Introduce your middle schoolers to the lives of past Native Americans. First, learners work together to put photographs in a sequence. Then, using their sequence, they create stories to share with the whole class. No matter how old your...

Excerpts from John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath and from John Fante's Ask the Dust, as well as a variety of primary source documents provide the background for an examination of the migrant experience from 1920-1945.

A thorough and well-designed resource for older students, this lesson plan focuses on Chaucer's character the Wife of Bath from his classic novel, The Canterbury Tales. As a way of understanding Chaucer's complex characterization and...

Are your scholars reading Jerry Spinelli's Maniac Magee? If so, use this textual analysis packet and lesson guide to drive deeper thinking about the characters, create personal connections, and apply historical...

Over the course of the lesson, your pupils read and analyze a translated eight-line poem from the Tang Dynasty written by Du Fu, a poet caught behind enemy lines during the An Lu-Shan rebellion (755-763). Literary/historical context is...

Did you know that Currer Bell and Ellis Bell were the pseudonyms for Charlotte and Emily Bronte? Did you know that during the 1800s women’s emotional opinions were not seen as something meant for publication? Introduce Jane Eyre...

Shel Silverstein's The Giving Tree is a great way to cover multiple concepts in an elementary school classroom. Throughout this lesson, they learn about economic principles such as scarcity and goods, science principles like renewable...

In this comprehension exercise, readers compare Carl Sandburg's "Chicago" to a description of the city from Upton's Sinclair's The Jungle.

Life in the Florida swamps after the Civil War comes alive in the 1946 film adaptation of Majorie Kinnan Rawlings’s The Yearling. The film of this powerful coming-of-age story, filled with love and loss, can be used with or without a...

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...

Young scholars explore about big books. They create a big book version of a favorite story or an ABC book about a favorite topic. Students describe the size of a book. Young scholars are explained that big books are books that have large...

Stories from "The Great Lakes Mariner" provide pupils with an opportunity to practice their synopsis-writing skills. The tabloid, which focuses on the Great Lakes region, is filled with stories written by sea captains, that are filled...

Help learners write a creative story from the viewpoint of a shoe. The teacher brings a variety of different types of shoes to the classroom and each person chooses one. They then write a story from the point of view of the shoe,...

Students read texts reflecting multiple cultural perspectives. 

Learners read a given play. They choose the key scenes from the play and write a narration to carry the plot line between those scenes. They create a comic book that depicts these key scenes, complete with pictures and text balloons.

Elementary and middle schoolers examine and evaluate different perspectives concerning events leading to the American Revolution. In this case, they hone in on the Stamp Act. They research controversial bills, laws, or events of the time...

Use a Mad-Libs like activity to create modern poetry! Writers will identify different words and their parts of speech and study "The Red Wheelbarrow" by Williams Carlos Williams. Then, use the sheets attached to craft your own poem! An...

Scholars of all ages can use the various tools of technology to construct and illustrate a story. Utilizing this resource, learners work with a partner to brainstorm and draft a story based on personal experience. They use computer...

Students discover characterization techniques and methods. In this characterization instructional activity, students choose favorite fiction characters and discuss what makes a character come alive. Students then describe a family member...

If you are teaching Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound, you can't afford to miss this source. An extensive list of ideas outlines numerous discussion topics, writing prompts, comprehension questions, oral presentations, and projects. Have class...

Whether you are planning a unit on F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, or simply want to improve your pupils' descriptive writing, this instructional activity could be a good addition to your class. Using the Six-Trait Writing...

This creepy fantasy story needs an ending! Learners use a spooky voice to read a short story ending at an ellipsis...what was in the dark, dark box? They illustrate what they think could have been in there and write a title for the...

Give this literacy worksheet to your beginning readers to help them draw out key details and retell in their own words. They read a short fantasy story about a bear in space which includes dialogue, onomatopoeia, and a simple story line....

Use some of these 80-word passages to practice reading fluency with your beginners. Project the text so all learners can see it, pointing to each word as scholars recite them one at a time. Warn readers of irregularly spelled words by...