Use O. Henry's ubiquitous tale of love and poverty to explore irony. After reading the story, middle schoolers identify examples of all three kinds of irony in the story. With partners, they brainstorm original examples of irony. Then...

Students use the play "Cyrano de Bergerac" to identify and analyze drama vocabulary, literary terms and elements of fiction. They write an original version of scenes from the play and develop a character analysis for the lead.