Hawaiʻi State Department of Education
Creating Narrative
Plot, setting, characters, and conflict are common to both drama and narrative stories. Kids create narrated tableaus that show their understanding of the plot, setting, and conflict of a story they've recently read. The lesson...
Curated OER
Scene Writing: Literacy and Playwriting
Drama is ever-present in our daily lives and eloquently depicted on stage. Middle schoolers practice writing scenes based on different prompts and frameworks, and then perform those creative scenes for their classmates. The...
Fluence Learning
Writing About Literary Text: Pygmalion and Galatea
Is it crazy to fall in love with your own work, or is that the purest love of all? Compare two renditions of the classic Greek myth Pygmalion and Galatea with a literary analysis exercise. After students compare the similarities and...
John F. Kennedy Center
Acting Up, A Melodrama: Performing Like Jo March and Her Sisters in Little Women
Lights, Camera, Action! Pupils read Little Women and create, act, and direct a melodrama that Jo March and her sisters would enjoy. The lesson plan comes complete with resources for the educator on melodrama as well as examples...
Curated OER
Poetry Project
Choosing a poet or a theme, eighth graders conduct research in the world of poetry. They conduct Internet research and select five poems that fit their poet or theme, and create a seven slide PowerPoint presentation on their selected...
Curated OER
A Light in the Storm
Examine the genre of historical fiction while reading A Light in the Storm. They extract events in chronological order to make a timeline. Then, they use information in the book important to the characters to create a presentation of an...
EngageNY
Reviewing Visual Elements of a Graphic Novel: Max Axiom
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...
Curated OER
Art & Drama for Middle Grades
Students define humor and consider how people have different senses of humor and therefore different ideas of what is funny. They explore improvisation, cartooning, comics, body language and storytelling as the means to express humor.
Curated OER
Poetic Justice: A Study of Poe's Famous Works
Students explore Edgar Allan Poe's most famous short stories. In this Edgar Allan Poe lesson, students complete a 25 page packet of activities where they recognize the features of genres and literary devices Poe uses. Students read "The...
Mississippi Whole School Initiative
Dream Big...With Your Eyes Wide Open
For many people, Barack Obama's presidency was the next step in Martin Luther King, Jr's dream of America's future. Explore the dreams of Americans past and present, as well as the young Americans in your class, with a set of activities...
Curated OER
English Literature: An Overview
Relate literary works and authors to the major themes of English literature from the Anglo-Saxon period through the 20th century. Working in groups, high schoolers will evaluate period philosophy, religion, and politics that influenced...
Curated OER
Lady Macbeth's Cure
Learners role-play the position of Lady Macbeth's nurse. They are to create a project or service that can cure her sleepwalking. They create their own commerical to sell their product.
Curated OER
Creating a Science Fiction Story
As the culminating activity in a unit study of science fiction, young writers demonstrate their understanding of the genre by producing their own graphic novel. After deciding on the main elements of their story, individuals use a comic...
Curated OER
Exploring Contrasting Story Elements Through Tapestry and Poetry
Young thinkers view two narrative art tapestries and study the images included that tell a story about the Roman Emperor Constantine. As they examine the details of the tapestries, pupils use a Venn Diagram to record the similarities and...
Yale University
Discovering Persephone
Here is a resource that introduces learners to how the stories from Greek mythology explain the workings of natural phenomena, movements of the seasons, and how the conflicts of the gods mimic our own daily difficulties. Learners...
Curated OER
Checkmate
Students start identifying the cause and effect relationships in games of Chess. Using the internet, they research the history of the game and how the roles for each of the pieces. They develop a skit based on the roles and...
Curated OER
Harriet The Spy
Fourth graders investigate the style of diary writing as its own genre of literature. They read Harriet The Spy in order to have a text for this literature study. Students use the skill of prediction to preview the story, and then...
Curated OER
Readers' Theatre with African and Chinese Folktales
Students investigate genre of folklore, specifically African and Chinese folktales, and script and perform folktales with examples from The Magic Brocade and Fire on the Mountain. Seven lessons on one page.
Curated OER
Patriotic Arts: Influencing Canadians At War
Students study how war has shaped Canadian life, patriotism, propaganda, and music. They research primary source documents, novels, videos, and songs before celebrating Remembrance Day.
Curated OER
The Time I Got Lost
Third graders go through the writing process but substitute paper and pencil with the computer to create a story about "The Time I Got Lost".
Curated OER
Getting to Know You
Students complete an getting to know each other activity. In this personal names lesson, students play a name game, read a book about names, and then discuss why names are important. Students design a name card on oak tag rectangles and...
Curated OER
Group Portraits: Then and Now
Students use photographs to examine ship masters and shipyard workers. As a class, they explore other group portraits and discuss the information that can be found from the photos. As a group, they create their own group portrait mural.