Curated OER
Six Trait Writing with Twain and Doyle
Students explore the traits of writing in this six lessons unit. Poems, fiction, and drama are evaluated to identify writing strategies. Utilization of vocabulary and writing rubrics help students judge the effectiveness of their own...
Curated OER
How to Write a Summary of a Book
Students explore ways to write book summaries. In this summary writing lesson, students discover the steps for writing summaries of fictional books.
Curated OER
Report Writing in Primary Grades
Students learn how to read a short section and parepare a sentence to share with the group. Students listen to the reading of expository text, restate, in sentence format, one fact learned from that text, and produce a report.
Curated OER
Tales From Around the World
Learners read stories. For this culture lesson, students read stories from different regions around the world. Learners look for each region on the map and listen for interesting cultural details in the story. Students then discuss the...
Louisiana Department of Education
Fahrenheit 451
In his 2013 introduction to Fahrenheit 451, Neil Gaiman states, “Fiction is a lie that tells us true things, over and over.” In this extraordinary unit plan, readers "explore the power of written language to educate and...
Curated OER
Under the Sea
Students imagine and describe fictitious sea animals that might live in the ocean. After reading an article, they reflect on new discoveries found in the ocean recently. Using the internet, they research the interdependence of animals...
Virginia Department of Education
Physical and Chemical Properties of Water
How can you effectively provide detailed concepts of water properties to your high school class in a way they find exciting and challenging at the same time? By letting them play, of course! Through a variety of...
Curated OER
Context Clues, Plot Structure, Conflict, and Personal Narrative Essay
What are the elements of a personal narrative? Get your class talking by reading "The Necklace" and "A Dangerous Game." The lesson focuses primarily on defining certain vocabulary terms (like context clues, plot, conflict, climax, etc.)...
Curated OER
"Spelldown" by Becky Mushko
Learners read Spelldown, by Becky Mushko and consider how it portrays the Appalachian community. They define and discuss vocabulary presented in the story and write a comparison/contrast paper analyzing two of the story's characters. The...
Curated OER
Things Aren't Always What They Seem
Learners use video and the Internet to make predictions, draw conclusions, determine conflict and point of view while reading a short story. In this short story analysis instructional activity, students watch a related video and complete...
Curated OER
A Fish Tale
Pupils brainstorm a list of famous events that took place on the sea. They write a poem or short story from the fish's perspective about the famous event they have chosen. Students share their work with the class.
Curated OER
Literary Odyssey
Students read and compare excerpts from The Odyssey and The Adventures of Telemachus to create their own story based on a secondary character. In this literary analysis lesson, students read and compare the excerpts from the...
Orange County Department of Education
Integrity and "Thank You, M'am"
Ninth graders explore the definition of integrity through a class discussion. They provide positive/negative examples from the story and their own experiences. Students determine character traits by analyzing the dialogue in a short...
Curated OER
Baseball Cards
Students read a short story on baseball cards and reflect on Honus Wagner's decision to withdraw his card. In this baseball cards lesson plan, students study how children used cards in the 1930's and express their understanding of Honus...
Prestwick House
Wuthering Heights
How many ways can you break down a classic novel? Based on the acclaimed Romantic-period novel by Emily Bronte, the Wuthering Heights activity pack includes a pre-reading exercise. Next, learners create a resume for one of the...
Curated OER
Kolam: A Living Art of South Asia
Students will read the short story "Meenakshi's Magic Hands" by Santhini Govindan and view a slide show of photo images interspersed with the text to learn of the art form of Kolam. Students read and reflect upon a nonfiction essay,...
Curated OER
Summarizing with Somebody Wanted But So
Teach your young readers how to summarize a text using a strategy called Somebody Wanted But So. Kids identify the character (Somebody), the motivation (Wanted), the conflict (But), and the resolution (So). The resource comes with...
Curated OER
Translation Into Reality
Learners read a variety of short stories that focus on teenage protagonists. In groups, they answer comprehension questions and discuss the characters and setting for each story. Individually, they choose one writing assignment to...
Curated OER
The Verbal Sketch
Students use perspective observation sketches to understand verbal description. In this subjective writing lesson, students practice writing subjective conversations using the cartoon worksheets.
Curated OER
Crazy Critters are Figuratively Fantastic
Eighth graders use creatures created from their imaginations to practice hyperbole, simile, metaphor, and alliteration in association with creative writing. They utilize a worksheet imbedded in this plan to guide their writing.
Curated OER
Core Book Guide for The Upstairs Room
Students read "The Upstairs Room" and participate in literature analysis regarding justice. In this Holocaust Literature lesson, students read a short story and discuss critical thinking questions. Students write journal entries and...
Curated OER
Renaissance Realities
Students analyze passages by Niccolo Machiavelli and Francis Bacon as an analysis of Renaissance ideas in contemporary situations. In this Renaissance writings lesson, students read excerpts from Machiavelli's The Prince and multiple...
Curated OER
"Standing Woman" by Yasutaka Tsutsui
Students explore the key concepts of the story, "Standing Woman" which portrays futuristic settings, and the search for artificial happiness. Parallels are drawn to Orwell's "Brave New World" and the movie, "Solent Green."
Curated OER
Storytelling
Students explore, as a basis for their poem, their own personal observations and understandings of a specific person's character which might include exploits, actions, mannerisms and personality. They write a brief poem that tells a story.