“Thou know’st ‘tis common; all that lives must die/Passing through nature to eternity.” Grief, and the response to grief and loss, is the focus of a series of activities that uses Hamlet as a launchpad. Groups examine Act I, scene ii to...

Use this SMART board activity with any short story in your unit plan. The SMART board file contains a step-by-step guide to plot diagrams, including an interactive practice page and an assignment. This resource is beneficial for language...

Order up! Welcome to the World Café, where scholars engage in small-group discussions based on Katherine Paterson's novel Lyddie. As pupils circulate around the room, they talk with classmates about the novel's characters, setting,...

"Plot the plot" of "The Adventures of the Speckled Band" with your young readers. Take a few days to read Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's short story as a class or in pairs, having learners write down what they consider to be the most important...

James Hurst's short story "The Scarlet Ibis" provides eighth graders with an opportunity to sharpen their literary analysis skills. After a close reading of the text, class members highlight and annotate parts of the dialogue and...

Tenth graders analyze the use of literary elements in W.W. Jacob's "The Monkey's Paw." Literary analysis is accomplished by a review of the plot and order of events in the story. Learners work in pairs to match the events from the story...

Work on narrative writing with this lesson, in which middle schoolers analyze the characters from a selected piece of literature and write narrative diary pieces as the character. They work to understand the point of view of the...

Students analyze the characters and events in fictional writing. In this literary elements lesson, students study the meaning of the words characterization and fiction. They listen to the story Pigsty by Mark Teague, or any other book...

Every culture has its own stories to tell. An interesting educator's guide shares a large collection of fairytales and folktales, some from different cultures and some re-creations of classics. A summary and brief teaching ideas...

Learners respond to works of art. In this art interpretation lesson, students examine images of art while using concepts they learned as they read literary pieces. They detail the setting, characters, and the mood and theme of the works...

In this reading comprehension lesson, 5th graders, after reading the novel, Maniac Magee, by Jerry Spinelli analyze characters and their roles in other peoples lives. Students interact with plot conflicts and character relationships....

Out with the old and in with the new? Not so in this lesson plan, which explores the idea of writing older characters in fiction. Students learn the value of varying their characters, exploring different perspectives, and avoiding...

Explore literature through the completion of reading comprehension worksheets in class. After reading the classic book, The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton, middle schoolers review each chapter by completing study questions and story webs....

Tenth graders complete characterization analysis for Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. In this characterization lesson, 10th graders work in learning tiers to analyze the characters and plot in the play. Students work under, at,...

Eighth graders identify figurative language and poetry in this literary analysis lesson. Using Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll and a YouTube video for "The Walrus and the Carpenter," young readers complete a literary device...

Students analyze "To Build a Fire" by Jack London and "The Open boat" by Stephen Crane. They write an essay in which they compare and contrast the narrators and plots in each story.

Students explore the connection between analyzing a character and the character plot conflict. In this plot conflict lesson students role play two characters in the story, The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum. Students also pretend to be a...

Young scholars examine Nathaniel Hawthorne's style of humor and compare it to other humorists. They discuss the purpose of literary humor and determine how it develops characters and plots in stories. They analyze the use of different...

Learners discover writing strategies authors use to enhance characters.  In this character writing lesson, students are read the Knuffle Bunny books by Mo Willems and analyze the story, characters and settings as they listen....

Character development, setting, and plot? Sounds like the makings of a good narrative story. Young authors read and analyze several narrative examples, and then they use what they know to pen an original composition. They work both in...

Experience how a story can drastically change when the point of view is altered. Young scholars first read a review of Disney's film Tarzan, focusing on how the point of view in the classic story is important. They then select...

Students analyze the features of myths and legends. They read the myths "Theseus and the Minotaur" and "Orpheus and Eurydice," identify the myth story elements, evaluate each story for the overall theme, describe the characters, and...

Students examine the methods of effective characterization. In this writing skills lesson, students discuss how emotions, dialogue, actions, and physical descriptions build believable characters. Students then use the methods of...

Students explore Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. In this analysis lesson, students recognize the use of poetic conventions as a principle of dramatic structure after analyzing the sonnetShakespeare created for the first meeting between...