Young scholars read and compare excerpts from The Odyssey and The Adventures of Telemachus. They create an original story based on a secondary character from The Odyssey as well as a sketch of one of the pivotal scenes from the story.

Help your middle school readers recognize the elements of fiction in two books. After reading and taking notes on the details of the books, they write an essay comparing and contrasting the two books. Use this lesson to emphasize...

Unsuspecting George McFlys are presented into the craft workings of the science fiction genre of literature. Speculations are developed through teacher-led dialogs about how science fiction impacts science, technology, and comments on...

Create baseball cards for literary characters with this lesson plan. It introduces students to baseball cards, their components (stats, picture, etc.), and prompts them to draft and publish their own cards based on figures from...

Prepare your class for a standardized exam with this language arts practice test. Designed for the Georgia Criterion-Referenced Competency Test (CRCT), these fifteen questions would be a great review for your seventh graders. Two...

S. E. Hinton's The Outsiders allows middle schoolers to reflect on mob mentality. After reading an article and watching a video about herd mentality, class members find examples in the novel of when characters go along with the...

Accompany a reading of Madeleine L'Engle's classic tale, A Wrinkle in Time, with a detailed guide equipped with 15 informative and useful chapters. Scholars discover who the author is, why she wrote the book, and crucial story elements...

Students analyze American essayists Mark Twain and Frederick Douglass in an introduction to American literary non-fiction writing. In this essay history lesson, students identify methods for writing essays. Students read and analyze...

A unit plan uses short texts to teach literary elements such as theme and characterization. Included are passages by authors such as Walter Dean Myers and Sandra Cisneros. Activities include quick writes, filling in graphic organizers,...

Learners apply word analysis skills to recognize new words, identify genres of fiction and nonfiction, and identify important themes and topics. They explore differences in plants, flowers, and vegetables. A book bag full of activities...

Mark Twain, the famous American author, is often studied in the school system. Use "The Prince and the Pauper" to analyze the differences between the text and its video version.  This lesson includes several culminating project...

Differentiate instruction with this crafty approach to demonstrating comprehension. Learners choose a fictional book at their reading level, and afterward create a quilt square. The square is "decorated" with words, illustrations, and...

This PowerPoint provides a summary, comprehension questions, vocabulary words, and links for independent activities related to the story "The Swimming Hole" by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Age-appropriate definitions of such literacy elements...

Similar to a textbook, this resource includes multiple texts, plenty of explanation, lots of practice, and several graphic organizers. Use all of the materials, or pick and choose from such texts as "The Circuit," "Shoes for Hector,"...

Read and discuss "The Yellow Wall-Paper" and the gender issues that the story brings up. Use articles from the time period to analyze, complete with specific discussion questions. After two days, scholars write an essay based on topics...

At first glance Sandra Cisneros' The House on Mango Street seems to be a charming collection of vignettes about a young Latina's observations about the people in her Chicago neighborhood. Developing questions that prompt readers to think...

After rereading the full text of Walter Mosley's essay "True Crime," groups complete an evidence collection tool worksheet, and then class members independently draft a multi-paragraph, evidence-based response that identifies how Mosley...

Students explore language arts by reading and reflecting on literary examples. In this fiction writing lesson, students read several different cultural versions of the story "Cinderella" and discuss their interaction with the story and...

Students explore the differences between fiction and non-fiction book. In this genre study activity, students read examples of fiction and non-fiction and identify the characteristics of each genre. Students list the characteristics on a...

Students respond and make predictions as they read an excerpt from The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle.  In this The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle lesson, students read aloud and respond to questions that require them to...

Students read and compare excerpts from The Odyssey and The Adventures of Telemachus. In this literary comparison lesson plan, students read the two stories and discuss the characters Telemachus and Eucharis. Students view an image by...

Students examine a work of historical fiction based on the life of an actual person who modeled for the painter, Diego Velazquez. Elizabethy Borton de Trevirio's story, "I, Juan de Pareja" provides opportuities for the reader to discover...