Everyone learns and experiences life differently. A set of lessons about character intensities encourages middle and high schoolers to analyze themselves, their peers, and characters from a book based on the five listed intensities:...

Language arts learners don't need a lecture about poetry; they listen to poetry every day on the radio! Apply skills from literary analysis to famous songs and beautiful lyrics with a lesson about literary devices. As...

Characters in a story are more than a name to remember. Use a character builder worksheet to write out a character's appearance, background, personality, attributes, and story relevance, including whether they are a main or minor...

Here's a resource that deserves a place in your curriculum library, whether or not your school has adopted the Common Core. Designed for middle and high school language arts classes, the packet is packed with teaching tips, materials,...

Feeling conflicted? Work out those issues with a language arts lesson on internal and external conflict. Using "The Interlopers" by Saki, class members identify the conflicts between the characters before writing their own short...

O. Henry's "The Gift of the Magi" is the classic example of irony in literature. Teach young writers about the ways irony can engage their readers with an activity in which they write scripts using dramatic irony, situational irony, and...

Class members investigate The Indian Removal Act of 1830, U.S. Theft of Mexican Territory Timeline, and President Abraham Lincoln’s letter to Horace Greeley, 1862, and then conduct a mock trial of each of these documents to determine...

You'll be a star at your next grade level meeting with an educational unit on Louis Sachar's Holes. Based on both the novel and film, the lessons include applications to language arts with character studies and movie reviews; social...

Incorporate technology into a literature lesson plan with an innovative language arts lesson plan. Middle schoolers read an electronic version of original stories or fairy tales, and after determining the point of view, rewrite the...

How could you decide which of your late mother's possessions are important enough to take to college with you? Decide which items would be the most valuable to you with an activity based on Kyoko Mori's Shizuko's Daughter. After...

Eighth grades can master the ELA Common Core standards! Show your learners the connection between classroom activities and assignments and the standards with this set of "I Can" statement posters. Each standard has been rewritten as an...

How close are your eighth graders to mastering the ELA Common Core standards? Keep an eye on progress with these charts, which include every eighth grade identifier and full standard text. As you move through the year and teach,...

Add to children's enjoyment of the award-winning novel Maniac Magee with this fun collection of resources. From sequence of events and fact or fiction worksheets, to writing newspaper articles and creating advertisements based...

Characters are built with more than just what the author directly says about a character (ex: she is smart). Help your pupils focus on several elements of characterization with a graphic organizer that has space for two characters....

Helpful for a unit on Walter Dean Myers' Monster, or any novel that you are teaching, a graphic organizer prompts learners to compare and contrast different character traits. The first box has one set of lines to jot down what two...

[Free Registration/Login Required] This slide show lesson focuses on analyzing conflict in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. It includes analyzing excerpts and reading a scene and answering questions.

Rcognize how literary devices such as character foils can create complex characters in a short story.

[Accessible by TX Educators. Free Registration/Login Required] In this lesson, you will learn how to recognize conflict, analyze linear plot, and determine how the conflict is resolved.

[Accessible by TX Educators. Free Registration/Login Required] In this lesson, you will analyze how different playwrights characterize, or develop, their protagonists and antagonists through the dialogue and staging of their plays.

In this lesson, you will discover some ways that writers reveal the complexity of their characters. By closely analyzing one author's characters, you'll come to see how their words, actions, and interactions with one another can shape a...