Middle Tennessee State University
Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf? A Comparison in American Culture
As part of their study of the Progressive Era, class groups examine a 20th century version of "The Three Little Pigs" through a New Era lens and identify how ideals such as the value of hard work, creativity, and problem solving,...
Curriculum Corner
7th Grade ELA "I Can" Statement Posters
Help your seventh graders relate the ELA Common Core standards to their own learning with these "I Can" statement posters. Each standard has been translated into a statement that pupils can understand and placed on its own page for...
Curriculum Corner
7th Grade ELA Common Core Checklists
Track your class's progress on all of the ELA Common Core standards with these handy charts. Along the left side, each seventh grade identifier is listed along with the full text of the standard. As you teach, reteach, assess,...
Carnegie Library
Creative Writing: Middle School Lesson Plan
Enhance a unit on historical fiction with an engaging writing lesson. Learners bring the Industrial Era to life as they compose their own historical fiction pieces based on primary source images of Pittsburgh steel workers.
Polk Bros Foundation
Common Core Constructed Response Organizer
Get your writers ready to compose a constructed response essay in response to either an informational or fictional text. Pupils note down the big idea they wish to address as well as up to nine examples from the text that they wish to...
Macmillan Education
A Wrinkle in Time Discussion and Activity Guide
As you work through Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time, try out some or all of the 20 questions and activities included here. Useful for discussion questions, group assignments, or individual projects, this resource covers plot as...
Pearson
Practice Test English Language Arts: Grade 7
Practice makes perfect. A practice test designed for the ELA MCAS Assessment gives seventh grade learners the opportunity to answer reading comprehension questions and respond to essay prompts. Questions involve general fiction and...
Novelinks
The Little Prince: Picture Book Strategy
Picture books aren't just for children; they carry strong, valuable messages for adult as well. Explore the audience for Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's The Little Prince with a lesson that compares picture books to literature...
Listening Library
The Sign of the Beaver
Extend a class reading of the novel The Sign of the Beaver across all subject areas with this literature unit guide. From basic discussion questions and writing prompts, to a research project about tracking animals, this...
John F. Kennedy Center
The Kennedy Center: A World of Myths
Students investigate how people throughout history have used myths to understand natural occurrences.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Mit: Internet Classics Archive: Metamorphoses, by Ovid
The text for the first fourteen books of Ovid's Metamorphoses. Includes links to share recommended related sites among users.
TED Talks
Ted: Ted Ed: How to Write Descriptively
The point of fiction is to cast a spell, a momentary illusion that you are living in the world of the story. But how do writers suck readers into stories in this way? Nalo Hopkinson shares some tips for how to use language to make your...
Other
Karleen Bradford
Karleen Bradford is well known for her historical fiction written for children and teens. She has also written fiction and nonfiction. Her site has descriptions of her books as well as some teacher guides.
Other
Barbara Greenwood's Guide to Writing for Children [Pdf]
Barbara Greenwood, a Canadian author of numerous historical fiction books for children, has written this thirty-page writing guide where she explains the process she goes through in constructing a story. She covers such key topics as...
Other
Scholastic Canada: Dear Canada Series
The Dear Canada historical fiction series features well known Canadian authors writing about different times and on a variety of topics. There are short author profiles, sample teaching activities and an interactive timeline of the book...
ReadWriteThink
Read Write Think: Road to Freedom Through Research and Historical Fiction
Students learn how to walk a mile in someone else's shoes by reading historical fiction about the Underground Railroad. This is a lengthy unit of four lessons that spans thirty instructional activity periods where students examine...
Polk Brothers Foundation Center for Urban Education at DePaul University
Depaul University: Center for Urban Education: Guide/assess Nonfiction Reading
This site contains 47 one-page guided writing and reading guides and assessments.The reproducibles are copyrighted materials but may be copied and used for educational purposes.
Annenberg Foundation
Annenberg Learner: Interactives: Elements of a Story
Explore the elements of a story using the well-known Cinderella story as source material. Learn about setting, character, sequence, exposition, conflict, climax, and resolution.
Annenberg Foundation
Annenberg Learner: Literature: Describing Setting
Short explanation of setting as a literary term. Written in the context of "What makes a good short story?" A link at the bottom of the page leads to additional information about setting.
Sophia Learning
Sophia: Forms
This slideshow lesson focuses on forms of fiction: short story, novella, and novel. It describes the defining characteristics of each, provides examples, and explains how to identify each.
Sophia Learning
Sophia: Historical Fiction
This slideshow lesson features the genre of historical fiction. It provides background information, common elements, literary examples, and practice. The practice consists of viewing pictures of Stonehenge and the Pyramids and thinking...
Other
Building Characters With Adversity
Extensive and very interesting article advising the reader on how to develop characters through adversity.
Washington State University
Washington State University: Literary Movements: Brief Timeline of American Literature
This Washington State University site provides a decade-by-decade timeline of American literature with historical events going on at the same time. Most topics on the timeline are links to additional information about the author, work,...
CommonLit
Common Lit: Pygmalion
CommonLit.org is a wonderful resource to use in a Language Arts classroom. Each story or article is accompanied by guided reading questions, assessment questions, and discussion questions. In addition, students can click on words to see...