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...

Analyze and interpret a literary work your class has read during the course. After reading a variety of literary works, middle schoolers alter the ending of a selection by creating an alternate ending. They generate five comprehension...

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...

Scholars select a novel or play and craft an essay to discuss what the symbol reveals about the characters or theme. Writers also analyze a passage and a poem to determine how the authors use literary elements to relay their messages.

A group of citizens in North Canada has decided to leave their country, and they are asking for help in setting up an American-style democracy. Using a carefully structured activity, pupils lay out the principles in the American...

Reading snail mail is a great way to go back into history and to understand others' points of view. The resource, the second in a five-part unit, covers the Dreyfus Affair. Scholars, working in two different groups, read one letter and...

Shakespeare's Macbeth (Act II, Scenes I and II) lacks explicit details of the murder of King Duncan, yet the author creates an atmosphere that allows us to visualize the event. Readers interpret the "Dagger Speech" by writing stage...

Fifth graders review the characteristics of a nonfiction text. In this language arts lesson, 5th graders understand that one can use a specific graphic organizer to help them in understanding an organizational structure. For example, in...

Students explore and analyze examples of changing relationships between patterns of settlement and land use in the state of Minnesota. They view different avenues of transportation, cities, suburbs, city planners and suburbanization.

As your class finishes the novel Dragonwings, use these culminating projects. A vocabulary list is given for chapters eleven and twelve and either an epitaph or letter activity concludes the book. The final project consists of creating a...

Students read independently the novel, "Dragonwings," by Laurence Yep and make connections between a text and the world. They summarize, paraphrase, analyze and evaluate skimming and scanning techniques when reading a novel. Each student...

Students examine some of the author's writing traits and then make an effort to incorporate his style into their own writing. They show how richly written literature can be used as a mentor text, or model, for improving one's own writing.

Students read and analyze various poems from the book "The Big Orchard Book of Funny Poems." They clap to the rhymes, identify patterns, compare and contrast poems, and write an alternative poem based on the poem "Christine Crump."

Young scholars put their reading comprehension skills to practice. In this interpreting text lesson, students read "Chief Red Jacket's Reply," and then respond to questions that require them to reason, infer, and analyze the selection.

What does your class know about logical fallacies? They can find out quite a bit and practice identifying logical fallacies if you follow the steps and use the resources provided here! After reviewing ethos, pathos, and logos, ask small...

Advertisers target teenagers. Groups select three magazine advertisements for similar products, analyze the appeals used in each, create a poster that features the persuasive techniques used, and present their findings to the class. The...

It is no easy feat to wade through legal and political documents. And incorporating this type of informational text into a literature class can also be a challenge. Here’s a resource that includes suggestions for how to address this...

Are you teaching Modernism to your class? Connect different areas of artistic expression in the Modernist Era. Learners read T.S. Eliot, view art by Pablo Picasso, and listen to a Modernist musical composition. This final assignment is...

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "Letter from Birmingham Jail" serves as an exemplar for a mini-lesson on semicolons. Working alone or in small groups, class members first circle all the semicolons in the letter, and then consider how this...

There are so many authors of short stories, and your class can have the chance to study quite a few. This seventh lesson in a series of fourteen continues the decision-making process for the final assessment: a short story author study....

Three of Emily Dickinson's poems, "I like to see it," "Because I could not stop for Death," and "We grow accustomed to the Dark," provide instructors with an opportunity to model for class members how to use close reading strategies to...

Some things are beyond comprehension. Scholars read an excerpt from "Comprehending the Calamity," a primary source text about the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. After identifying the gist, pupils complete anchor charts to analyze how the...

Throughout history, newspapers have reported the events of the day as they unfolded. Using primary and secondary sources from World War I, scholars uncover how the American people learned of the events of the War to End All Wars. History...

An informative installment of the Writing for Specific Fields series helps readers learn how to interpret and write about fiction. The website details nine easy steps for writing a literary analysis—a useful method for all readers!