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TITLE	ABSTRACT	GRADE	DATE
A “Brief, Urgent Message”: Theme in Slaughterhouse-Five	As a culminating activity for Slaughterhouse-Five, students make a compilation album (a CD with 6–8 tracks) that reflects their analysis, understanding, and reaction to the ideas in Slaughterhouse-Five. Based on discussions of the “Tralfamadorian” view of literature, each song on the compilation is approached as a “brief, urgent message” about the work.	9-12	5/1/09
A Biography Study: Using Role-Play to Explore Authors' Lives	In this lesson, eleventh-grade students read biographies and explore websites of selected American authors. They collaborate in teams to design creative projects and role-play as the authors in a panel presentation. They then synthesize their knowledge into essays about their authors.	9-12	2/12/09
A Collaboration of Sites and Sounds: Using Wikis to Catalog Protest Songs	The inherently collaborative nature of wikis—online writing spaces that allow users to freely access and edit content—provides educators with a powerful tool to teach collaborative writing and new media. In this lesson, students work in small groups to catalog protest songs in a class wiki.	9-12	5/13/09
A Harlem Renaissance Retrospective: Connecting Art, Music, Dance, and Poetry	The Harlem Renaissance was a vibrant time that was characterized by innovations in art, literature, music, poetry, and dance. In this lesson, students work in collaborative groups to conduct Internet research and create a museum exhibit that highlights the work of selected artists, musicians, and poets of the Harlem Renaissance.	9-12	5/1/09
A High-Interest Novel Helps Struggling Readers Confront Bullying in Schools	Reading The Bully—a novel that should be especially appealing to struggling or reluctant readers—students will better understand the bully, the bullied, and the bystander. Students will use reading strategies such as literary analysis, T-charts, Readers Theatre, and reflective journals to help improve fluency and comprehension.	9-12	10/14/09
A Poem of Possibilities: Thinking about the Future	Though teenagers are known for living in the “now,” they can easily be persuaded to ponder the future—especially when it’s their own future that they’re asked to imagine. Inspired by John Updike’s poem “Ex-Basketball Player,” students write poems or prose poems intended for a real audience—themselves, five years in the future.	9-12	4/8/09
A Significant Influence: Describing an Important Teacher in Your Life	All of us have had a teacher who has made a profound difference in our lives, like Morrie in Tuesdays with Morrie or John Keating in Dead Poets Society. In this project, students write a tribute to such a teacher then publish their work in a class collection. Because college application essays often ask students to write about a significant influence, the lesson’s extensions include resources for writing more traditional, formal papers.	9-12	9/28/09
All’s Well that Sells Well: A Creative Introduction to Shakespeare	This pre-reading activity for Romeo and Juliet or any other play by William Shakespeare compares attending a performance at The Globe Theater to viewing a play on Broadway or seeing a movie at a local theater. It invokes critical inquiry and promotes engagement as students complete a project that contrasts life in the 1600s with products and conveniences available today.	9-12	3/8/09
An Exploration of Romanticism Through Art and Poetry	In this lesson students are introduced to the characteristics of Romanticism through classroom discussion. They use visual literary skills to analyze a work of art and explore its Romantic characteristics. Students then deepen their understanding of Romanticism by analyzing a poem by Wordsworth using the TP-CASTT method and identifying the poem’s Romantic characteristics. As a culminating activity, students write an essay that demonstrates their understanding of Romanticism.	9-12	3/30/09
An Introduction to Beowulf: Language and Poetics	While Beowulf is generally considered the earliest major work of English poetry, it is almost always taught in translation and its verse form and poetic techniques are often unfamiliar. This lesson provides an introduction to the language and poetics of the poem.	9-12	11/20/08
Analyzing and Comparing Medieval and Modern Ballads	Invite students to explore the genre of ballads by reading medieval ballads to deduce their characteristics, acting out the ballads, comparing the medieval and modern ballads using Venn diagrams, and ultimately composing their own ballads.	9-12	2/15/08
Analyzing Character Development in Three Short Stories About Women	While reading about women who break from their traditional roles, students use comprehension tools to analyze similarities and differences among characters in three different short stories. This lesson fosters critical thinking and discussions about the influence of society’s expectations on a writer’s character development.	9-12	2/25/09
Analyzing Character in Hamlet through Epitaphs	Students compose epitaphs for characters in Hamlet, paying attention to how their words appeal to the senses, create imagery, suggest mood, and set tone. Using poster board, the students design gravestones that capture the essence of their characters and reflect the themes that support the personality and station in life of the characters they have chosen. The lesson can be easily adapted for other tragedies.	9-12	11/19/08
Analyzing Grammar Pet Peeves	This lesson uses a Dear Abby column to help students analyze a “grammar rant.” Through their analysis of Dear Abby’s grammar pet peeves, students become aware of the ranter’s language biases and gain an understanding of how race, class, and audience’s expectations help determine what is considered acceptable language use.	9-12	12/8/08
Analyzing Symbolism, Plot, and Theme in Death and the Miser	Encourage students to transfer the analytical skills that they use when reading literature to other modalities through an exploration of the underlying meaning and symbolism in the early Renaissance painting Death and the Miser by Hieronymous Bosch.	9-12	4/20/05
Analyzing the Purpose and Meaning of Political Cartoons	This lesson invites students in grades 9–12 to evaluate political cartoons for their meaning, message, and persuasiveness.	9-12	9/23/09
Analyzing the Stylistic Choices of Political Cartoonists	Students explore and analyze the techniques that political (or editorial) cartoonists use and draw conclusions about why the cartoonists choose those techniques to communicate their messages.	9-12	9/29/09
And I Quote: A Punctuation Proofreading Mini-lesson	This lesson plan reviews the basic conventions for using quotations from works of literature or references from a research project, focusing on accurate punctuation and page layout. After discussing the rules and analyzing their use in sample passages, students apply the conventions to their texts.	9-12	3/9/09
And the Question Is... Evaluating the Validity of a Survey	By analyzing survey questions and results, students exercise critical thinking skills needed for media literacy and research.	9-12	8/8/07
And the Question Is... Writing Good Survey Questions	Students are introduced to asking questions as a vital part of the research process and everyday life. They practice this skill through a group-based activity in which they analyze and create questions for a survey on reading habits.	9-12	8/8/07
Argument, Persuasion, or Propaganda? Analyzing World War II Posters	In this lesson plan, students analyze World War II posters to explore how argument, persuasion, and propaganda differ. The lesson begins with a full-class exploration of the famous “I WANT YOU FOR U.S. ARMY” poster, featuring a determined Uncle Sam, and progresses to a more detailed analysis of a specific World War II poster chosen from an online collection.	9-12	11/20/08
Assessing Cultural Relevance: Exploring Personal Connections to a Text	As a class, students evaluate a nonfiction or realistic fiction text for its cultural relevance to themselves personally and as a group. After completing this full-class activity, students search for additional, relevant texts; each choose one; and write reviews of the texts that they choose. Students are highly encouraged to identify a text that is personally relevant to themselves and their peers. This lesson is an especially powerful choice for English language learners.	9-12	8/17/09
Audio Broadcasts and Podcasts: Oral Storytelling and Dramatization	Audio broadcasts provide an individualized experience for listeners, who create mental images to accompany the words and sounds they hear. Orson Welles’ broadcast of H. G. Wells’ War of the Worlds in October 1938 provides perhaps the most well-known example of listeners’ imaginations leading to a very vivid experience. After exploring Welles’ broadcast, students create criteria for effective audio dramatizations and then compose their own dramatization of a scene from a recent reading.	9-12	5/2/08
