This lesson plan invites students to consider characters from Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun. Students explore a selected character and write poems about objects associated with that character.

Students explore multiple genres through genre studies. They record evidence of genre characteristics on bookmarks as they read, and finish by giving a book review for their classmates.

In this lesson, students imagine spending a day in someone else's shoes. After reviewing the characteristics of narrative writing, they then write narratives from that person's point of view.

Students use their own poetry to analyze syntax, imagery, and meaning in a one-sentence poem by a canonical author to decide what makes it a poem.

Students analyze scary stories to 'break the code" of horror writing and use what they learn to write scary stories of their own.

Comic frames are traditionally used to illustrate a story in a short, concise format. In this lesson, students use a six-paneled comic strip frame to create a story map, summarizing a book or story that they've read. Each panel retells a particular detail or explains a literary element (such as setting or character) from the story.

Students observe animals using one of the many webcams broadcasting from zoos and aquariums around the United States and the world, with a focus on observation, discussion, questioning, and research.

In this lesson, students connect to the oral tradition of epic storytellers by sharing their own oral tales of ghosts and goblins and monsters.

This lesson uses comic strip frames to define plot and reinforce the structure that underlies a narrative. Students finish by writing their own original narratives.

After exploring the styles of two authors, students translate passages from one author into the style of another. They then translate fables into the style of one of the authors.

Students find examples of specific stylistic devices in sample literary passages then search for additional examples and explore the reasons for the stylistic choices that the author has made.

Tap students' desires to doodle and draw by having them create a Graffiti Wall, using graphics to discuss a piece of literature that has been read by the whole class.

Students explore stereotypes in the media and representations of race, class, ethnicity, and gender by analyzing comics over a two-week period and then re-envisioning them with a "comic character makeover."

Students engage in a brief writing assignment that concretely illustrates how language and gender stereotyping interact causally.

This twist on readers theater has students prepare original news programs based on incidents in a recent reading, as they explore standard literary elements of character, conflict, resolution, and setting.

In this alternative to the traditional book report, students respond to a play they have read by creating a resume for one of its characters.

Students name unnamed chapters in a novel they are reading. They discuss possible chapter names, considering accuracy, word choice, and connotation, before settling on a choice.

Students work together to analyze three poems about America with varying points of view.

Multidimensional, challenging, and popular with students, comics provide an excellent way to introduce the concept of genres.