Kate Chopin's short story, "The Story of an Hour" and John H. Young's "Our Deportment, or the Manners, Conduct, and Dress of Refined Society" offer high school juniors an opportunity to compare the role of women in the 19th century with...

Family and friendship are two very important themes of the historical fiction novel The Orphan of Ellis Island by Elvira Woodruff. From video clips and writing prompts to reader's theater and family interviews, this resource...

Address the literary elements in a piece of writing using these materials. The packet includes plenty of resources, and focuses mainly on theme, character, and point of view, with some materials for setting, symbolism, and author's...

Working in small groups, scholars look closely at a children's book to evaluate narrative techniques. Next, they complete a Children's Book Scavenger Hunt worksheet to analyze the literary elements of their selected stories. 

Young readers use graphic organizers, such as Venn diagrams and story maps, to analyze a variety of folktales and the elements of a story. They use writing, sequencing activities, and creative art to identify the morals learned from a...

How does Gabriel Garcia Marquez make the magical elements of his novel appear so real? That's the challenge facing readers of One Hundred Years of Solitude. Scholars examine the tone and descriptive details Garcia Marquez uses to...

"The Hare and the Water," a Tanzanian folk tale, lends a global perspective to literary analysis. Learners spend the first two days reading and storyboarding. On day three, they examine folk tale elements (worksheet included), and design...

Similar to a textbook, this resource includes multiple texts, plenty of explanation, lots of practice, and several graphic organizers. Use all of the materials, or pick and choose from such texts as "The Circuit," "Shoes for Hector,"...

This useful approach to determining themes based on specific details from a book is aimed at readers of Jerry Spinelli's Maniac Magee. It could also easily be adapted for use with other books or readings. The class identifies recurring...

Refuse to alienate your scientific-minded young scholars during your creative writing unit. Learners explore how literary writing can reflect observable fact, and be based in actual science. The links include examples of fiction and...

Read this twist on Goldilocks and the Three Bears: Dusty Locks and the Three Bears by Susan Lowell. Kindergartners listen, predict, and discuss the story. They then participate in a dramatization of the story and draw a picture...

If your ESL pupils love talking about movies, here is an activity ideal for providing practice with both informational reading and elements of a story. Given fictional movie posters, they decipher the information and put it into a...

A series of reading activities is sure to engage your young readers! Based on comparing and contrasting ideas, the packet provides opportunities to compare characters, themes, texts, and other elements of fiction.

Support a class reading of the novel Song of the Trees by Mildred D. Taylor with this series of discussion questions. Covering a variety of topics from character and setting to historical accuracy and symbolism, these questions...

Invite your pupils to express their understanding of a novel through a collaborative video project. Groups choose a novel from those you have studied in class, select four scenes, storyboard the scenes, film the scenes, edit the film,...

Sixth graders explore theme in science fiction texts by examining how plot conflicts are resolved. This resource focuses on Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time, but the approach and guiding questions could apply to a variety of texts.

Identifying themes in literature is the focus of the language arts lesson plan presented here. Learners read short pieces of fiction and practice the skill of identifying the themes present in each one. The bulk of the lesson consists of...

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 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.

Whether or not your school/state has adopted the Common Core standards, you will want to add this resource to your Of Mice and Men curriculum materials. The chapter-by-chapter activities ask readers to provide evidence from the novella...

What are the elements of a personal narrative? Get your class talking by reading "The Necklace" and "A Dangerous Game." The instructional activity focuses primarily on defining certain vocabulary terms (like context clues, plot,...

This activity may have writers evaluate short compositions, but their subjects are quite tall: great Americans. Pupils read one another's compositions and closely examine how specific phrases and diction contribute to shaping American...

Guide your class on an adventure 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea with this Hampton-Brown outline. It provides educators with a guide to increase reading comprehension, critical thinking, literary analysis, and reading strategies. This...

Fourth graders use a four-square graphic organizer to plan a paragraph writing about a wheelwright. Using gathered research from the previous unit, young writers discover how to organize a plot in preparation for writing a historical...