Audio Listening Practices: Exploring Personal Experiences with Audio Texts	This lesson plan asks students to explore the ways that audio texts play a role in their lives. Students keep a daily diary that records how and when they listen to audio texts, such as radio, streaming media, songs on MP3 players, and podcasts. Students then analyze the details and compare their results to published reports on American radio listeners. They conclude by reflecting on their findings and writing a final statement on their audio literacy practices and interests.	9-12	10/15/08
Authentic Persuasive Writing to Promote Summer Reading	Devote time during your last weeks of school to promote summer reading by inviting students to create brochures and flyers that suggest books and genres to explore during the summer months. This lesson can be customized to focus on another time of year or specific focus.	9-12	7/1/09
Avoiding Sexist Language by Using Gender-Fair Pronouns	In this lesson plan, students write a response to a short prompt which includes no information about the participants' gender. Once the writing is complete, students and teacher analyze the narratives for the use of pronouns and what the pronoun choices reveal about language use.	9-12	11/19/08
Become a Character: Adjectives, Character Traits, and Perspective	In this activity, students "become" one of the major characters in a book and describe themselves and other characters, using Internet reference tools to compile lists of accurate, powerful adjectives. In class discussion, students support their lists with details from the novel.	9-12	2/15/08
Behind the Masks: Exploring Culture and Self Through Art and Poetry	In this integrated unit of study, a teacher librarian pairs with an art teacher to introduce high school students to mask making around the world. Students research various cultures, make cultural and personal masks, and compose poetry to reveal the meaning behind their masks.	9-12	2/12/09
Beyond “What I Did on Vacation”: Exploring the Genre of Travel Writing	This lesson introduces the genre of travel writing. Students read and then write travel articles as a way of going beyond simple personal narrative.	9-12	8/16/07
Bio-graph: Graphing Life Events	This writing activity integrates mathematical graphing with writing and can be used to generate a number of different kinds of writing activities, but lends itself well to biographical and narrative writing. Students interview other students, choose significant life events, rate them, graph them, and write about one or more.	9-12	3/20/07
Blogging With Photovoice: Sharing Pictures in an Integrated Classroom	Make the most of your students’ diverse ability levels and experience in a prewriting activity that has them describe an abstract idea using blogging technology and photographs that they have taken.	9-12	2/13/09
Blogtopia: Blogging about Your Own Utopia	Students work together to create their own utopias, using blogs as the primary source of publication.	9-12	11/25/08
Book Report Alternative: Characters for Hire! Studying Character in Drama	Students track one character throughout a play (in this lesson, a Shakespearean drama) to determine the character’s education, skills, extracurricular activities, previous employment, and possible references in order to create a resume for that character.	9-12	3/11/09
Brave New Words: Novice Lexicography and the Oxford English Dictionary	Students will become novice lexicographers as they explore recent new entries to the dictionary, learn the process of writing entries for the Oxford English Dictionary, and write a new entry themselves.	9-12	9/11/09
Brochures: Writing for Audience and Purpose	Using this lesson plan, students create informative brochures that combine visual and verbal texts effectively, improving their ability to interpret other texts they encounter that combine graphics with writing. Additionally, students learn strategies for addressing audience and purpose that transfer into writing for other purposes and audiences.	9-12	11/18/08
Building Vietnam War Scavenger Hunts through Web-Based Inquiry	After or while reading any book about Vietnam, students research the effects of the war on a specific group of people who were involved (e.g., nurses, soldiers, protesters) using the Internet then create Internet scavenger hunts that are then shared with the rest of the class.	9-12	1/27/09
Censorship in the Classroom: Understanding Controversial Issues	In this lesson, students examine media bias and propaganda, and explore the reasons for censorship of controversial books. Using this information, students create an advertising campaign promoting their position for reading or banning books.	9-12	8/17/09
Choose, Select, Opt, or Settle: Exploring Word Choice in Poetry	Students use an online tool to investigate the effects of word choice in Robert Frost’s “Choose Something Like a Star.” The results of the investigation allow them to construct a more sophisticated understanding of speaker, subject, and tone.	9-12	8/30/09
Choosing the Best Verb: An Active and Passive Voice Mini-Lesson	For most students, speech and informal writing flow naturally. When it comes to more formal writing, however, students frequently choose passive voice constructions because to them, the verbs sound more academic or more formal. This mini-lesson explores verb choice in a variety of online resources then encourages students to draw conclusions about verb use which they can apply to their own writing.	9-12	12/8/08
Comic Makeovers: Examining Race, Class, Ethnicity, and Gender in the Media	Students explore representations of race, class, ethnicity, and gender by analyzing comics over a two-week period and then re-envisioning them with a "comic character makeover." This activity leads to greater awareness of the stereotypes in the media and urges students to form more realistic visions as they perform their makeovers.	9-12	3/16/09
Communicating on Local Issues: Exploring Audience in Persuasive Letter Writing	Students will research a local issue of personal concern to them then write letters to two different audiences that ask readers to take a related action or adopt a specific position on the issue.	9-12	3/30/06
Comparing a Literary Work to Its Film Interpretation	Students read an original piece of literature and view its film interpretation to compare the two works. They then write a persuasive essay about the validity of the adaptation.	9-12	2/13/07
Connecting Past and Present: A Local Research Project	Students connect to their school’s history by researching one decade of the school’s past. Through their research, students will become archivists, gathering photos, artifacts, and stories. As a culminating activity, students create museum exhibits displaying all the found items for their decade.	9-12	11/18/08
Connotation, Character, and Color Imagery in The Great Gatsby	Students explore the connotations of the colors associated with the characters in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby by tracking color imagery in the novel and then writing a character analysis based on their findings. The lesson includes a discussion of connotation and denotation as well as discussion of cultural influences on connotation.	9-12	7/16/09
Constructing New Understanding Through Choral Readings of Shakespeare	After reading The Tempest or any other play by William Shakespeare, students work in small groups to plan, compose, and perform a choral reading based on a character or theme.	9-12	3/9/09
Copyright Infringement or Not? The Debate over Downloading Music	Students discuss their own experiences and conduct further research on the controversial topic of sharing music and other audio content on the Internet. Based on their research, students take a stand on the controversy and develop persuasive arguments on their position that they present in a class debate on the subject of downloading.	9-12	3/5/09
Creating Psychological Profiles of Characters in To Kill a Mockingbird	This lesson asks students to explore the motivation behind characters’ actions. After reading To Kill A Mockingbird, groups of students create psychological profiles for characters from the novel, determining what specific factors (such as family, career, environment, and so forth) have the greatest influences on the characters’ decision making throughout the novel.	9-12	10/14/09
Creating Better Presentation Slides through Glance Media and Billboard Design	This lesson introduces the concept of “glance media” through an analysis of billboards. Students apply design concepts by creating a slide presentation to accompany an existing historical speech.	9-12	6/10/09
Creating Character Blogs	Character blogs give students the opportunity to combine their creativity, analytical prowess, and love for the Internet. In this lesson, students learn what goes into building a good blog and then create one for a fictional character.	9-12	7/16/09
