Many American writers in the late nineteenth century wanted their writing to reflect real life. Individuals watch and discuss a video, read and explore author biographies, write a journal entry and a poem, and complete a multimedia...

Strap on those backpacks, it's time to travel through history with this literature unit based on the first four books of The Magic Tree House series. While reading through these fun stories, children create story maps, record...

The poems of Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson are the focus of a unit that asks readers to consider how an artist's life and changes in society influences his or her work. After careful study of Whitman's and Dickinson's perspectives on...

Students explore the concepts of fantasy writing through this nine lessons unit. The unit presents semantic mapping, discussions, comparisons of various works of fantasy, and the opportunity to create their own fantasies.

How can you tell if someone is happy? The lesson works with elementary and middle school scholars to activate their schema and pay attention to details to make inferences in their daily lives, poetry, and other literature. Cleverly...

To prepare for crafting their own memoir, class members examine poetry by Margaret Atwood, Billy Collins, Robert Hayden, and Claude McKay, stories by Richard Rodriquez and Willa Cather, and Barry Levinson's film Avalon. They examine...

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...

How can something be true even if it didn't happen? Invite your classes to investigate the truths found in the world of magical realism as they analyze short stories, poems, informational texts, video, and art from this genre.

How do poets convey emotion and represent their views of life? Pupils learn more about Whitman and Dickinson through the unit and analyze their bold reinvention of craft and style for poets to come. Looking at classic pieces such as...

What were the driving forces behind American expansion in the nineteenth century, and what were its effects? Scholars watch a video, read biographies, engage in discussion, write journals and poetry, draw, and create a multimedia...

Students analyze and appreciate various types of poetry. In this poetry unit, students read classic and contemporary works to discover ways in which poetry expresses strong feelings. Students identify key vocabulary used to analyze...

Students evaluate art to enhance their core knowledge of fiction, American folk heroes, and the water cycle. In this art lesson, students complete a unit of activities to use art to study various topics of literature, history, and...

[Accessible by TX Educators. Free Registration/Login Required] This lesson is about themes, the central messages in literature. Whatever their genre might be, writers have some wisdom, some universal truth or insight to share; this...