Curated OER
Pumpkin and Ghost Garland
Reading scary stories on Halloween is frightfully good fun! As elementary learners read several stories for the holiday, they choose a favorite and create a decorative garland representing the characters and setting elements found in the...
Common Sense Media
The Masque of the Red Death
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...
Curated OER
Identifying Setting: Expository Writing
Your class can take turns describing a well know location or setting without giving its name, and the rest of the class can try to identify the location, based on the details given. They chart the elements that helped in the...
Curated OER
Coming of Age Readings: Experiences in Korea and by Asians in America
Bring multi-cultural experiences and literature into your language arts class with this lesson. Here, young readers explore the points of view of first and second-generation Asian immigrants with a list of various fiction and nonfiction...
Curated OER
Survivor Stories
Trace a survivor's story using a timeline, map skills, poetry and/or prose and photography, and make a visual representation of a survivor's journey through his or her life as a culminating activity for the class and the survivor. This...
Curated OER
Combining with Participial Phrases
Combine participial phrases and creative writing with this lesson plan, which is equally helpful for writing skills and conventions. After a mini-lesson plan on participial phrases and reading the picture book Dancing in the Wings,...
Curated OER
Setting the Story: Techniques for Creating a Realistic Setting
“It was a dark and stormy night.” Thus begins the 1830's novel Paul Clifford and, of course, all of Snoopy’s novels! Encourage young writers to craft settings for their stories that go beyond Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s often-mocked phrase...
Curated OER
Reading Primary Source Documents: Historical Content
Why do we read primary source documents? What can they give us that other writings cannot? Provide your learners with any of the primary sources attached here (there are seven), and have them complete the graphic organizer (which opens...
Utah Education Network (UEN)
Character Changes Lesson and iPad Assignment
Round, flat, static, dynamic. As part of a characterization study, scholars review the different types of characters and create a slide show demonstrating how a dynamic character in a story they have read changes throughout the tale.
Curated OER
Using Algebra to Explore Problem Space
Students apply their knowledge of math by rewriting word problems using equations. In this word problem lesson plan, students build upon previous knowledge as they set up the correct steps to solve word problems. This lesson plan is full...
Curated OER
Opinion through the Ages: Exploring 40 Years of New York Times Op-Eds
What is the role of a newspaper's Op-Ed page? High schoolers explore the New York Times' "Op-Ed at 40," an interactive feature that lets them browse through 40 years worth of op-ed features, and consider the purpose and value of this...
Benjamin Franklin Tercentenary
Franklin’s Philadelphia: Another Point of View
The impressive story of Benjamin Franklin, including his rise from a printer’s apprentice to a statesman, color upper-level scholars’ understanding of the possibilities of life in colonial Philadelphia. But not everyone had the...
ESL Kid Stuff
Likes & Dislikes
Everyone has different preferences when it comes to food. Kids discuss the foods they like and dislike in a series of activities that include magazine cut-outs, singing a song about cheese, playing a group game, and reading a short story...
EngageNY
Statements of Order in the Real World
Positive and negative numbers are all around us. Groups read short story contexts and identify a rational number that represents the values in the context. They order the rational numbers and interpret statements of inequality.
Curated OER
Elements of a Story - Plot, Characters, and Setting
Use this SMART board activity with any short story in your unit plan. The SMART board file contains a step-by-step guide to plot diagrams, including an interactive practice page and an assignment. This resource is beneficial for language...
David Suits
“Wild Readers” Decoding Skills Lesson Plan
Set young readers on the path toward fluency with this phonemic awareness resource. Based on the award-winning children's book, Where the Wild Things Are, this lesson allows beginning readers to practice isolating phonemes and...
Curated OER
Flannery O'Connor's "A Good Man is Hard to Find": Who's the Real Misfit?
Students read and analyze the short story, "A Good Man Is Hard to Find," by Flannery O'Connor. They write a one-page response, explore various websites, take an online interactive journey, and write a final assessment paper.
Curated OER
Story vs. Plot
Students, after reading and discussing the two texts by Flannery O'Connor, "Good Country People" and "Greenleaf," analyze the plot, tone, characters, themes and setting in each story. They write their own short stories dealing with a...
Curated OER
Identifying the Theme in a Story
Students recognize Theme through the use of simple, short stories. Using Pro Quest, students begin by researching the literary element, theme, and how it can be identified. They then identify the themes in Aesop's Fables and other short...
Curated OER
Telling A Story
Students discover that every story has a start, middle and end. In this literature lesson plan, the teacher models using a picture to show the parts of the story. Students each take a picture and tell a story using start, middle and end.
Curated OER
Traveling Through Literature
Integrate geography with literature in this interdisciplinary instructional activity. Begin by reading a poem such as The Time We Climbed Snake Mountain by Leslie Marmon Silko. On a large map, place push pins in the cities or states...
Curated OER
It's Your Opinion
Everyone has a different opinion about the characters they read about in books. Have your class explore forming an opinion and finding evidence to support it as they read and discuss what they think about a particular character. They...
Curated OER
Under the Sea
Learners 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...
National Endowment for the Humanities
On This Day With Lewis and Clark
Walk in the footsteps of Lewis and Clark as they discover the wonders, beauty, and dangers of the American frontier. After gaining background knowledge about Thomas Jefferson and the Louisiana Purchase, young explorers use primary...