Creative Outlining—From Freewriting to Formalizing	In this lesson students respond to a short story by freewriting. They then determine a thesis idea for a literary analysis essay from their body of freewriting and create an outline for an original essay.	9-12	11/18/08
Critical Literacy: Women in 19th-Century Literature	Thoughtful exploration of two short 19th-century texts introduces questions of critical literacy: What is the position of the writer and what is the intended audience for a literary work?	9-12	8/17/09
Critical Reading: Two Stories, Two Authors, Same Plot?	In this lesson, students read two short stories with the same title ("The Luncheon") that have been written by two famous authors. Students compare and analyze both stories to find differences and similarities among the characters and the plot and draw conclusions as literary critics.	9-12	6/26/07
Decoding The Matrix: Exploring Dystopian Characteristics through Film	This lesson uses film clips from The Matrix and other dystopian movies to introduce students to the characteristics found in dystopian works, such as Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451, and 1984.	9-12	4/3/06
Decoding the Dystopian Characteristics of Macintosh’s “1984” Commercial	This lesson uses the “1984” Macintosh Commercial to introduce students to the dystopian characteristics. Students analyze the techniques used in the commercial and identify the comments that it makes about contemporary society.	9-12	3/6/08
Defining Literacy in a Digital World	Through listing and observation, students identify the many texts that they read and compose —including books and magazines, television shows, movies, audio broadcasts, hypertexts, and animations. By creating an inventory of personal texts, students begin to consciously recognize the many literacy demands in contemporary society. With this start, they create a working definition of literacy that they refine and explore further as the term continues.	9-12	3/16/09
Designing Effective Poster Presentations	Students explore the genre of posters, review informational writing and visual design, and then design poster presentations to share in class or at a school-wide fair.	9-12	11/18/08
Designing Museum Exhibits for The Grapes of Wrath: A Multigenre Project	Using The Grapes of Wrath as a backdrop, students conduct research on issues that the novel addresses, publishing their findings in a multigenre museum exhibit.	9-12	9/16/09
Developing Characterization in Raymond Carver’s “A Small, Good Thing”	Raymond Carver includes several static characters in his short story “A Small, Good Thing.” After reading the story, students analyze the major characters and then create an episode that develops characteristics for the little-known hit-and-run driver who causes Scotty’s death.	9-12	2/15/08
Discovering a Passion for Poetry With Langston Hughes	Much like today's youth, poetry can bundle a great deal of passion in a small package. Through close readings and historical research of select poems by Langston Hughes, students identify, illustrate, and present connections between an author's time and place in history and his writings.	9-12	12/8/08
Discovering Poetic Form and Structure Using Concrete Poems	This lesson uses concrete poems, which relate the placement of the words on the page to the meaning of the poem, to explore the connection between a poem's layout and its meaning. While an enjoyable activity any time of year, the lesson is especially topical near Columbus Day.	9-12	11/19/08
Discovering Traditional Sonnet Forms	In this introductory lesson, students read various sonnets, charting the basic characteristics of the poem and using their observations to deduce traditional sonnet forms. After this introduction, students write original sonnets, using one of the poems they have analyzed as a model.	9-12	11/10/08
Draft Letters: Improving Student Writing through Critical Thinking	Draft letters asks students to think critically about their writing on a specific assignment before submitting their work to a reader. This lesson explains the strategy and provides models for the project, which can be adapted for any grade level and any writing project.	9-12	3/8/06
Ekphrasis: Using Art to Inspire Poetry	This lesson explores the concept of ekphrasis—writing inspired by art. Students begin by reading and discussing examples of poetry inspired by art. Students then search online for pieces of art that inspire them and, in turn, compose a booklet of poems about the pieces they have chosen.	9-12	9/24/07
Examining Transcendentalism through Popular Culture	Using excerpts from the works of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, comics, and songs from different musical genres, students examine the characteristics of transcendentalism. In the course of their exploration, students use multiple genres to interpret social commentaries, to make connections among works they've studied in class, and to develop their own views on the subjects of individualism, nature, and passive resistance.	9-12	5/1/09
Exploring Audience and Purpose with a Single Issue	Students explore the rhetorical concept of audience and purpose by focusing on an issue that divided Americans in 1925, the debate of evolution versus creationism raised by the Scopes Monkey Trial. Students analyze the audience and purpose of at least one resource on the debate and then consider how audience and purpose might shape other communication on the issue.	9-12	10/14/09
Exploring Consumerism Where Ads and Art Intersect	Advertisements and art send both implicit and explicit messages to their viewers. This lesson encourages middle and high school students to become critical readers of visual texts through observation, discussion, and the creation of their own artwork.	9-12	7/1/08
Exploring Cross-Age Tutoring Activities With Lewis and Clark	In this lesson, cross-age tutoring is a catalyst for interaction between high school and elementary students as they explore the journey of Lewis and Clark. Using the book How We Crossed the West and online interactive activities, students synthesize knowledge from collaborative sessions to write and share adventure stories.	9-12	7/19/07
Exploring Disability Using Multimedia and the B-D-A Reading Strategy	In this lesson, students apply the B-D-A (before-during-after) reading comprehension strategy as they explore varied aspects of disability by investigating rich, interactive multimedia resources. Students participate in prereading, during reading, and postreading comprehension monitoring activities as they make predictions, take notes, summarize, and state main ideas.	9-12	7/10/08
Exploring Irony in the Conclusion of All Quiet on the Western Front	After reading All Quiet on the Western Front, students discuss the novel’s two-paragraph, ironic ending, which repeats the book’s title. They will then compose alternate titles and endings for the book, modeled on the original, and design new book covers that features their new titles.	9-12	3/22/07
Exploring Language and Identity: Amy Tan’s “Mother Tongue” and Beyond	The interrelationship of language, identity, and power opens up discussions that are important to both the individual and the larger community. By exploring the relationship between language and identity in Amy Tan’s essay, students increase their awareness of language in their family, home, peer, and work communities. Students explore fiction and nonfiction texts and write literacy narratives as a part of their exploration.	9-12	5/1/09
Exploring Literacy in Cyberspace	This lesson introduces students to the concept of intermediality—the ability to critically read and write across varied symbol systems—to help them broaden their notions of texts and literacies. Students will read print articles and online texts, and record their active reading responses to reflect their different reading experiences.	9-12	9/27/07
Exploring Literature through Letter-Writing Groups	This lesson asks students to discuss literature through a series of letter exchanges. It can be used as a one-time assignment in conjunction with any work of literature or it can be used throughout the year with the students discussing, and even making connections among, a number of literary works.	9-12	12/8/08
Exploring Satire with Shrek	The movie Shrek, which satirizes fairy tale traditions, serves as an introduction to the satirical techniques of exaggeration, incongruity, reversal, and parody. Students brainstorm fairy tale characteristics, identify the satirical techniques used to present them in the movie, then create their own satirical versions of fairy tales.	9-12	11/20/08
Exploring Satire with The Simpsons	Students identify the techniques of satire (exaggeration, incongruity, reversal, and parody) through an analysis of visual examples of the television show, The Simpsons, and from the show’s Web site. The lesson includes extensions that focus on writing analysis of a complete episode of the cartoon and writing an original satirical piece.	9-12	12/9/08
