K20 LEARN
Memory Haiku: The Great Gatsby and the Sense of Smell
Scholars learn how smells evoke early childhood memories and apply that knowledge to a character from F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. After finding a passage from the novel that references smells, they craft a haiku and a...
K20 LEARN
Mob Mentality and "The Outsiders": Integrating Fiction and Nonfiction
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...
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Detective Fiction: Focus On Critical Thinking
Turn your 6th graders into detectives while growing their love of reading. Using critical thinking skills, they will be able to describe the five basic elements of detective fiction, read detective novels, make predictions, use the...
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Chaucer's Wife of Bath
A thorough and well-designed resource for older students, this lesson focuses on Chaucer's character the Wife of Bath from his classic novel, The Canterbury Tales. As a way of understanding Chaucer's complex characterization and...
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Creatively Creating Expository Essays
Young scholars, after reading Fahrenheit 451, brainstorm inventions that could have been in the novel. They present their invention to the class and writing an expository essay about their creation.
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Jacob Have I Loved
Students examine visual images about the novel, Jacob Have I Loved. They compare pictures from "America from the Great Depression to World War II" that are described in the book and other studies of the Chesapeake Bay. They present their...
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Storyboards: The Director's Map to a Video Project
Class groups collaborate to produce the storyboard for their video project. After determining the sequence of scenes, the camera angles, and characters in each scene, each group member is assigned a number of scenes to illustrate. When...
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Book Discussions in a Reading Partnership
Do you have a lot of different reading levels in your class? Pair kids up by level and have them choose a book to read independently. They will make predictions, ask questions, make connections, etc. Consider creating a general reading...
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Acronyms--Characters in The Hobbit
Have your class create acrostic poems for characters in The Hobbit. First, define acronyms and work together to complete sample acronyms for their own first names. Students then research specific characters in the novel and create...
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Celebrating Women: Toni Morrison
How authors address issues of their societies is addressed in this very detailed lesson. After researching Toni Morrison and her work, groups create a dramatization based on a scene from one of Morrison’s novels and act it out. Class...
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Coming of Age During Japanese Occupation: Richard E. Kim's Lost Names: Scenes from a Korean Boyhood
Explore the implications of the Japanese occupation of Korea during World War II. Learners read Lost Names: Scenes from a Korean Boyhood, participate in classroom discussions about the novel and keep journals in which they respond to...
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Quilt Squares-Literature Reporting
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...
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Historical Agency in History Book Sets (HBS)
Study historical events by combining the study of historical fiction and non-fiction. Learners read about true past events in historical fiction novels and then research non-fiction accounts of the same events. What are some differences...
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Text Features of Fiction, Poetry, Drama: Story Matrix
How do novels differ from plays? Explore with your class the text features of fiction and drama by reading The Hidden One: Native American Legend and then performing a reader’s theater script based on the story. Class members create a...
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Poetic Word Choice
Groups or pairs choose ordinary objects from a bag and rename them based on traits, so that a stapler becomes a "paper cobra." Then they connect this exercise to the way authors use language to emphasize certain traits through word...
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The Ultimate Survivor Using Hatchet by Gary Paulsen
What items would you need to survive if you were stranded in a remote place? Using chapter 10 of Gary Paulsen's Hatchet, middle-schoolers work through a Six Trait writing activity to create a story about their own survival in a similar...
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Dante's Peak Movie Review
Middle or high school volcanologists watch the 1997 film, Dante's Peak. They make observations as they watch and then write a movie review, focusing on what was accurately represented. They also point out what facts were stretched by...
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Comic Life With Kenzuke's Kingdom
Kenzuke's Kingdom is a wonderful adventure about a boy sailing around the world, it's also the focus of this instructional activity. Students read the novel as a class then use the Comic Life website to create a two-page comic based on...
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Promote Nonviolence
Take a look at the topic of violence as seen in Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird. Discuss together the values that Atticus holds and brainstorm ways to combat violence in a similar manner to what he portrays in the novel. Get your...
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Flowers for Algernon: RAFT
Should Charlie undergo an operation to increase his intelligence? A mini-lesson for a unit on Daniel Keyes novel Flowers for Algernon uses a RAFT activity, which prompts students to write a letter to Charlie's doctors explaining why they...
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Because of Winn-Dixie
Readers analyze an excerpt from Kate DiCamillo's novel Because of Winn-Dixie. They read silently, and then hear it read aloud. Definitions for underlined vocabulary words are in the margin, and other potentially difficult words...
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'Me Fail English? That's Unpossible' : Studying Literature with "The Simpsons"
Does your class love The Simpsons? It might seem dated, but with reruns constantly popping up on television, this show still holds the attention of most of your learners. Play the opening sequence of an episode, and brainstorm any...
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The Giver: Lesson 1
Do “memories need to be shared?" Are “memories…forever?" Would you give up memory to live in a perfect world? Introduce a unit centered on Lois Lowry’s utopian/dystopian novel The Giver with a series of activities that has groups...
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Moby Dick Puppetry
Such an ambitious instructional activity! Third graders with special needs listen to an audio recording of the novel, Moby Dick. They stop often to discuss each of the main characters and analyze their actions in the story. They then...