The reviews for Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin were as divisive as the novel itself. High schoolers finish the novel unit with an evaluation of the book's initial reviews, its characters' dreams and fears of...

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...

Bully, bullied, or bystander? Paul Langan's The Bully is the anchor text in a unit that examines bullying and violence. After a close reading of the text, readers imagine themselves as the characters and consider how they would react in...

Fifth graders explore the Adventures of Don Quixote in a four-week language arts unit. Scholars listen to and discuss a new chapter each day as well as examine vocabulary and practice word work including suffixes, subject-verb agreement,...

How does a society influence and shape individuals? Class members ponder this essential question as they read Lord of the Flies, as well as primary source materials about the historical background of the novel. As a...

Pass the tea! Using the resource, scholars participate in a Tea Party protocol to analyze text and images about inventions that helped meet societal demands. After sharing their observations with each other, they discuss visual elements...

Prepare for a mid-unit assessment based on Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club with a brainstorming and discussion lesson plan. Focused on two chapters from the novel ("Rules of the Game" and "Two Kinds"), the lesson plan guides tenth graders...

Paul Langan's novel The Bully is the core text in a six-session unit plan that engages high schoolers in an in-depth examination of bullying and its effects on bullies, victims, and bystanders. The richly textured and carefully...

Give this skills-based assessment halfway through your unit on Esperanza Rising. After a brief review, class members take the test, which asks them to show that they know how to analyze the novel independently. They are asked to...

The second lesson in the Lord of the Flies unit asks scholars to consider the characteristics of a good leader. After generating a list of these qualities, they annotate a passage from the novel highlighting the leadership qualities of...

Readers of Lord of the Flies consider the symbols of power William Golding uses in his dystopian novel and support their choice with evidence from the text.

What three readily available things would you grab in case of an emergency? That's the question that launches a unit study of William Golding's The Lord of the Flies. After sharing their choices, class members read Golding's rationale...

Eyes on the finish line. Serving as the first part of the end of unit assessment, learners answer questions based on a text about how to write a graphic novel. Using what they've learned, they then create a storyboard about the invention...

Erin Entrada Kelly's award-winning novel, Hello, Universe is the anchor text in this 236-page teacher guide. The guide includes introductions to the Core Knowledge Language Arts (CKLA) program and the unit, a unit...

Reflection is the best teacher. Using the resource, scholars complete the final part of their end of unit assessment, the fourth section of their storyboard about an invention. Next, they track their progress using a self-reflection...

Guide your class through a reading of the popular children's book, Frindle, with this comprehensive literature unit. Starting with a brief introduction to the guided reading process, the class goes on to read the story two chapters...

Lead your readers into the fourth dimension as time travelers with a Core Knowledge Language Arts (CKLA) Teacher Guide of H. G. Wells's The Time Machine. The 144-page guide includes a unit calendar, introduction, nine lessons, teacher...

What would your class like to learn about Japanese culture? Prepare them for a novel unit about Kyoko Mori's Shizuko's Daughter with a KWL chart. After listing what they already know about Japanese culture, they write questions...

The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan is an illustrative source of rich prose, deep character development, and strong literary themes. Use two of the book's key chapters, which focus on Waverly's relationship with chess and with her mother, to...

Teach the importance of context and perspective with a unit focused on Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin. The first lesson considers the role of female characters and readers, including the gender expectations of the time. The...

Learning more about Holden Caulfield's worldview and state of mind is an integral part of understanding J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye. A thorough packet of materials pertaining to the unit allow learners to build prior...

Scholars write the draft of their essays about Atticus's decision to defend Tom Robinson in Harper Lee's novel To Kill a Mockingbird. They support their claims with reasons, details, and quotes from the novel.

How does poetry help people better understand societal issues? Pupils participate in a jigsaw activity to analyze poems from the novel Inside Out & Back Again. Next, they connect the poems to real-life refugee experiences from the...

What does it mean to mourn something? Scholars continue reading paragraph four from "Refugee and Immigrant Children: A Comparison" to better understand the mourning process for refugee children. Working with a partner, pupils then read...