Seventh graders are able to use active listening skills, take notes and identify literary elements of a short story. They use/create graphic organizer, compare/contrast literary elements from various stories and compare and contrast traits.

Great for a reading intervention or remedial Language Arts class, this instructional activity uses two stories from Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul III ("Terri Jackson" and "Mary Lou" to reinforce note-taking skills, story elements,...

Mix music into your literature class! After reading a novel (either in class or as outside reading), your mix masters create a soundtrack of 10 songs to accompany their reading. What does each song add to the story? A fun activity for...

Explore gender stereotypes by analyzing how male and female characters are depicted in comic books. Using the provided Comic Book Analysis sheet, young scholars record the attributes of male and female comic book characters. Then the...

Brian Jacques’ novel Redwall provides the focus for a series of lessons involving the analysis of folklore. Adopting the persona of a character, groups write letters in the voice of their character, assemble a collage using Microsoft...

With several online resources for J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit, as well as many reading and literary analysis activities, this novel study guide is a great way to keep your young readers organized during a book report. The guide...

Students read texts, view film and video and conduct research in an analysis and comparison of Shakespeare's "Hamlet" and the Kabuki piece "Chushingura". They focus their analysis on the theme of revenge.

Students read and analyze Act one of the play Othello. They examine the themes of love and marriage and interpret Brabantio's words by using different subtexts.

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...

As your authors prepare to write a hypothetical novel, they need all the inspiration they can find! Using a book they have already read (and enjoyed), learners complete a literary analysis by filling in eight short-answer...

Rock stars are cool, but not as cool as the ones from the nineteenth century Romantic Movement. Present critical biographical information on the big three, Byron, Shelly, and Keats, before you dive into analysis of their major...

Fifth graders examine plot conflict. In this plot analysis lesson students study conflict between two characters in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Students imagine themselves as a news reporter watching the combating in Narnia.

Fifth graders analyze character relationships. For this analyzing relationships lesson, 5th graders read The Great Gilly Hopkins and describe how the characters feel about one another as well as the positive and negative aspects of...

Students listen to chapters 1 and 2 in the book, Baby, then pick one character from the story looking for words or phrases that describe the character. They develop a character sketch making notes about their ideas and share with others...

Fourth graders write a character analysis of someone they know describing them through similes, metaphors, and hyperboles. They may include themselves and how their person relates to him or her.

Students explore three major dramatic concepts using Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand. In this dramatic concepts lesson, students research the concepts of universal theme, characterization, and dialogue using the given text. Students...

High schoolers, in groups, conduct research about a specific disorder of the brain, create a character study of a person with that brain disorder, and then present the information to the rest of the class.

Students identify the key characteristics that comprise American literary naturalism in Jack London's "To Build a Fire" and Stephen Crane's "The Open Boat." In this naturalism analysis lesson, students identify characteristics of the...

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...

Great Expectations can prove to be a challenge for instructors who choose to use Dickens's novel as required reading. Here's a curriculum guide that includes lessons that address some of these challenges. The first lesson in critical...

King Lear is a powerful and complex tragedy that looks deeply into political power and family dynamics, loyalty, betrayal, aging, and madness. This teaching guide includes scene-by-scene plot summaries, information about the...

At 81, Benjamin Franklin was the oldest delegate to the 1787 Constitutional Convention, where he exercised significant influence in shaping key elements of how the United States operates. The class examines his role, using “The Scene at...

Prophecy and blindness often go hand in hand, as in Sophocles' Oedipus the King. Explore Oedipus' thoughts about prophecy, fate, and responsibility with an activity focused on the discussion between Creon and Oedipus regarding the murder...

When school and community leaders are at odds, what's a young person to do? Grouped pupils examine the details of a difficult situation during the 10th in a series of 12 leadership activities. Presented with a decline in community...