A series of worksheets with answer keys to help students of differing levels identify main ideas from selcted texts.

In this lesson, students will use the individual experience of Mary McLeod Bethune to analyze choice, its affects on social equality, and impact on their own life experiences.

In this lesson students examine how imagery is used to represent ideas, themes, periods of history, and make cultural connections to poem, "Still I Rise." Students will reflect through written expression how resiliency is in their lives, school, and community.

In this video from American Masters | Maya Angelou: And Still I Rise, students will learn about the lasting impact of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and why it’s such an important piece of American literature. Students will answer discussion questions, analyze text from I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and write a short essay to gain a deeper understanding of Angelou’s work.

The activities in this lesson invite students to focus on the characters from A Midsummer Night's Dream, to describe and analyze their conflicts, and then to watch how those conflicts get resolved.

This teacher's guide for The Misfits by James Howe containes discussion questions, activities, and research assignments.

The students will explore reading strategies using the think-aloud process as students investigate connections between the life and writings of Edgar Allan Poe. The unit, which begins with an in-depth exploration of “The Raven,” then moves students from a full-class reading of the poem to small-group readings of Poe’s short stories (“The Black Cat,” “Hop-Frog,” “Masque of the Red Death,” and “The Fall of the House of Usher”). The unit concludes with individual projects that explore the readings in more detail.

Using the supernatural powers of The Monkey's Paw, the Whites make a wish for money, receive the money after their son is involved in a fatal accident, wish for his return, and finally wish for his disappearance. In this CCSS lesson, students will explore this story through text dependent questions, academic vocabulary, and writing assignments.

“The Monkey’s Paw” by W. W. Jacobs is what is known as a classic short story. Before completing this lesson, students should have explored, read and analyzed story elements of The Monkey's Paw. Students will use the Sphero Bolt to reflect specific moments of the selected characters journey throughout the story.

This lesson will be completed once students have read the script of the play The Monsters are Due on Maple Street and watched the film adaptation on The Twilight Zone. Students will complete a learning menu that includes an appetizer, entree, and dessert. All students will complete the same starter and main course but will then have a choice for their dessert.

A teachers guide for My Sisters' Voices: Teenage Girls of Color Speak Out by Iris Jacob including questions for deeper comprehension, exercises for the class, and suggestions for further reading.

The poem describes the victorious homecoming of a ship. The Captain responsible for the safe return of his ship and crew has died before reaching port, and the narrator is grief stricken at the loss. While acknowledging the greatness of the victorious return of the ship to port, the poem also laments the loss of the leader responsible. In this CCSS lesson, students will explore this story through text dependent questions, academic vocabulary, and writing assignments.

This lesson takes advantage of that interest by asking students to create a soundtrack for a novel that they have read. Students begin by analyzing how specific songs might fit with a familiar story. Students then create their own soundtracks for the movie version of a novel they have read. They select songs that match the text and fit specific events in the story. Finally, students share their projects with the class and assess their work using a rubric. Examples in this lesson focus on The Beast by Walter Dean Myers, but any piece of literature can be used as the basis of students' soundtracks.

The sonnet begins with the speaker stating that the earth’s poetry never dies. In summer, the grasshopper runs among the hedgerows singing his song and then rests in the shade. In the frosty silence of winter, the earth's poetry continues now the cricket, singing from the stove, shrills a song that's as warm and summery as the grasshopper's music. In this CCSS lesson, students will explore this story through text dependent questions, academic vocabulary, and writing assignments.

The poem Oranges by Gary Soto is about the bittersweet experience of a first date. They walk together to the drug store and girl picks a chocolate that costs a dime. The boy offers to pay for the candy with a nickel and an orange. The boy takes the girl's hand and then releases it so she can unwrap her chocolate, and he can peel his orange. In the darkness of the winter day, the orange burns bright light a fire, much like the love in his heart. In this CCSS lesson, students will explore this story through text dependent questions, academic vocabulary, and writing assignments.

The Paragraph Shrinking strategy allows each student to take turns reading, pausing, and summarizing the main points of each paragraph. Students provide each other with feedback as a way to monitor comprehension.

A narrator recounts the story of Paul Revere’s ride, which took place in Massachusetts on April 18, 1775. On that night, Revere tells his friend to hang a lantern in the belfry of the Old North Church if the British forces begin to march—one light if they are coming by land, two if they are coming by sea. We know the rest—the minutemen routed the redcoats. He also says that we will hear Revere’s cry of defiance throughout history. In this CCSS lesson, students will explore this history through text dependent questions, academic vocabulary, and writing assignments.

The text begins with a poor fisherman, Kino, his wife, Juana, their baby Coyotito, and the great pearl. When Coyotito is stung by a scorpion, Kino and Juana travel from their village to take him to the nearest doctor. However, they are unable to pay for treatment and are turned away. But once they have a large pearl in their possession, the greedy doctor makes a house call, hoping to get a share of the profits. In this CCSS lesson, students will explore this story through text dependent questions, academic vocabulary, and writing assignments.

Students will practice visualizing and understanding that visualization is an important comprehension strategy. Students will share their visualization of the story through original artwork.

This lesson is one part of a four lesson unit on Shakespeare Stealer. This theater and language arts lesson offers intellectual, creative and interpretive opportunities. Students will analyze and compare the puns and word play in selected scenes from the plays, The Shakespeare Stealer by Gary L. Blackwood and Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare. Students will then read scenes from each play in groups and interpret their meanings to prepare for a performance of the scene. The lesson culminates with students writing a short essay explaining how the playwrights used puns and word play to give their characters wit.