Exploring Setting: Constructing Character, Point of View, Atmosphere, and Theme	This lesson uses canonical and non-canonical texts by Dybek, Dickens, Poe, and Morrison to help students understand how authors use language to create setting and, in turn, how setting constructs other elements in a literary work. The lesson offers extension opportunities through formal essays, film reviews, and poetry analysis.	9-12	2/4/09
Exploring the Power of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Words through Diamante Poetry	Encourage your students to explore the ways that powerful and passionate words communicate the concepts of freedom, justice, discrimination, and the American Dream in Martin Luther King, Jr.’s "I Have a Dream" speech by paying attention to the details of King's speech as they read and as they gather words to use in their own original poems.	9-12	8/27/09
Family Memoir: Getting Acquainted With Generations Before Us	Creating a memoir of a family member who is at least a generation older than they are allows students both to learn more about their own backgrounds and to learn the power of storytellers. After all, memoirs are at least as much about the writer as they are about the subject.	9-12	11/9/06
Finding Common Ground: Using Logical, Audience-Specific Arguments	Using a hypothetical situation, students generate arguments from opposing points of view, discover areas of commonality through the use of Venn diagrams, and construct logical, audience-specific arguments in order to persuade their opponents. Students also have an opportunity to role-play with classmates in order to refine their arguments.	9-12	3/1/06
Finding Poetry in Prose: Reading and Writing Love Poems	After reading several poems that expand the definition of love poetry, students compose found poems based on a personal memoir—either their own reminisces or a love story of another writer.	9-12	12/8/08
Focus on First Lines: Increasing Comprehension through Prediction Strategies	At the beginning of a course or unit, students examine opening sentences from texts that they will read completely in later sessions. Students make predictions about the texts then return to their predictions throughout the course or unit to talk about the prediction strategy and to increase reading comprehension.	9-12	3/20/07
Freedom of Speech and Automatic Language: Examining the Pledge of Allegiance	Most students in American classrooms know the words to the U.S. Pledge of Allegiance. The words are a kind of automatic language. We say them easily—perhaps every day, but we may not think in detail about what we are saying. This lesson plan asks students to explore this rote learning and their own right to freedom of speech by examining the Pledge of Allegiance from a historical and personal perspective and in relationship to fictional situations in novels they have read.	9-12	3/6/08
From Dr. Seuss to Jonathan Swift: Exploring the History behind the Satire	After exploring the historical allusions behind Dr. Seuss’s The Butter Battle Book, the whole class discusses the history behind a passage from Gulliver’s Travels. After this group exploration, students research further historical allusions in Swift’s work and share their findings with the class.	9-12	12/13/07
From Friedan Forward—Considering a Feminist Perspective	Plato wrote, “You are young . . . time will change and even reverse many of your present opinions.” This lesson tests that maxim through an exploration of feminism. Students write letters expressing personal views on issues like equal pay, equal education/employment opportunity, and gender roles—and receive these letters six years later.	9-12	4/17/06
Gaining Background for the Graphic Novel Persepolis: A WebQuest on Iran	To prepare students for reading the graphic novel Persepolis, this lesson uses a WebQuest to focus students’ research efforts on finding reliable information about Iran before and during the Islamic Revolution. In groups, students research and then present information on aspects of Iran such as politics, religion, and culture.	9-12	3/11/09
Ghosts and Fear in Language Arts: Exploring the Ways Writers Scare Readers	What is scary, and why does it fascinate us? How do writers and storytellers scare us? This lesson plan invites students to answer these questions by exploring their own scary stories and scary short stories and books. The lesson culminates in a Fright Fair, where students share scary projects that they have created, including posters, multimedia projects, and creative writing.	9-12	11/19/08
Giving Voice to Students Through “This I Believe” Podcasts	Have students explore what is most important to them using the format of the popular National Public Radio “This I Believe” series. Designed specifically for disabled students but easily modified for use in inclusive classrooms, this lesson has students create essays that they post as podcasts on a class webpage.	9-12	11/18/08
Graffiti Wall: Discussing and Responding to Literature Using Graphics	Students respond to literature in a variety of ways. Here teachers can tap the students' desire to doodle and draw by having them create a Graffiti Wall, using graphics to discuss a piece of literature that they have read in common. After doing both group and individual activities, students write essays analyzing some element of their novel.	9-12	10/12/06
Happily Ever After? Exploring Character, Conflict, and Plot in Dramatic Tragedy	Students can typically forecast the horrible ending in a tragedy, based on the decisions that the characters make. By exploring the decisions points in a tragedy, this lesson plan asks students to consider how the plot of the story can change if the key characters make a different choice at the turning point. Students identify the turning point, alter the decision that the characters make, and predict the characters’ actions throughout the rest of the now-altered play.	9-12	11/19/08
Having My Say: A Multigenre Autobiography Project	Students will read Having Our Say, the autobiography of two African-American women who lived through most of the twentieth century. Using this text as a model, students will produce a multigenre project that includes an autobiographical essay and an informational piece that provides historical, familial, or cultural context for their story.	9-12	5/9/08
Help Wanted: Writing Professional Resumes	Learning how to list one’s experiences on paper is only part of creating a resume. Students also need to see the resume as a professional document that follows certain rhetorical and format conventions. In this lesson, students will learn to create a beginning resume that represents their current work experience and demonstrates their knowledge of rhetorical situations for professional writing.	9-12	8/3/09
Heroes Are Made of This: Studying the Character of Heroes	Using a variety of individual and group activities, students will analyze the complex ways in which authors use characterization to present and explore heroism and the heroic.	9-12	8/17/09
Hoax or No Hoax? Strategies for Online Comprehension and Evaluation	Using research-based online reading comprehension strategies and website evaluation tools, students explore hoax websites to determine their validity. Students then outline their own hoax websites.	9-12	7/1/09
I Remember That Book: Rereading as a Critical Investigation	Secondary students often resist reading assignments or don’t read with the verve their teachers might wish for. One way to confront this resistance to reading is to draw it out in the open and explore students’ histories as readers.	9-12	11/26/08
I've Got the Literacy Blues	In this lesson, students read "The Gift of the Magi" by O. Henry and explore the story's themes using blues music, creative writing, and media study. They then create a graphic organizer, write blues poetry, and create a mural to showcase what they have learned.	9-12	11/16/06
Id, Ego, and Superego in Dr. Seuss’s Cat in the Hat	Children’s literature provides a great introduction to literary analysis in this lesson, which uses The Cat in the Hat as a primer to teach students how to analyze a literary work using the literary tools of plot, theme, characterization, and psychoanalytical criticism.	9-12	12/9/08
Identifying and Understanding the Fallacies Used in Advertising	Learning to spot a deliberately misleading advertisement can be challenging to students who are unaware of such manipulations. In this lesson, students develop an understanding of how fallacies are used in advertising. Through multimedia presentations, students exhibit and construct an argument to defend their understanding of fallacies.	9-12	2/12/09
If a Body Texts a Body: Texting in The Catcher in the Rye	Students imagine the possibilities afforded by text messaging technology in The Catcher in the Rye. They compare and contrast major forms of communication, select points in the novel to represent with text messages, and share and discuss their creative work.	9-12	7/1/09
