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,...

Encourage kids to think deeply about what they are reading with five thought-provoking questions about one passage. After choosing a passage that is intriguing or confusing to them, learners write a summary, explain what they like or...

Philip Pullman's The Golden Compass provides the text for a study of how writers bring characters to life. Using the provided character mapping worksheets, readers respond to questions and then write a short character sketch.

Julius Caesar need not be Greek to kids. The background information and suggestions for teachers, as well as the activities for learners, make this curriculum guide a must-have for your Shakespeare curriculum library.

Two sonnets, both alike in theme and story, break from ancient language to new glory. The prologue to Act I of Romeo and Juliet provides scholars with an opportunity to examine the language Shakespeare uses to create timeless stories....

"The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson is a great story to share with your class, and this lesson focuses on just that story! The eighth in a fourteen-lesson series on short stories, the plan has learners study some vocabulary, read the...

“. . . one man in his time plays many parts,/His acts being seven ages.” Jaques famous speech from Act II, scene vii of As you Like It sets the stage for an examination of the roles people play. Class members not only consider the roles...

Is it possible to tell a true war story? Tim O’Brien says that fiction is for “getting at the truth when the truth isn’t sufficient for the truth.” To get at the truth about war, class members examine primary source materials from the...

How well do your kids know key terms from Shizuko's Daughter by Kyoko Mori? Have them review a list of words that they will encounter in the novel, and mark which words they know well, which words they've seen before, and which...

After learning the main ideas of the Decadent movement, students work in small groups to read and translate poems by the French poet Charles Baudelaire using basic etymology skills. They then read the accurate English translations to see...

Poor Cinna, the poet. His dream of “things unlucky” certainly comes true as the mob tears him apart, at first because they mistake him for Cinna, the conspirator, and then continue to “tear him to pieces for his bad verses.” As part of...

This guide discusses how to approach analysis of a literary text, with the main focus being on the poem "Design" by Robert Frost. It explains how to examine the subject, the form, word choice or diction, and the theme. In each section,...

This site fully explores the term "alliteration." Content includes a definition, examples in literature, and a look at why and how it has been used throughout literary history.

As students become more aware of text complexity, an understanding of the formal properties of literature becomes more important. This is an excellent examination of the kinds of choices writers make that change the way readers receive...

Explore the difference between tone and mood in this animated video [2:28] from WNET through definitions and examples from poetry and prose. Discussion questions below help students to further apply their understanding before analyzing a...