Known as one of the most iconic advertisements of the 20th century, Macintosh's "1984" commercial has become more of a social statement. Present the ad to a new audience of viewers with a lesson focused on identifying dystopian...

Good discussion questions, quizzes, and tests teach as well as assess. Readers of The Great Gatsby will learn much from the materials in a 36-page packet designed to help students prepare for the AP Literature exam. Included in the...

Assess your new learners' writing abilities and knowledge of literary terms with these diagnostic activities. Part of a back-to-school unit, this is meant to provide the teacher with information about the ability levels of their class....

If your class is reading the historical fiction novel, Out of the Dust, then you are in luck. Here are a few slides that will help you provide historical context for the book, as well as define main characters, setting, symbolism, and...

Dazai Osamu’s short story, “A Sound of Hammering” is the focus of a three-day investigation of modern Japanese literature and life in post-World War II Japan. The events in Osamu’s story mirror those in his own life, and give a...

Young poets are asked to craft a poem in the voice of a first person narrator, a dramatic monologue of sorts, that reveals not only a dramatic situation but something of the narrator's character as well.

Students examine the function of exposition in play structure. They will be able to develop multiple interpretations and visual and aural production choices for Shakespearean scenes and choose those that are most interesting.

Seventh graders explore the various elements found in the advertisement of a dramatic experience. Playbills are created that reflect the plot without revealing the climax of the play. Costumes, set construction, and character description...

Analyze the setting behind the Great Depression in California with Pam Munoz Ryan's Esperanza Rising. Middle schoolers assess the protagonist during her coming-of-age moments, while migrant workers manage the hardships of the...

Analyze characterization in literature. Readers use "Three Shots," from The Nick Adams Stories by Ernest Hemingway and complete classroom activities that require them to apply literary analysis techniques. They write their own short...

CliffsNotes has generated 15 multiple choice questions based on Ernest Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls. Bring your class to the computer lab to check their basic recall of the story's events. 

After reading Ernest Hemingway's well-known novel The Sun Also Rises, print these study questions for your class. There are 10 questions listed, and some require more than just basic recall. There are compare and contrast questions and...

Young writers generate descriptive words. They use pictures of various landscapes (from books, magazines, or the Internet) and complete a story pyramid. The pyramid (included here) asks to describe the main character, the setting, and...

Prepare your class for the SATs with this resource. There are six sentences provided, and your learner must select the correct word to fit in each sentence. Some sentences contain two blank spaces. Example vocabulary words include...

Did you know that modern Chinese literature “grew from the psychoanalytical theory of Sigmund Freud”? Designed for a world literature class, seniors are introduced to “One Evening in the Rainy Season,” Shi Zhecun’s stream of...

Following the method used by Truman Capote, class members research a major character from his novel, In Cold Blood, and then conduct an interview with that character. The resulting research is used to craft a newspaper article about the...

Who is Oedipus? Use this crossword puzzle to preload vocabulary relevant to Oedipus the King or to review vocabulary after your class has finished Sophocles' classic work. Answers are not provided, and some definitions are tricky!

The Secret Garden, is a wonderful book to read with your class. After reading, why not employ the lesson plan presented here as a follow up activity? In it, pupils create character charts that portray the tremendous changes that...

Although this lesson plan covers the rather obscure topic of the Japanese "I-novel", it also includes a great deal of historical information and material for an in-depth discussion of universal literary concepts. Specifically, young...

An efficient study guide for the first 10 chapters of Z for Zachariah that covers basic recall questions concerning the characters and the plot. It also includes short writing prompts for selected chapters that extend into the...

Are your learners only talking about the plot of the story and not the richness of the characters? Then show them how important characters are to literature with the information available here. The learner will know how authors create...

How do writers use the interaction between elements like characterization and setting to create meaning? Readers of "A Worn Path" create a series of comic book-style graphics of Eudora Welty's short story and reflect on how Welty...