High schoolers experience and enjoy the sounds of poetry. They erform sound experiments with sonnets and closely read and analyze a sonnet by Shakespeare. Students write an analysis of how sound affects meaning in a sonnet chosen from...

In this online interactive reading comprehension worksheet, students respond to 8 short answer and essay choice questions based on various Shakespearean sonnets. Students may also access an online quiz on the sonnets using the link...

Students analyze how a poet uses language to capture creatures and draft a poem on a 'sinister' animal. In this poetry analysis lesson, students read Ted Hughes' poem 'Pike' and analyze pictures of pike fish. Students use their research...

Students read poetry and a biography of poet Anne Carson as part of a creative writing lesson. In this poetry analysis lesson, students read about the poet, read her poetry, and analyze a photograph to then write a poem. Students write...

In this poetry analysis worksheet, students read the poem "Mutability," by William Wordsworth and then respond to 6 discussion questions. The questions require students to consider the role of religion and the impact of sudden change as...

In this literary analysis worksheet, students read the poem "Ode to the West Wind," by Percy Bysshe Shelley and then respond to 5 short answer discussion questions about the significance of wind in the poem and the symbolism of...

Students use Langston Hughes' "Thank You Ma'am" as a reading and vocabulary improvement activity. In this reading and vocabulary lesson, students review the related vocabulary and read the poem. Students discuss the story elements in the...

For this literary analysis worksheet, students examine Robert Browning's "My Last Duchess," as they read the poem and respond to 6 short answer questions.

Students analyze Robert Frost's poem "The Road Not Taken." In this poem analysis lesson, students review vocabulary for the poem and read the poem. Students discuss the meanings in each stanza, the theme, and its rhyme scheme. Students...

Students research the importance of play. In this research lesson, students work in pairs and interview each other about their 'play history.' Students take data from the interview and shape it into a play history for the individual....

Emily Dickinson’s “Hope is a thing with feathers” is the focus of a series of activities that model for learners how close reading can lead to understanding. The whole class plays with the metaphor, groups talk about the author’s...

Learn about the characters of Natalie Babbitt's Tuck Everlasting with a character biopoem. Readers fill in a poem format to detail the character traits of Winnie, Jesse, Miles, and Mae, and share their finished poems...

Identify the rhyme scheme in a worksheet that features "Mary Had a Little Lamb." Readers use the nursery rhyme to reinforce poetic elements in four comprehension questions.

Calling upon the legacies of Joan of Arc, Elizabeth I, and Catherine the Great, Esther Reed rallied Southern women to support the American Revolution. Using a broadside by Reed and other primary sources, such as poetry, young historians...

In Audre Lorde's poem "From the House of Yemanjá," the speaker describes her mother's two faces, adding a whole new meaning to the phrase "two-faced." Pupils first read the final stanza of the contemporary poem. With a Quick Write, they...

Can three works of literature work together to establish and develop a common central idea? Put your thoughts into writing with a final assessment focused on a unit-long analysis of Christopher Marlowe's "The Passionate Shepard to His...

Audre Lorde's poem "From the House of Yemanjá" describes the speaker carrying two women on her back—she must be strong! Pupils read the second stanza using instructional activity 10 of 14 from the Grade 11 ELA Module 2: Unit 2 series....

What do modern voices sound like? Scholars explore the topic, reading two concrete poems from John Grandit's Blue Lipstick and analyzing them using a graphic organizer. Next, they read a third poem and work with partners to look for...

Young scholars learn how to distinguish between the mood of a piece of writing (how the work makes the reader feel) and the tone (the writer's attitude toward the material) in the sixth instructional activity in a poetry unit. After...

To gain an understanding of Imperialism, class members read Rudyard Kipling's poem, "The White Man's Burden" and Mark Twain's essay, "To the Person Sitting in Darkness." Groups compare these perceptions of non-white cultures with the...

Childbirth has never been easy and is not without risk, even in the 21st century. Young historians gain insight into the travails of 18th-century childbirth as they read letters between Abigail Adams and her husband about their loss of a...

The Grapes of Wrath may be the most famous novel set during the Dust Bowl, but what other stories cover the same time? The unit focuses on the Karen Hesse novel Out of the Dust. Learners keep a timeline of the Dust Bowl, maintain a...

We are a tapestry woven of the threads of our family and its history, our environment, our ethnicity, and our culture. High school freshmen reflect on how these threads influence their goals for the future. After reading George Ella...

Students view a PowerPoint presentation on Robert Frost. They discuss Robert Frost's life and poetry as they view the presentation. Following the presentation students answer five short answer questions about Robert Frost.