Curated OER
Body Biography: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
Class groups assume the identity of one of the primary human characters in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. They create a body biography that identifies the most important traits of their character, translate these traits into...
Curated OER
Reading Study Guide: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Meant for use with Maya Angelou's first autobiographical volume I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, the materials here are designed for a homeschool setting, but they'd suit any classroom or text. Graphic organizers, chapter summary guides,...
Curated OER
Semantic Feature Analysis Chart: The Outsiders
Cool! Do you ned a way to increase vocabulary development and study a story's characters? What a great idea. Use this semantic analysis chart to study new vocabulary and the characters that appear in The Outsiders. You could also use...
Curated OER
Aunt Isabel Tells a Good One...
Explore language arts by reading two similar stories in order to compare and contrast them in class. Young readers read two Aunt Isabel books, by Kate Duke, and discuss the main characters, plot, and setting. They complete a graphic...
Curated OER
Descriptive Writing Using the Book Rumpelstiltskin
Use the fairy tale Rumpelstiltskin to teach your third grade class about descriptive writing. Following a teacher read-aloud of the story, the class brainstorms a list of adjectives describing the main character. Students use this list...
Curated OER
My Hero Story Scramble
Use websites to read stories about heroes. The "My Hero" website provides skills and reading materials to help your class analyze sequence and story parts. They put the events in order to show the correct sequence of events.
Curated OER
I Am An Author
Analyze and interpret a literary work your class has read during the course. After reading a variety of literary works, middle schoolers alter the ending of a selection by creating an alternate ending. They generate five comprehension...
Curated OER
Build a Connection
Learners discuss their personal connections with stories they've read in the past and identify techniques to connect with more stories. They create illustrations, construct task cards, and complete sentence stems based on books they read...
Curated OER
Language Practice
The simple instructional techniques described in this plan will help young readers learn and practice basic reading skills and strategies. Before reading, introduce your readers to the meaning of main character, setting, and plot. Then...
Curated OER
Because of Winn-Dixie
Readers analyze an excerpt from Kate DiCamillo's novel Because of Winn-Dixie. They read silently, and then hear it read aloud. Definitions for underlined vocabulary words are in the margin, and other potentially difficult words are in...
Curated OER
Philanthropy in A Christmas Carol
Students explore philanthropy in literature. In this cross curriculum literacy and character development instructional activity, students read A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens and note charitable acts described in the story. Students...
Leading Learner
Using Music to Tell a Story or Describe a Scene
Young composers demonstrate their understanding of the stylistic features of descriptive music, including pitch, tempo, dynamics, rhythm, and timbre, by developing a melody and countermelody for a main character in a story. As part of...
Curated OER
Analyzing the Use of Irony in a Short Story
Ninth graders examine how literature connects to real-life and see how irony aids in the development of theme. They read Shirley Jackson's The Lottery, and discuss elements of foreshadowing and situational irony. Then learners will write...
National Endowment for the Humanities
Mark Twain and American Humor
“The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” is famous, in part, because it established a uniquely American form of humor. For this famous story, Mark Twain combines the tall-tale, the dialect story, and satire. Here is a resource...
Curated OER
The Outsiders Project Guide
Hand out these project ideas when working with The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton. Pupils can choose from six different options or propose their own. The idea is that they will complete more than one project to meet the point requirement. The...
Southern Nevada Regional Professional Development Program
“Tell Me a Story”: Moving from Reading to Writing
Narrative essay writing is the focus of a series of exercises that model for learners how to not only read a narrative, but how to also examine the techniques fiction writers use to create a setting, develop their characters, represent...
Curated OER
Write a Round-Robin Story
Students discover the elements of a story (introduction, plot, climax, resolution, denouement). In groups of five, one student writes an introduction and passes it to the next person, who writes the plot and passes it to the next person,...
Appalachian State University
The Fault in Our Stars: A Movie Study Guide for Eighth Grade Language Arts, Social Studies, and Science
How would you spend your last days with a loved one? The movie guide for The Fault in Our Stars prompts scholars to compare important scenes from the novel to the film and contains background information about the author, guided...
Orange County Department of Education
The Glass Slipper Shatters
High school freshmen craft their own definition of honesty. They provide an example from their lives and reflect on the outcomes of their honest behavior. They also identify a time when they may have been dishonest in a relationship and...
Hawaiʻi State Department of Education
Story Design
Stories contain very specific elements; plot, characters, and key events. Learners use pantomime to retell a key event from the beginning, middle, and end of a story. They discuss setting and character as each group discusses and then...
Curated OER
Interpreting Characters, Setting, Plot, and Theme - The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Disaster
Examine story development and historical disaster with your class. Learners view a video depicting the incidents surrounding The Triangle Shirtwaist Disaster. They use graphic organizers and the Internet to gather enough information to...
Curated OER
Narrative Writing-10 Strategies for Engaging the Reader
Fifth graders discuss what narrative writing represents. In this language arts lesson plan, 5th graders review the ten strategies for engaging reader. Students listen to and read good examples of each strategyand write engaging...
Curated OER
Retell the Story
Students identify bias in books. In this character education lesson, students read a text and discuss any gender or racial bias which may be present. Students retell and rewrite the story in a fair way.
Curated OER
Telling A Story
Students discover that every story has a start, middle and end. In this literature lesson, 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.