Curated OER
Describe a Journey
Learners describe the sensory experience of a character's journey in an essay. In this precise details writing lesson, students explain the effects on the senses of weather, time of day, landscape, and other experiences. Learners use...
Curated OER
Quotation Marks, Commas, And More
Correctly punctuating a character's dialogue can become a fun activity as students learn to use quotation marks, commas, and more.
Novelinks
The Hobbit: Biopoem
As part of their reading of The Hobbit, readers create a biopoem for one of Tolkien's characters.
Shakespeare Uncovered
Henry IV, Part I: Does Father Know Best?
“Yea, there thou mak’st me sad and mak’st me sin/In envy that my Lord Northumberland/Should be the father to so blest a son--.” Henry IV, Part I, provides the text for a series of exercises that ask class members to examine the...
Curated OER
Telling Stories Through Dance
Examine the movement of characters in the story, Caps for Sale. Using the text, pupils invent gestures and movements for some of the actions and major events. They practice retelling a story by using the movements they developed. They...
Curated OER
Classroom Guide for the Redwall Series
Students participate in cross-curricular activities and readings to become familiar with the works of Brian Jacques. In this heroes lesson, students discuss the character traits of legends and how their characters develop through events...
EngageNY
Introducing Close Reading: Finding the Main Message and Taking Notes About Rain School
This second lesson in a larger unit is perfect for the beginning of the year because it explicitly teaches 3rd graders how to use close reading skills by identifying unfamiliar words, figuring out the gist, and defining important...
Harper Collins
Beverly Cleary Memory Game
Where is Henry Huggins? Class members craft playing cards for a memory game. One side features a description or an illustration of a memorable scene, the title of the book and the names of major characters, or a description about the...
Roald Dahl
Roald Dahl Matilda Lesson Plans
Fifty eye-catching pages contain six lessons about Roald Dahl's novel, Matilda. Each lesson has a theme and covers a different subject—literacy, social-emotional learning, science, and geography. Scholars analyze characters, examine...
Curated OER
A Rat's Life
Here is a two-page instructional activity on rats and mice. Learners answer nine true/false questions about rats and mice, then compose answers to seven short-answer questions about these two rodents. Finally, they must compose a...
Curated OER
What’s your Name?
Youngsters work to build empathy, cultural understanding, and a sense of self as they uncover the story behind their own names. They read the book, The Name Jar, discuss immigration and how it feels to be in a new place. Then, they...
Curated OER
Litmus Lozenges: Sweet and Sorrowful (Because of Winn Dixie)
In this Because of Winn Dixie worksheet, students explore characters and their relationships. Students complete a character web showing the relationships between seven characters in the story.
Curated OER
Guy Fawkes
Sixth graders access their prior knowledge of the job of Parliament and its relationship to the monarchy. In this Gunpowder Plot lesson, 6th graders research the Gunpowder Plot, summarize key story ideas, and role play the plot. They...
Curated OER
The Big Bad Wolf and the Friendly Letter
A terrific presentation on the teaching of friendly letter writing. Learners engage in a PowerPoint that is part story, part writing exercise. There are lots of great tips on how to construct a letter, and young writers are encouraged to...
Curated OER
Teaching The Great Gatsby with the New York Times
East Egg, West Egg, the Valley of Ashes, and the green light. Bring Gatsby, the Jazz Age, and the American Dream to your classroom with a resource designed for teachers. Included in the treasury are six great teaching ideas for F. Scott...
Curated OER
Looks Like Respect, Sounds Like Respect, Feels Like
Students explore philanthropy through art. In this service learning lesson, students discuss the diversity in their community and use their senses to create tolerance posters.
Curated OER
Larger-Than-Life Lara
Students explore child psychology by reading a children's book in class. In this bullying instructional activity, students read the book Larger Than Life Lara and discuss the characters and how they treat each other. Students answer...
Curated OER
Life Size Characters
Sixth graders analyze character traits and create a life size character outline. In this character analysis lesson, 6th graders analyze character traits of a character using character webs and poems. Students then create a life size...
Curated OER
Graphic Organizer Collection: Character
In this collection of graphic organizers for a literature unit, students will complete 22 different graphic organizers on the topic of character development. For example, this collection includes character analysis and various attribute...
Curated OER
Creating Dramatic Monologues from The Grapes of Wrath
The characters in The Grapes of Wrath come to life through an activity that asks groups to craft a dramatic monologue for a character in John Steinbeck's National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize winning novel. Writers are challenged to...
Curated OER
Using Words to Work Things Out
Students recognize a problem and how to resolve it. In this lesson, students listen to The Hating Book and discuss the events of the story. Students answer comprehension questions and relate to their own experiences. Students role play...
Curated OER
Enemy Pie
Students complete activities with the book Enemy Pie by Derek Munson. In this literature lesson, students answer questions before and during the reading. They describe how the main character's feelings changed.
Curated OER
New Beginnings
Start the year off with a few role-play scenarios focused on positive classroom interactions, respect, and expressing feelings. These scenarios are very oddly worded but pose a good way to help learners build empathy and caring when...
Shmoop
ELA.CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.3
Focus on complex characters with a lesson plan from a series that teaches individual skills from the Common Core. Specifically, this resource provides practice with standard RL.9-10.3. Get pupils thinking and talking about characters...