Curated OER
Biopoem: Bud, Not Buddy
Young poets focus on one character from a story they are reading, collect details, and use a biopoem template to analyze this character. The activity can be used with any text.
Curated OER
Found Poetry with Primary Sources: The Great Depression
Students read a sample found poem and create one together as a class. In this Great Depression lesson, students select a topic, such as miners, and read primary source documents related to the topic. Students select one narrative as the...
Curated OER
The Color of My Words
Explore the story The Color of My Words by Lynn Joseph using this resource. Learners answer comprehension questions, fill in graphic organizers, and write a poem.
Curated OER
The Tell-Tale Hearts of Writers
Knock, knock, knock...Creep out your class with a critical thinking activity focused on word relationships in Edgar Allen Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart." They investigate the relationship between word choice, mood, and interpretation...
PBS
The Harlem Renaissance
A reading of Walter Dean Myers' "Harlem" sets the stage for studying the literature, art, and music of the Harlem Renaissance. The lesson begins with a review of the social, political, and economic conditions of the 1920s and 1930s that...
Curated OER
Analyzing Literary Devices
Eighth graders identify figurative language and poetry in this literary analysis lesson. Using Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll and a YouTube video for "The Walrus and the Carpenter," young readers complete a literary device...
Curated OER
Dulce et Decorum est by Wilfred Owen
It is entirely fitting and proper that Wilfred Owen’s powerful “Dulce et Decorum Est” is the poem used for an exercise in close reading, discussion, analysis, and argumentative writing. Class members discuss focus questions in pairs,...
Curated OER
Biopoem: Ender's Game
Here's an activity designed to encourage character analysis. Readers craft a biopoem for a character in Orson Scott Cards' popular science fiction novel Ender's Game.
Smithsonian Institution
A Dream Deferred: DACA
"Give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses" has even more meaning for some children. The resource explores the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. Scholars analyze primary sources and participate in...
Center for History Education
Who Fired the Shot Heard Round the World?
Take a closer look. Young academics become detectives in an engaging lesson on the American Revolution. Scholars work in groups to analyze documents to uncover whether the American colonists or British soldiers fired the first shot at...
Alabama Department of Archives and History
How Two Alabamians Remembered Slavery Years Later
Designed to help readers recognize the point of view of the author of a primary source documents and analyze how that point of view influences the reliability of a text, young historians examine two personal letters, one...
Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media
Patriots or Traitors - Point of View in the War for Independence
Patriots or traitors? Class members analyze images that present widely differing views of the Boston Tea Party, identifying the point of view of the image, the propaganda devices used, and the intended audience.
Curated OER
Poetry on the Web
Eighth graders search a website and locate a poem written by a specific poet whose work appears in the grade 8 anthology. After listening to poetry, 8th graders present oral or written examples of imagery and an analysis of the imagery.
Curated OER
Poetry: Imitation As The Sincerest Form Of Flattery
Learners pick a poet to conduct research from. They read and recite one of the works of poetry. Then using critical analysis find methods of construction in order to create a similar personal poem. The poem is then posted on the internet...
Curated OER
Where in the World?
Sixth graders research online various types of poetry. In this poetry analysis instructional activity, 6th graders research different types of poetry online, their characteristics, and poets. Students create a class atlas that...
Curated OER
Words Have Meaning
Students interpret and analyze art for meaning and a Maya Angelou poem for meaning. In this art and literature analysis lesson, students analyze Alison Saar's "Lost and Found" and Maya Angelou's poem "Alone." Students write creative...
Curated OER
Thornton Wilder's Our Town: The Reader as Writer
Students read a play and create their own play using Thornton Wilder's Our Townas a resource. For this play lesson, students analyze how theatrical elements contribute to a play's meanings and effects. Students recognize differences...
Curated OER
The Purple Cow
Students read and discuss the poem, The Purple Cow. In this poetry lesson, students discuss the rhyming words in the poem and why this piece of literature is silly or unusual.
Curated OER
Sybil Ludington's Ride - a poem
Fourth graders examine the role a teen from the Hudson Valley played in the American Revolution. They view the map of Sybil's ride and calculate the distance using the map's legend.
Curated OER
The Outsiders
Are you working on an Outsiders unit? Use this list of activities to deepen your middle schoolers' understanding of the novel. After reading S.E. Hinton's novel, young readers work on three required activities, including participating in...
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
Freedmen's Bureau
Students examine the African American experience after they received their freedom after the Civil War. They complete a Mind Map, read and analyze a poem, and write a paragraph using key vocabulary words. They analyze the impact of the...
Curated OER
The Witch of Goingsnake
Students complete literary analysis and writing activities using The Witch of Goingsnake. In this literary analysis lesson, students interpret a proverb, read poems, complete a quaker reading, and complete research for the lesson....
Curated OER
Performing Sonnets
Students use Shakespearean sonnets as part of a poetry analysis lesson. In this sonnet lesson, students perform a sonnet by Shakespeare but treat it as a script to be acted out. Students work in pairs to create motions for two lines from...