Writing is a process, and lesson planning is, too! A personal narrative unit stresses the writing process to pupils, who first examine various stories and poems as a model of autobiographical writing and then write their own stories....

Who are we and what shapes our identities? Seventh graders work to answer this question as they learn how to write a memoir. Full of non-print resources and supplemental texts that range from fiction to non-fiction, scholars write their...

The memoir, Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson, is the focus of a unit designed for fourth graders. Scholars begin each lesson with a warm-up, then listen to a read-aloud of a section of the book. Pupils complete word work,...

Binoculars are used as a metaphor for good descriptive writing. Class members first view a small picture and then an enlarged view of the same image in which the details come into focus. Next, learners examine a paragraph lacking sensory...

Lois Lowry's The Giver is one of the most engaging and thought-provoking works of literature in the middle school curriculum. Round out your novel unit with a collection of reading activities, comprehension questions, memoir and...

Here is a nice set of activities and discussion questions to accompany your class reading of No Pretty Pictures, a memoir of a young girl's experiences and struggle for survival during the Holocaust.

Add a great resource to your collection of The Grapes of Wrath curriculum materials. A thorough packet contains loads of useful suggestions, whether you use the novel as an anchor text, as a reading circle...

Introduce middle schoolers to playwriting and the elements of drama with a six-session storytelling unit that encourages kids to expand their acting and writing skills. The 12-page packet includes overviews of the lessons,...

What's the difference between a diary and a memoir? Young historians explore the ramifications of this question as they learn how to use primary source materials to gain an understanding of life on the Texas frontier.

Readers of Solomon Northup's brutally frank slave narrative Twelve Years a Slave examine passages that support the argument that slavery "undermined and corrupted" the institution of marriage. Background information is...

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...

What was life like in the American South following the Civil War? Scholars watch a video that discusses the aftermath of the Civil War and the events during the Reconstruction Period. Additionally, they continue reading Carlotta Walls...

A 12-page teacher's guide to Sue Monk Kidd's The Secret Life of Bees provides the discussion questions and activities that lead readers to understand not only Lily's fears, but her reasons behind them.

To conclude their investigation of the life of Mary Maverick and to demonstrate their ability to analyze primary source documents, groups use the SOAPS questioning method to examine Maverick's account of events in early Texas history.