In Literature, Interpretation is the Thing	"I disagree, that was terrible!" How often have you heard a similar statement from students about a play, poem, or novel? By examining critical material and authorial intent, students can move beyond such subjective comments into deeper understanding and reflection about literature, even that which is culturally and historically distant.	9-12	2/12/09
In the Style of Ernie Pyle: Reporting on World War II	This lesson has high school students use the Internet to enhance their study of World War II and encourages them to model their writing on that of Ernie Pyle, a respected war reporter from that era.	9-12	11/21/08
Inclusive Stories: Teaching About Disabilities With Picture Books	This lesson uses picture books, an often-overlooked learning tool at the secondary level, to teach high school students about disabilities and help them discuss differences.	9-12	2/25/09
Is a Sentence a Poem?	Students use their own poetry to analyze syntax, imagery, and meaning in a one-sentence poem by a canonical author to decide what makes it a poem. This exercise encourages students to dissect a poem while making some poetry of their own and defining the characteristics of the genre of poetry.	9-12	12/15/06
It’s My Life: Multimodal Autobiography Project	This lesson allows students to express themselves verbally, visually, and musically by creating multimodal autobiographies. Students benefit from the open exchange of ideas with other students and share important events in their lives through a PowerPoint presentation.	9-12	11/18/08
Joining the Conversation about Young Adult Literature	Students create a persuasive case calling for the adoption of a particular young adult literature title into their school’s language arts curriculum. They then present their argument in the form of a letter or speech addressing school decision-makers such as the English department chair or the language arts curriculum coordinator.	9-12	1/8/09
Judging a Book by its Cover: The Art and Imagery of The Great Gatsby	Francis Cugat’s 1925 cover art for The Great Gatsby and artwork by El Greco mentioned in the novel are the focus of prereading and postreading activities in this lesson plan. Students explore the novel’s allusion to art and its use of visual imagery and conclude their study by designing their own cover for the novel.	9-12	1/31/08
Language and Power in The Handmaid’s Tale and the World	Students work in small groups to examine Margaret Atwood’s use of and observations about language in The Handmaid’s Tale. Through this activity, students discover and articulate overarching thematic trends in the book and then can extend their observations about official or political language to examples from their own world.	9-12	5/5/09
Latino Poetry Blog: Blogging as a Forum for Open Discussion	Using a blog as a forum for open discussion, students engage in online interaction about Latino poetry. Students spend time analyzing their poem and then post their analyses to a class blog. They then comment on each other’s posts, reinforcing literacy skills such as reading, writing, and critical thinking.	9-12	4/14/09
Lights, Camera, Action...Music: Critiquing Films Using Sight and Sound	Teaching students to "read" media other than text is an important skill that helps boost their critical thinking. This lesson introduces students to film literacy by asking them to contrast a scene's visual impact with the music that accompanies it and by then writing their own scene outline.	9-12	2/12/09
Literary Parodies: Exploring a Writer’s Style through Imitation	The popular saying “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery,” coined by Charles Caleb Colton, is the basis for this lesson, which asks students to analyze the features of a poet’s work then create their own poems based on the original model. By exploring sample poems and their parodies, students focus on the language and style of the original writer, all in the process of playing with poetry.	9-12	11/20/08
Literary Scrapbooks Online: An Electronic Reader-Response Project	Students create computer-based scrapbooks, using PowerPoint or a similar program, to extend their understanding of the concepts and ideas represented in a piece of literature. Using teacher-selected Web sites, students search for “scraps” of information that they feel are important to the selected topic then publish their findings in personal scrapbooks.	9-12	9/16/09
Looking for the Byronic Hero Using Twilight's Edward Cullen	Using the character of Edward Cullen from the Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer as an example, this lesson introduces the Byronic hero and allows students to make comparisons between the Byronic hero and definitions of the traditional hero and villain. Students then apply the definition to a character of their choice and extend their learning with a choice of projects.	9-12	7/16/09
Love of War in Tim O’Brien’s “How to Tell a True War Story”	Students explore texts on camaraderie among soldiers as an introduction to the theme of love of war. As a culminating activity, students compose a visual collage depicting their own beliefs about the relationship between love and war.	9-12	11/24/06
Magazine Redux: An Exercise in Critical Literacy	Teachers can use this activity as part of a larger unit on media literacy to help students understand how and why they read and respond to different media forms. This lesson focuses specifically on analyzing the differences between print and online magazines.	9-12	7/1/09
Making Connections to Myth and Folktale: The Many Ways to Rainy Mountain	Following the model of N. Scott Momaday’s The Way To Rainy Mountain, students write three-voice narratives based on Kiowa folktale, an interview with Elder, and personal connection to themes in Momaday’s book or a theme that arises in the folktale or interview. Momaday’s model for remembering and personal involvement in folktales, mythologies, and tales of personal heritage is presented as a key to connecting on a personal level with the stories of one’s past.	9-12	4/14/09
Making It Visual for ELL Students: Teaching History Using Maus	Through the graphic novel Maus, students begin to learn the important historical lessons of the Holocaust. The lesson is appropriate for English-language learners and reluctant readers.	9-12	9/29/09
Manipulating Sentences to Reinforce Grammar Skills	This lesson reviews and reinforces basic grammar skills through authentic instruction. Using any reading material (e.g., novels, textbooks, magazines, online texts), students find sentences and manipulate them to either change the meaning or enhance the intended meaning.	9-12	8/2/07
Many Years Later: Responding to Gwendolyn Brooks’ “We Real Cool”	Students analyze the literary features of Gwendolyn Brooks’ “We Real Cool” and then imagine themselves as one of the characters in the poem many years in the future. Students write a fictional paper that demonstrates how the character’s days in the pool hall influenced who the character is today, nearly fifty years later.	9-12	4/14/09
Modeling Academic Writing Through Scholarly Article Presentations	Through modeling, independent research, and presentation, students will learn and apply critical reading and annotation skills to the genre of the academic essay. In addition to gaining exposure to multiple interpretations of a work, they will embark on a genre study of this advanced essay form.	9-12	3/10/09
Music and Me: Visual Representations of Lyrics to Popular Music	In this lesson, students create a photomontage movie of images based on the lyrics of a self-chosen song. After interpreting the lyrics, students choose digital photos to illustrate their interpretation and decide on an order and any special effects they want to use.	9-12	2/25/09
Myth and Truth: The Gettysburg Address	Did Abraham Lincoln write the Gettysburg Address on the back of an envelope on the train ride from D. C. to Gettysburg? Was the crowd disappointed with his short speech? Did he consider the speech a failiure? By exploring these and other myths, this lesson asks students to explore the “facts” behind this important speech and how history is recorded.	9-12	10/14/09
MyTube: Changing the World With Video Public Service Announcements	Capitalizing on the popularity of self-made videos, this lesson engages students by asking them to create their own public service announcements about social, cultural, economic, and political topics.	9-12	7/23/08
Name That Chapter! Discussing Summary and Interpretation Using Chapter Titles	Students name chapters in novels that they are reading, creating a cumulative list for the novel as they proceed. Sample titles are discussed and debated before the class settles on a choice. In the process, students actively explore reading comprehension, summary, paraphrase, accuracy, and connotation.	9-12	2/26/04
