Students analyze characterization by creating their own superheroes or super-villains,
complete with related gadgets and settings.
Fantastic Characters: Analyzing and Creating Superheroes and Villains
Songs of Our Lives: Using Lyrics to Write Stories
Students learn about the life and music of John Lennon, write a short story from their lives integrating lyrics from some of their favorite songs, and create a class book of stories.
The Mysteries of Harris Burdick: Using Illustrations to Guide Writing
Students use illustrations from The Mysteries of Harris Burdick as a guide to write mysteries
and then present their stories to the class for students to discuss to which illustration each
story corresponds.
Facilitating Student-Led Seminar Discussions with The Piano Lesson
August Wilson's play The Piano Lesson invites students to ask a number of questions—big
and small. Students learn how to create effective discussion questions and then put them to use in student-led discussions.
Comparing Portrayals of Slavery in Nineteenth-Century Photography and Literature
In this lesson, students analyze similarities and differences among depictions of slavery in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Frederick Douglass' Narrative, and nineteenth century photographs of slaves. Students formulate their analysis of the role of art and fiction, as they attempt to reliably reflect social ills, in a final essay.
Book Report Alternative: Hooking a Reader with a Book Cover
Students select a book to read based only on its cover art. After reading the book, they use an interactive tool to create a new cover for it.
Analyzing Character in Hamlet through Epitaphs
Students create epitaphs for characters from a tragedy, such as Hamlet.
Analyzing the Stylistic Choices of Political Cartoonists
Students explore and analyze the techniques that political (or editorial) cartoonists use and draw conclusions about why the cartoonists choose those techniques to communicate their messages.
You Know the Movie is Coming—Now What?
In this lesson, students read a literary text with the eye of a director, selecting scenes from the text and putting a cinematic spin on them.
The History Behind Song Lyrics
Students research the items listed in the song "We Didn't Start the Fire" by Billy Joel, noting their historical relevance, and then document their findings using an online chart.
Improving Fluency through Group Literary Performance
Students participate in shared reading, choral reading, and readers theater, using books by Bill Martin, Jr. Repeated readings and literary performances help students with their reading accuracy, expression, and rate.
Happily Ever After? Exploring Character, Conflict, and Plot in Dramatic Tragedy
By exploring the decisions points in a tragedy, students consider how the plot of the story can change if the key characters make a different choice at the turning point.
Renaissance Humanism in Hamlet and The Birth of Venus
After reading Shakespeare's Hamlet, students identify, analyze, and explain how elements in Botticelli's painting Birth of Venus and examples from the play illustrate the philosophy of Renaissance Humanism.
Graffiti Wall: Discussing and Responding to Literature Using Graphics
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.
Novel News: Broadcast Coverage of Character, Conflict, Resolution, and Setting
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.
Doodle Splash: Using Graphics to Discuss Literature
Students keep a doodle journal while reading short stories by a common author. In small groups, students then combine their doodles into a graphic representation of the text.
An Introduction to Julius Caesar Using Multiple-Perspective Universal Theme Analysis
This resource is an introduction to William Shakespeare's tragic play, The Tragedy of Julius Caesar, through the study of universal themes using multiple-perspective investigations of betrayal scenarios.
Blending the Past with Today's Technology: Using Prezi to Prepare for Historical Fiction
To prepare for literature circles featuring historical novels, students research the decades of the 1930s to the 1990s and share their information using Prezi, a web application for creating multimedia presentations.
What's the Purpose?: Examining a Cold Manipulation of Language
With a crafty pen, Truman Capote wrote In Cold Blood to create a new genre and shock his audience. This lesson will help students examine Capote's manipulation of language as he forces his audience to take a different look at murderers and consider a different definition of nonfiction. His unique purpose leaves students an interesting text to consider.
Designing Elements of Story in Little Blue and Little Yellow
In this series of four lessons, students will explore key elements of design in Little Blue and
Little Yellow to learn about setting, character relationships, and plot.