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Activity
Digital Public Library of America

Beloved by Toni Morrison

For Teachers 9th - 12th Standards
Any classroom study of Toni Morrison's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Beloved requires careful planning and scaffolding. A primary source set that includes a video, illustrations, photos of artifacts, and a broadside of the Fugitive Slave...
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Activity
Digital Public Library of America

The Poetry of Maya Angelou

For Teachers 9th - 12th Standards
Maya Angelou's work reflects her passion for life, civil rights, and justice for all. A collection of 12 primary sources provide scholars with insight into this amazing woman. The set includes photographs, articles, recordings of...
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Lesson Plan
ReadWriteThink

Heroes Are Made of This: Studying the Character of Heroes

For Teachers 9th - 12th Standards
What makes heroes and villains? A six-part unit plan asks young scholars to explore the concept of heroism and the characteristics they consider heroic and unheroic. Groups create character maps that focus on how characters are shaped by...
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Activity
Royal Shakespeare Company

King Lear Teacher Pack 2010

For Teachers 11th - 12th Standards
Every production of Shakespeare's plays is different—the director and designer must decide upon a theme. For his 2010 production, David Farr and his team decided to emphasize the conflicts that follow a regime change. The materials in a...
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Activity
Royal Shakespeare Company

King Lear Teacher Pack 2016

For Teachers 9th - 12th Standards
Disguises, deceptions, destruction. Thankless children, wise fools, aging rulers, and knaves. The Royal Shakespeare Company's 2016 King Lear Teacher Pack provides instructors with a wealth of resources for a study of Shakespeare's famous...
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Lesson Plan
1
1
Facing History and Ourselves

Literature and Imagination Make Democracy Work

For Teachers 9th - 12th Standards
The final instructional activity in the "What Makes Democracy Work?" series examines the connections between imagination, literature, and democracy. Class members listen to a podcast, read an excerpt from Azar Nafisi's, The Republic of...
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Lesson Plan
1
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Greater Good Science Center

See The Good Challenge

For Teachers 6th - 12th Standards
Scientists study all sorts of things. For example, studies show that it feels good to feel grateful. Feeling grateful also contributes to physical health and strengthen relationships. In the second lesson about gratitude, class members...
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Lesson Plan
1
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Facing History and Ourselves

Responding to Difference in Democracy

For Teachers 9th - 12th Standards
Disagreements happen in a diverse democracy. It's what people do about these differences in a diverse society that the resource models. After listening to an eight-minute podcast about a woman who collaborated with people who have very...
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Unit Plan
University of Oklahoma

Getting Started

For Teachers 9th - 12th Standards
"Getting Started" is a two-lesson unit focused on familiarizing high schoolers with the concepts of self-awareness and self-advocacy. Learners identify their strengths and weaknesses, likes and dislikes in a ME: Book that they will use...
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Unit Plan
Farmington Public Schools

British Literature Honors: Beowulf

For Teachers 12th Standards
Whether new to teaching Beowulf or an experience pro, you'll find much to like in a richly detailed unit plan that asks readers to consider how the epic represents the difficulty in defining good and evil but also reflects the changing...
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Worksheet
Great Books Foundation

I Shall Not Beg for My Rights

For Students 9th - 12th Standards
An excerpt from Henry MacNeal Turner's address to the Georgia legislature provides class members with an opportunity to develop their literary analysis skills. Prompted by the provided factual, evaluative, and interpretive questions,...
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Lesson Plan
PBS

Symbolism and the Use of “New Language” in The Handmaid’s Tale

For Teachers 11th - Higher Ed Standards
Words matter. Words frame thought. Words are symbolic. Readers of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale examine how the words In Gilead's "New Language" reinforce the power of the government and provided insight into the symbolic level...
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Lesson Plan
Common Sense Media

The Masque of the Red Death

For Teachers 9th - 12th Standards
Poe goes high tech with a lesson that asks high schoolers to use the internet and various apps as they read and analyze "The Masque of the Red Death." In addition to responding to comprehension questions in Quizlet, they use Minecraft to...
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Lesson Plan
PBS

Catch-22: Satirize This!

For Teachers 11th - Higher Ed Standards
Some assignments are great, some can become great, and some have greatness thrust upon them. This one is great. After completing Joseph Heller's classic satire, Catch-22, groups craft and present their own political satire.
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Lesson Plan
PBS

Their Eyes Were Watching God: The Impact of Language

For Teachers 10th - Higher Ed Standards
Author, filmmaker, and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston was also a dialectologist. The dialogue of the characters in her novel Their Eyes Were Watching God reveals her fascination with accents and dialects. A short video from the Great...
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Lesson Plan
PBS

Catch-22: What It Means to Be a(n Anti)Hero

For Teachers 11th - Higher Ed Standards
Catch-22, Joseph Heller's send-up of military organizational bureaucracy, provides readers with an opportunity to consider the importance of the anti-hero. Class members fill out a worksheet comparing and contrasting the qualities of...
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Assessment
New York State Education Department

English Language Arts Examination: June 2014

For Students 9th - 12th Standards
Should companies track consumers' shopping preferences without their permission? Using the resource, scholars write source-based argumentative essays to answer the question. They also answer reading comprehension questions based on an...
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Interactive
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PBS

Setting in To Kill a Mockingbird

For Students 7th - 12th Standards
Can you understand more about how a person acts by learning about how that person lives? An interactive resource explores the setting of Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird with several slides discussing the location, social conditions,...
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Lesson Plan
EngageNY

Grade 11 ELA Module 1: Unit 1, Lesson 6

For Teachers 11th Standards
Get ready for the big reveal! Scholars work in the final instructional activity of the unit to discuss the revelation in Browning's poem My Last Duchess. Pupils discuss homework in pairs before working in small groups to identify text...
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Unit Plan
Odell Education

Making Evidence-Based Claims Literary Technique: Louise Erdrich and Tim O’Brien

For Teachers 11th Standards
Take a ride in The Red Convertible by Louise Erdrich. Students read the story and discuss whether a car is really a character. After carrying out several activities using graphic organizers and tools for making their claims in The Red...
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Activity
PBS

Primary Source Set: Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

For Teachers 6th - 12th Standards
What did Jo write her stories with? How did the March sisters dress? A primary source set designed for Louisa May Alcott's Little Women prompts learners to look over images of household items and clothes from the 1860s before engaging in...
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Website
Shakespeare Globe Trust

The Taming of the Shrew

For Students 9th - 12th Standards
What does it take to build a stage production from the ground up? Scholars read a weekly blog detailing the behind-the-scenes action of William Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew. They also listen to interviews with the cast, meet the...
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Activity
Orlando Shakes

To Kill a Mockingbird: Study Guide

For Students 9th - 12th Standards
Who was Harper Lee, and what led her to write one of the most celebrated novels of all time? Scholars learn about the author of To Kill a Mockingbird and read a summary of a dramatic production of the novel. They also discover the...
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Lesson Plan
Simon & Schuster

Les Miserables Classroom Activities

For Teachers 8th - 12th Standards
Modern readers apply classic themes to Victor Hugo's masterpiece, Les Miserables. After they discuss tricky vocabulary and plot elements from the novel, class members compare Hugo's written work to a stage or film adaptation of the musical.