Naming in a Digital World: Creating a Safe Persona on the Internet	To introduce the connotations attached to names, this lesson begins by asking students to explore the origin of their first, middle, and last names. After considering the ways that people in various situations react to names, explore naming conventions in digital and non-digital settings then choose and explain specific names and profiles to represent themselves online.	9-12	4/14/09
Narrative Structure and Perspectives in Toni Morrison's Beloved	Using Toni Morrison’s Beloved as a model text of a work with multiple narrative perspectives, students use a visualizing activity and close reading to consider ways in which subjective values shape contradictory representations of a fictional world.	9-12	4/14/09
Novel News: Broadcast Coverage of Character, Conflict, Resolution, and Setting	This twist on readers theater invites students to prepare original news programs based on incidents in a recent reading. Along the way, students explore standard literary elements of character, conflict, resolution, and setting.	9-12	2/15/08
Onomatopoeia: A Figurative Language Mini-lesson	In this mini-lesson, students are introduced to the literary device of onomatopoeia and explore how the technique adds to a writer’s message. Students examine Edgar Allan Poe’s poem “The Bells,” looking for examples of these “sound words”; then they apply their knowledge to additional poems, other readings, or their own compositions.	9-12	6/28/07
Outside In: Finding A Character’s Heart Through Art	Aristotle wrote, “The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.” This activity, inspired by the paintings of Edward Hopper and complemented with the stories of Raymond Carver, challenges students to get inside contemporary life and characters through the creation of monologues.	9-12	10/28/08
Pairing Fiction With Poetry and Performance	This lesson, which is aimed at second-language learners, improves vocabulary and comprehension using dramatic performances of poetry. Student groups read and discuss novels and poetry before developing a performance poem of their own. On completion, students prepare for a formal presentation.	9-12	2/25/09
Paying Attention to Technology: Exploring a Fictional Technology	Students complete a short survey to establish their beliefs about technology then compare their opinions to the ideas in a novel that depicts technology (such as 1984, Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451, REM World, or Feed). By exploring the fictional technology, students are urged to think more deeply about their own beliefs and to pay attention to the ways that technology is described and used.	9-12	11/19/08
Paying Attention to Technology: Reviewing a Technology	Students profile a familiar technology to create a technology review that explores when and how the technology might be used. The lesson can be used for literary analysis of a text that highlights a particular technology or for the interrogation and evaluation of a specific technology that the student or others use.	9-12	1/27/09
Paying Attention to Technology: Writing Technology Autobiographies	In this lesson plan, students brainstorm lists of their interactions with technology, map these interactions graphically, and then compose narratives of their most significant interactions with technology. By writing these technology autobiographies, students explore what their stories reveal about why we use the technologies we do when we choose to use them.	9-12	3/30/09
Persuading an Audience: Writing Effective Letters to the Editor	Students write a persuasive letter to the editor of a newspaper, focusing on a current local or national issue and requesting a specific action or response.	9-12	12/9/08
Persuading Readers with Endorsement Letters	Students explore the genre of commercial endorsements and then write letters of endorsement for products or services that they use.	9-12	3/16/09
Persuasive Techniques in Advertising	This lesson provides an introduction to persuasive techniques used in advertising: pathos, logos, and ethos. Students will analyze advertising in a variety of sources and explore the concepts of demographics, marketing for a specific audience, and dynamic advertising. The lesson will culminate in the production of commercials intended for a specific demographic.	9-12	5/28/09
Pictures Tell the Story: Improving Comprehension With Persepolis	Graphic novels provide a powerful way for students to study history. This lesson has students explore Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi by learning about cartooning techniques and examining how they work to tell the story of both the main character and the Iranian Revolution.	9-12	2/25/09
Poetry Circles: Generative Writing Loops Help Students Craft Verse	In this lesson, eleventh- and twelfth-grade students engage in poetry writing by using generative writing loops. A type of poetry circle, these writing groups empower students academically, emotionally, and socially as they interact to learn and apply poetic conventions and forms.	9-12	9/6/07
Poetry: Sound and Sense	In this lesson, high school students examine selected poetry and focus on the use of sound devices such as assonance, consonance, and alliteration. After discussion and experimentation, students create original poems using the sound devices they have been studying.	9-12	2/12/09
Preparing a Character for a New Job: Character Analysis through Job Placement	In this lesson, students are counselors working at an employment agency. Their job is to help clients find potential jobs and prepare them for their interviews. In the process of their task, students work in small groups to design a resume for the character as well as a series of potential interview questions and accompanying answers for the character. The examples in this lesson focus on The Glass Menagerie; however, many other pieces of literature will also work for this class	9-12	5/14/08
Preparing for the Journey: An Introduction to the Hero Myth	In this lesson that prepares them to read or view a larger hero myth narrative, students read a variety of picture books that contain elements of the hero’s journey and use an online interactive tool to analyze the stories.	9-12	3/9/09
Propaganda Techniques in Literature and Online Political Ads	In this lesson, students draw conclusions from an analysis of propaganda techniques used in a piece of literature—such as the novel Brave New World, the play The Crucible, or the movie Dr. Strangelove—and political advertisements posted on the Internet. Students also make connections to their own world by looking for examples of propaganda in other media, such as print ads and commercials.	9-12	3/11/09
Put That on the List: Collaboratively Writing a Catalog Poem	The list or catalog poem is the quintessential contemporary poem, used by authors ranging from Walt Whitman to Raymond Carver. Using the structure of the list, students combine creative expression with poetic techniques and language exploration in order to write group poems about what really matters in their lives.	9-12	9/30/08
Put That on the List: Independently Writing a Catalog Poem	In this follow-up to writing collaborative catalog poems, students write individual catalog poems about what really matters in their lives, based on Carver’s poem “The Car.”	9-12	4/14/09
Reaching Across Time: Scaffolded Engagements With a 19th-Century Text	This unit incorporates drama, art, and technology to scaffold students’ reading of Herman Melville’s “Bartleby the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street.”	9-12	9/29/09
Reader Response in Hypertext: Making Personal Connections to Literature	In this lesson plan, students choose four quotations to inspire personal responses a novel that they have read. Students write a narrative of place, a character sketch, an extended metaphor poem and a persuasive essay then link all four texts to the quotations. If desired, students incorporate photos into their presentation then publish the collected texts on their Web site.	9-12	10/14/09
Reading Literature in Translation: Beowulf as a Case Study	Using a number of translations of the same passage of Beowulf, this lesson will introduce students to the idea that translation is not an objective practice, but that it an art that involves an act of “imaginative reconstruction.”	9-12	12/9/08
Recording Readers Theatre: Developing Comprehension and Fluency With Audio Texts	Printed texts are not the only way to share classic literature with students; many websites now include free audio versions as well. What comprehension strategies can be used with audio texts? What makes them interesting? Students investigate these questions as they create Readers Theatre podcasts.	9-12	1/27/09
