Penguin Books
A Teacher's Guide to William Shakespeare's Hamlet
Should Hamlet avenge his father's death? Is the ghost telling the truth or is it trying to trick Hamlet? Is Hamlet's inconsistent behavior a ploy or is he really insane? Something really is rotten in Denmark, and with the help of the...
Reed Novel Studies
The Janitor's Boy: Novel Study
The perfect plan can easily backfire. Jack, in The Janitor's Boy, thinks he has the perfect plan to get back at his father. Little did he know he would end up being sentenced to help his father. Scholars read about Jack and his...
Curated OER
Harriet The Spy
Fourth graders investigate the style of diary writing as its own genre of literature. They read Harriet The Spy in order to have a text for this literature study. Students use the skill of prediction to preview the story, and then...
Curated OER
Major and Minor Characters
In this reading worksheet, students complete a chart about two characters from a book. Information includes the character names, how they look, how they act, how they interact with others, and how the student might relate to them.
Curated OER
A Novel Idea
Young scholars use Moodle to participate in a chat session to complete a character analysis for a novel they've studied. In this novel analysis and technology lesson, students are assigned a character from a specific chapter and use...
Curated OER
Language Arts: A "Perfect" Lesson
Learners read "Be A Perfect Person in Just three days," and participate in a host of activities. Connected to technology, they use online sources to create word searches and puzzles from vocabulary words. In addition, students create...
Curated OER
A Togolese Tale: The Big Fire
High schoolers read a Tonolese folktale and outline the elements of the story. In groups, they discuss the various morals presented in the story and if they are unique to the Tonolese culture. To end the activity, they identify the...
Curated OER
Fiction vs. Nonfiction
Students explore fiction and nonfiction writing. They identify the elements of fiction in a short story and identify the criteria necessary in a nonfiction piece. Students distinguish the author's purpose in an expository text,...
Curated OER
Lessons of the Indian Epics: The Ramayana
Students read a version of Ramayana and explore the elements of the epic hero cycle. In this Ramayana analysis lesson, students retell the basic narrative of the Ramayana and identify the main characters. Students identify elements of...
Curated OER
Creating Scrolls Based on the illustrated TALE OF GENJI
Students identify formal elements that characterize the scroll, work in a variety of media, from traditional to digital, to create their own scrolls, work into digital printout with at least two media, and engage in meaningful critiques...
Curated OER
Storytelling
Pupils compose a story and tell it to the class. In this storytelling lesson, students work in small groups to create an illustrated story. Pupils are given a checklist of elements to include in the assignment. Students...
Curated OER
Johnny Appleseed, An American Folk Hero
Young scholars explore American folktales. They review the elements of folktales. Students read the folktale of Johnny Appleseed together. They discuss the vocabulary words from the story. Young scholars discuss the differences between...
Curated OER
Fractured Fairy Tales
Learners use familiar characters, plots, and settings from traditional fairy tales to create "fractured" versions, while experimenting with satire, irony and parody. A fractured fairy tale is designed to be humorous by changing the story...
Curated OER
Fairy Tales, Past and Present
Students examine the different elements of a fairy tale. They discover why setting, characters, problems and solutions are important in a fairy tale. They recreate the fairy tale in modern times and create a storybook to accompany their...
Curated OER
A Closer Look at a Fairy Tale
Students read fairy tales to study the role of male and female characters. In this fairy tales lesson plan, students discuss the elements of fairy tales. Students discuss morals and lessons in fairy tales. Students use the worksheet 'A...
Curated OER
Exploring American Tall Tales
Students explore elements of American folktales and tall tales. In this literature instructional activity, students read examples of American folktales and tall tales and prepare a monologue or news report to present to the class based...
Curated OER
Outlining Essays (Grades 3-6)
Students brainstorm story idea in preparation of writing an expressive essay. They study how to outline essays to assist them in writing an expressive essay. Each students conclusion should summarize their main idea and restate their...
Curated OER
Open Your Eyes Wide-Shut
Students improve their language skills through 11 activities. In this language skills lesson, students listen to picture books, answer questions about elements of a story, enhance their vocabulary and grammar skills, use 5 W questions,...
Curated OER
Being in the Noh: An Introduction to Japanese Noh Plays
Learners analyze the conventions used in Noh plays and write an introduction to a Noh play of their own. In this Noh play lesson, students identify the conventions of the Noh form and analyze the realizations the main character achieves....
Curated OER
Movies in Your Mind
Students practice visualizing elements from a story. While reading a poem aloud, the instructor models what they see as they read the passage. Students draw a picture of a scene from the book "How to Eat Fried Worms" after reading it...
Curated OER
The Five W's!
Students explore reading comprehension strategies. They discuss the story-grammar strategy. Students discuss the importance of comprehension. They discuss questions they should ask while reading a text. Students read a story and stop to...
Curated OER
Combining Words with Art
Third graders make an accordion-fold book, review the vocabulary of visual art and are introduced to calligraphy. They plan a story using a sequence of words and sentences.
Curated OER
Pigging Out on Reading Comprehension
Students summarize a piece of fiction text. After reviewing the correct way to read in order to summarize, students independently read the story "Pig in a Bag." They write a summary paragraph using the process outlined by the instructor...
Curated OER
Painting with Words
Fifth graders discuss words that are over used in their writing such as good, nice, happy, glad sad, etc. they complete a survey about word choice then hear a story and discuss descriptive phrases used in the story and how they help to...