If your class is reading the historical fiction novel, Out of the Dust, then you are in luck. Here are a few slides that will help you provide historical context for the book, as well as define main characters, setting, symbolism, and...

Use Langston Hughes's poem, "Words Like Freedom," to explore the concepts of freedom and liberty. Learners read the poem, determine the theme, and use the provided graphic organizer to examine the connotative and denotative meanings of...

Are you teaching Modernism to your class? Connect different areas of artistic expression in the Modernist Era. Learners read T.S. Eliot, view art by Pablo Picasso, and listen to a Modernist musical composition. This final assignment is...

The emotional and spiritual oppression of slavery in the African-American experience is the focus of this lesson. Middle schoolers analyze various texts by Frederick Douglass and Maya Angelou related to freedom and oppression....

Students examine the Japanese writing form of Haibun. They identify the elements of Japanese prose and poetry, analyze a haibun for writing devices, complete a graphic organizer, and compose an original haibun as a form of journal keeping.

Third graders learn about Chinese poetry and landscape paintings, then create their own. They view several examples and discuss the elements of each, then paint their own landscape inspired by what they saw. They then listen to, read,...

Young scholars work through a Haiku Organizer to determine the characteristics they use to write eight haiku poems on a theme that they choose. They design presentation folders of their completed work.

Riddle me this! What do kennings, caesura, and alliteration have to do with the Nowell Codex? Introduce class members to Anglo-Saxon poetry and prepare readers for a study of Beowulf with a series of activities that...

One of the Common Core standards requires learners to make connections between literature or media of the past and the present. Provided here, are key elements found in medieval poetry and literature that are connected to several more...

Eighth graders read act 1 scenes 1 & 2 of the play Diary of Anne Frank. In this Diary of Anne Frank lesson plan, 8th graders discuss how the setting of the play affects the mood of the story and answer short answer questions.

Pair the famous poems "I Hear America Singing," by Walt Whitman, and "I, Too, Sing America," by Langston Hughes, with a more recent poem by Elizabeth Alexander called "Praise Song for the Day" to demonstrate a theme and introduce your...

Scholars are introduced to the characteristics of a legend. They read and discuss Old Father Story Teller by Pablita Velarde. Then, in groups, they write and illustrate a poem based on one of the legends from the book. This lesson plan...

Introduce your middle schoolers to the lives of past Native Americans. First, learners work together to put photographs in a sequence. Then, using their sequence, they create stories to share with the whole class. No matter how old your...

Seventh graders read a book of poems called "Out of the Dust". In groups, they research the Dust Bowl and how it affected people living through the Great Depression. Using the text, they identify the theme and key turning points and...

High schoolers discover the ideas of enlightenment by reading historical poetry. In this philosophical lesson plan, students read poems by Sir Walter Scott and Sergeant Joyce Kilmer while discussing the themes of the writing with...

Learners analyze the epic poem form and its roots in oral tradition. In this epic poetry lesson, students research the epic hero cycle and recognize the pattern of events and elements. Learners analyze the patterns embedded in the stories.

"Rikki-Tikki-Tavi," from The Jungle Book, offers young readers a chance to examine how Rudyard Kipling uses setting and personification to bring to life the brave mongoose who battles cobras to protect his family. Class members...

A speaker, a message, an audience. After analyzing these elements in Queen Elizabeth's speech to the troops at Tilbury, groups analyze how other speakers use an awareness of events, and their audience to craft their arguments....

Students make their own Statue of Liberty. In this Statue of Liberty lesson plan, students research the symbol of the United States, create a KWL chart for it, and cut and paste their own Statue of Liberty.

Students explore language arts by reading and reflecting on literary examples. In this fiction writing lesson plan, students read several different cultural versions of the story "Cinderella" and discuss their interaction with the story...

Young scholars explore reasons that people immigrate to the United States. In this Statue of Liberty lesson, students read a handout regarding immigration, analyze the poem, "The New Colossus," and complete the provided worksheet...

As part of their exploration of the American dream, class members examine primary source materials to compare immigrant experiences of those arriving early in our country's history to those arriving in the US after World War...

Did you know that modern Chinese literature “grew from the psychoanalytical theory of Sigmund Freud”? Designed for a world literature class, seniors are introduced to “One Evening in the Rainy Season,” Shi Zhecun’s stream of...

After learning the main ideas of the Decadent movement, learners work in small groups to read and translate poems by the French poet Charles Baudelaire using basic etymology skills. They then read the accurate English translations to see...