Renaissance Humanism in Hamlet and The Birth of Venus	After reading Shakespeare’s Hamlet, students use visual and literary tools to identify, analyze, and explain how elements in Botticelli’s painting The Birth of Venus and examples from the play illustrate the philosophy of Renaissance Humanism.	9-12	11/6/06
Review Redux: Introducing Literary Criticism Through Reception Moments	In this lesson, students analyze how societal issues and historic events affect reactions to literature. Students are introduced to literary criticism as one form of reaction and are asked to explore both contemporaneous and current reception of Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun.	9-12	8/17/09
Rummaging for Fiction: Using Found Photographs and Notes to Spark Story Ideas	“I don’t know what to write about!” is a complaint students commonly make when they are asked to write a creative piece. In this lesson, students use found notes and photographs as prompts to help them identify subjects, settings, characters, and conflicts for pieces of creative writing.	9-12	3/6/09
Semicolons and Swift: Analyzing Punctuation and Meaning	Many students see punctuation as only a set of rules, not as a tool that can help them shape meaning in their writing. This lesson encourages students to analyze and use one type of punctuation—semicolons—as a way to enhance meaning.	9-12	10/14/09
Seuss and Silverstein: Posing Questions, Presenting Points	Picture books and short stories by Dr. Seuss and Shel Silverstein are written on an elementary level, yet they contain powerful social and personal messages. In this lesson, high school students work in groups to read a book or short story by Seuss or Silverstein, prepare thought-provoking questions, and lead a class discussion.	9-12	3/6/09
Short Story Fair: Responding to Short Stories in Multiple Media and Genres	In this activity, students read short stories from a collection in small groups then prepare responses in multiple media and genres that are shared in a culminating Short Story Fair. On the days of the fair, the class explores the displays for the short stories, responding to related questions.	9-12	12/8/08
So What Do You Think? Writing a Review	Writing a review of an author’s work challenges students to explore a new genre and to develop their own critical thinking skills. It combines analytical writing with personal reflection, providing an opportunity for students to speak their minds—and to enjoy being heard.	9-12	8/17/09
Sonic Patterns: Exploring Poetic Techniques Through Close Reading	Students will gain a deeper appreciation for the art of poetry as they develop close reading skills connecting sound with sense in the frequently anthologized poem “Those Winter Sundays” and write an original text that reflects their new learning.	9-12	2/27/09
Speaking Poetry: Exploring Sonic Patterns Through Performance	Using their voices as interpretive instruments, students will gain a deeper appreciation of the art of poetry as they prepare a recitation of the frequently anthologized poem “Those Winter Sundays.”	9-12	9/28/09
Spend a Day in My Shoes: Exploring the Role of Perspective in Narrative	In To Kill a Mockingbird, Atticus explains to Scout that "You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view...until you climb into his skin and walk around in it." Make this advice more literal by inviting students to imagine spending a day in someone else's shoes in this writing activity.	9-12	5/28/09
Stairway to Heaven: Examining Metaphor in Popular Music	In this lesson students examine metaphors they find in the lyrics of popular music. Using an interactive graffiti tool, students illustrate and explain the metaphor. The lesson has students make connections between the literary texts they read in the classroom and popular culture texts with which they are already familiar.	9-12	11/19/08
Star-Crossed Lovers Online: Romeo and Juliet for a Digital Age	Explore the modern significance of an older text, such as Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, by asking students to create their own modern interpretation of specific events from the drama. The lesson provides a range of possible projects that students can complete, including writing headline news stories, rewriting dialogue or monologues to include one form of interactive technology, and creating digital artifacts for modern-day versions of the characters from the play.	9-12	7/1/08
Style: Defining and Exploring an Author’s Stylistic Choices	Exploring the use of style in literature helps students understand how language conveys mood, images, and meaning. In this activity, students will find examples of specific stylistic devices in sample literary passages then search for additional examples and explore the reasons for the stylistic choices that the author has made.	9-12	8/17/09
Style: Translating Stylistic Choices from Hawthorne to Hemingway and Back Again	In this activity, students work in small groups to explore the stylistic choices an author makes by translating passages of one author into the style of another, then translating fables into the style of one of the authors they have been reading.	9-12	9/16/09
Teaching Plot Structure through Short Stories	Beginning with a fairy tale that many students are familiar with, this lesson asks students to analyze the plot structure of “Jack and the Beanstalk.” Students then read short stories as a whole class, in small groups, and, finally, individually, analyzing the plot of three different short stories using an online graphic organizer to diagram the structures.	9-12	12/8/08
Teaching Student Annotation: Constructing Meaning Through Connections	Believing that the meaning of text lies in the teacher's notes, not within themselves, students often fail to realize that their experiences and understandings are just as important in constructing meaning. Through annotations, students begin to find ways to make personal connections with text and grow in confidence as they work with text.	9-12	3/19/09
Teaching the Epic through Ghost Stories	Our oral tradition of telling ghost stories, with which most students are familiar, builds a useful bridge to the oral tradition of the ancient epic narrators. In this lesson, students connect to epic storytellers by sharing their own oral tales of ghosts and goblins and monsters.	9-12	11/16/07
That's Not Fair! Examining Civil Liberties With the U.S. Supreme Court	Students work collectively in groups to examine state and federal court cases that pertain to civil liberties. Each group conducts Internet research and creates a PowerPoint presentation to share the details of the case with their classmates and other invited guests.	9-12	11/21/08
The ABCs of Poetry	This exercise works as an introduction to poetry or as a great word warm-up. Students, as a whole class and later as individual authors, examine a letter of the alphabet from all angles (straight-on, upside-down, and side-to-side) creating image pools of original metaphors on the spot.	9-12	7/18/06
The Children’s Picture Book Project	In this lesson students evaluate published children’s picture storybooks. Students then plan, write, illustrate, and publish their own children’s picture books.	9-12	11/3/06
The Comic Book Show and Tell	Students learn about the people involved in making comic books and learn how central the script is to the process. They craft comic book scripts using clear, accurate, descriptive, and detailed writing that shows (illustrates) and tells (directs). After peers create an artistic interpretation of the script, students revise their original scripts.	9-12	1/26/06
The Correspondence Project: A Lesson of Letters	After exploring business and friendly letter formats, students write letters for various audiences and real-world purposes.	9-12	7/20/07
The Feature Story—Fifteen Minutes (and 500 Words) of Fame!	To build connections and community within the classroom, students need to share and celebrate their unique interests and talents. This activity combines interviewing techniques and journalistic writing as it challenges students to write feature stories about their classmates.	9-12	2/14/08
The Importance of Titles: From Big Blank Space to Small Good Thing	Just as characters’ names reveal much about their identities, so too do titles give us clues to a story’s “identity.” This lesson, focusing on two sets of stories “renamed” by Raymond Carver, allows students to develop an appreciation of the importance of titles.	9-12	5/9/08
The Peace Journey: Using Process Drama in the Classroom	Process drama is a powerful and motivating teaching tool that engages students in writing. In this lesson, high school students participate in a simulated peace journey as they pursue various literacy activities. They will plan, write, and perform a skit based on their ideas of peace.	9-12	11/7/08
The Pros and Cons of Discussion	Use Discussion Webs to actively engage all of your students and require them to compare both sides of an issue in order to form a conclusion. You will find that student-led discussions lead to more participation, more student talk, and higher-level questions than those that you direct.	9-12	2/12/09
