to craft their arguments....
Gwinnett County Public Schools
Analysis of the Tuck Everlasting and The Birchbark House Text Exemplars
Looking to introduce some text-based questions into your ELA lessons? Practice the kinds of skills the Common Core demands with the seven text-based questions and the essay prompt provided here. Designed to be a three-day lesson, day one...
Dr. Seuss Enterprises
Dr. Seuss in the Classroom
Explore the works of Dr. Seuss, such as Horton Hears a Who, Horton Hatches and Egg, The Sneetches and Other Stories, The Lorax, The Butter Battle Book, and Yertle the Turtle and Other Stories. Each story lesson includes reading...