National Endowment for the Humanities
A Wrinkle in Time: The Board Game
Tackle some big questions about A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle with a board game project. As learners brainstorm for and complete their board games, they consider what helps and hinders Meg on her journey and why she succeeds in...
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Story Boards
Students devise story boards to sequence the main events in a story. They draw a picture that demonstrates the main event in each chapter of a story and label it with a sentence.
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Quilt Squares-Literature Reporting
Differentiate instruction with this crafty approach to demonstrating comprehension. Learners choose a fictional book at their reading level, and afterward create a quilt square. The square is "decorated" with words, illustrations, and...
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The Dracula Game
Learners discuss ways in which the story "Dracula" can be viewed in terms of a board game. After discussion, groups create and illustrated game board, pieces, and written rules for their own version of The Dracula Game. Groups provide...
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Creating a Newspaper
Get the scoop with a fun, engaging newspaper project. After analyzing the parts of a newspaper, including the headline, subtitles, and pictures or images, young journalists get to work by writing their own stories in a newspaper article...
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Persuasive Advertisement For A Novel
Sixth graders engage in a project to persuade classmates to read a certain novel. They create a poster using persuasive advertising language. Media can be included in the form of pictures and other graphics to make the visual...
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The Outsiders
Are you working on an Outsiders unit? Use this list of activities to deepen your middle schoolers' understanding of the novel. After reading S.E. Hinton's novel, young readers work on three required activities, including participating in...
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Lesson Plan 10: Writing Really Good Dialogue
Boring dialogue can run a great story into the ground; get your novelists using dialogue as a tool to move their story into deeper and more developed territory. As part of a larger writing series, this lesson has a worksheet that can...
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Catherine, Called Birdy: June and July
Students illustrate types of conflicts in Catherine, Called Birdy. In this Catherine, Called Birdy instructional activity, students take notes on four types of character conflict. Students work in teams to...
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Printmaking for Grades 6-8
Learners create a relief print. The chosen image for this print be a setting from a novel that played an important role in the plot of the story. They conclude this lesson by writing a literature response about their setting.
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Scriptwriting Skill Module
Students identify and analyze conflicts in plots. In this conflict instructional activity students recall stories, novels and movies they've read or seen and discuss the conflicts contained therein. They then complete some written...
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Philadelphia Museum of Art
Pupils study paintings and use their knowledge of story elements to analyze the art. In this art analysis lesson, students review a novel for its elements. Pupils study the image At the Moulin Rouge: The Dance and discuss the story...
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Revising Ordinary Sentences into Strong Leads Using "Crispin: The Cross of Lead"
Learners create stories using powerful introductory sentences by creating something other than "Once upon a time...". In this sentences lesson plan, students read The Cross of Lead to base their introductory sentences on.
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Character and their Significance
Students read short stories and write a response to the story about the character and their significance. In this character lesson plan, students also create a poster to represent their character.
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The Giver
Pupils read the novel The Giver and complete six tasks. They identify vocabulary that they did not recongize, create a different ending for the book, produce character cards and pick important events and objects from the novel.
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Flashbacks
Students create a piece of original fiction utilizing flashbacks. Students define and identify the use of flashbacks in the novel Holes. Definitions and examples are recorded in student journals. They use their examples as springboard...
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A Gift for Mama
Students read a novel about savings and complete activities to define short and long term saving goals. In this income and savings lesson, students read A Gift for Mama and answer discussion questions for it. Students define the terms...
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Sold! Ageless Water
Young scholars read "Tuck Everlasting" by Natalie Babbitt. They create an advertisement for the spring water described in the story.
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Plot and Conflict
Students review the literary elements of plot and conflict. In this plot and conflict lesson, students read a story and answer questions about the plot and conflict within. Students create a concept map for the novel to identify the...
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Turning on Your Light
Students identify philanthropy in a character in "To Kill A Mockingbird". They describe the philanthropic acts in the novel and chart their findings. They write about the character and have their classmates peer edit the paper.
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Making the Old New Again
How does a new version of a Shakespearean play change in the adaptation process? Use this New York Times' Learning Network lesson to consider texts that have been produced in different media. Middle schoolers examine the latest...
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Yellow Bird and Me
Upper elementary artists create works which demonstrate an understanding of the many elements of theater and the visual arts. This four-day plan combines many wonderful aspects of visual, musical, and theatrical arts into one very...
National First Ladies' Library
Save the Animals: The Creation of the ASPCA
Students read Black Beauty and study the history of the founding of the ASPCA and learn about endangered species today. Then they write a short paper about the book, or on some aspect of the history of the ASPCA, and, after exploring the...
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Romeo & Juliet (Drama)
Ninth graders read and internalize the drama Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare. Many intriguing and thought provoking assignments are waiting for the completion of students within this lesson profile.