The Ten-Minute Play: Encouraging Original Response to Challenging Texts	In this lesson, students use both analytical and creative skills to create a ten-minute dramatic adaptation of a section of a complex novel such as Toni Morrison's Beloved. Students participate in peer critiques of the plays, allowing more opportunities for reflection and exploration of the text.	9-12	3/8/09
The Year I Was Born: An Autobiographical Research Project	Ask your students what happened the year that they were born—in their family, locally, nationally, and internationally. Students research the year they were born through interviews with adults and family members and research in the library and online. Next, students weave the details into a newspaper or booklet, written from an older family member’s or another adult’s or friend’s point of view.	9-12	10/17/04
There Are No Small Parts: Minor Characters in David Copperfield	After students read David Copperfield, they begin the lesson by reviewing all the characters and sorting them into major and minor characters. Small groups choose a minor character for whom they will develop a “back story” that includes information not present in the text. They share their creative thinking in the form of an online social networking profile for the selected character.	9-12	2/11/09
Thinking Inductively: A Close Reading of Seamus Heaney’s “Blackberry Picking”	This lesson eases students’ fear of interpreting complex poetry by teaching them an inductive strategy with which they determine patterns of imagery, diction, and figurative language in order to unlock meaning. Although the lesson uses Seamus Heaney’s “Blackberry-Picking,” this strategy can be applied to a variety of poems.	9-12	10/12/06
Tracking the Ways Writers Develop Heroes and Villains	After considering how the Star Wars character Darth Vader is cast as a villain, students read novels in small groups and track aspects of character development. After reading, students create a presentation that shares how a trait is developed for a character in their reading.	9-12	3/9/09
Tragic Love: Introducing Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet	The purpose of this lesson is to introduce William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet to students prior to reading the play. After reviewing a summary of the play’s plot in a PowerPoint presentation, students will examine the genre and the ideas of tragedy and tragic love by connecting the story to their own lives as teenagers. This framework for lesson could be adapted to introduce any Shakespearean tragedy.	9-12	7/6/09
Unlocking the Underlying Symbolism and Themes of a Dramatic Work	This lesson plan invites students to explore a character from Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun and an object associated with that character through story mapping and character-item poems. These graphic organizers and poems then become important keys to unlocking the underlying symbolism and themes in Hansberry’s play. By allowing students to discover these keys on their own, this activity encourages students to take responsibility for making meaning of the texts that they read.	9-12	11/6/06
Using Microblogging and Social Networking to Explore Characterization and Style	Students use microblogging and social networking sites to trace the development of characters and examine writing style while reading a novel of manners such as Jane Austen’s Emma. By assuming the persona of a character on the class Ning and sending a set number of tweets, or status updates, students examine the novel through imitation and transposition.	9-12	9/16/09
Using Student-Centered Comprehension Strategies with Elie Wiesel’s Night	Working in small groups, students use reciprocal teaching strategies as they read and discuss Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel’s memoir Night. Everyone in the classroom takes turns assuming the “teacher” role, as the class works with four comprehension strategies: predicting, question generating, summarizing, and clarifying.	9-12	1/31/07
Varying Views of America	Employing collaborative groups and graphic organizers, students analyze three poems: Walt Whitman's “I Hear America Singing,” Langston Hughes' “I, Too, Sing America,” and Maya Angelou's “On the Pulse of the Morning.” Through this analysis, they determine the influence of perspective on individual’s tone and point of view toward the same or a similar experience.	9-12	6/28/05
Walt Whitman as a Model Poet: “I Hear My School Singing”	Whitman’s “I Hear America Singing” lists participants in the American experience of his day. Students will first analyze the poem then determine participants in their personal educational experience and use Whitman’s poem as a model as they create their own list poems. In reflection, they will identify the people omitted from their poems.	9-12	8/9/06
Weaving the Multigenre Web	Students analyze the elements of a novel in many different genres and then hyperlink these pieces together on student-constructed Web sites. This is a lesson which can be used with either a whole class novel, individual novels, partner books, or small group literature circles.	9-12	6/28/07
Weaving the Old into the New: Pairing The Odyssey with Contemporary Works	After exploring The Odyssey and a contemporary epic, students choose paired characters from the texts, complete a graphic organizer, and place their characters in hypothetical contemporary situations.	9-12	1/8/09
Weekly Writer’s Blogs: Building a Reflective Community of Support	In this digital rethinking of the traditional weekly writer’s logs, students analyze example writer’s blog entries then begin the habit of writing their own reflective weekly entries, which focus on the writing that they have done over the past seven days.	9-12	3/6/09
What Are My Rights? Exploring and Writing About the Constitution	Engage your students in a study of the First Amendment by exploring issues that directly affect their lives. Using youth curfews as an example, students research a case study, debate the issue, hypothesize if their city or town could pass a youth curfew, and create a blog highlighting their conclusions.	9-12	11/19/08
What Did They Say? Dialect in The Color Purple	Books written in dialect can sometimes be difficult for students to read. This lesson helps students overcome barriers to understanding by discussing how dialects are formed and why they vary, and exploring what dialect reveals about the characters in Alice Walker's The Color Purple.	9-12	2/12/09
What’s My Subject? A Subject–Verb Agreement Minilesson	In this minilesson, high school students explore and discover the importance of subject–verb agreement rules. They identify both correct and incorrect agreements and discuss the difference between formal and informal language using newspapers and song lyrics and by creating their own quizzes to share with their peers.	9-12	2/25/09
When Less IS More—Understanding Minimalist Fiction	Minimalist fiction, considered the fiction of the 1970s and still popular today, is highly accessible to high school students of all levels. An understanding of this style and its connection to one of the most significant writers in the American literature curriculum–Ernest Hemingway–sparks new interest in literature.	9-12	3/20/07
Word Maps: Developing Critical and Analytical Thinking About Literary Characters	Characters come to life when we read. With the help of word maps, students can better understand and analyze the problems, actions, and feelings of the characters in a story and make connections to their own lives.	9-12	2/12/09
Worth Its Weight: Letter Writing with “The Things They Carried”	The best literature expands our understanding of the human experience. Tim O’Brien’s story “The Things They Carried” allows students to appreciate both the complexity of war and the simple truth that all of life demands courage. This lesson uses a letter-writing activity to build empathy as students examine the weight they symbolically carry in their own lives.	9-12	3/29/07
Writing about Writing: An Extended Metaphor Assignment	Using Richard Wilbur’s poem “The Writer” as an inspiration, students examine the literary element of metaphor then write their own extended metaphor, describing themselves as writers.	9-12	7/14/06
Writing Technical Instructions	To better understand the rhetorical nature of technical instructions, students will analyze existing instructions, write their own instructions using common household items, receive user feedback, and then revise and publish their work.	9-12	2/19/08
You’re the Top! Pop Culture Then and Now	This lesson uses Cole Porter’s "You're the Top!" to explore pop culture of the past and present and to practice the stylistic writing technique of cataloguing. If desired, students have the opportunity to extend the lesson into a research project.	9-12	3/7/06