This lesson reviews the literary devices at work in John Updike's "Ace in the Hole." Students consider professional athletes who didn't pan out before taking an in-depth look at Updike's techniques.

This Random House for High School Teachers reader's guide includes an introduction, discussion questions, and author biography designed to enhance student reading of Philip Roth's American Pastoral.

Students compose epitaphs for deceased characters in "Hamlet," paying close attention to how their words appeal to the senses, create imagery, suggest mood, and set tone. Students will design gravestones to display their epitaphs. Students must capture the essence of their character's personality and station in life.

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock is an excellent example of many of the concepts the poets were addressing at the turn of the twentieth century. Poets were experimenting with poetic form and responding to the destruction that consumed the Lost Generation. In particular, Eliot incorporates the spirit of the Moderns through his stream of consciousness form and the allusions found in Prufrock’s interior monologue. This lesson was developed by NCDPI as part of the Academically and/or Intellectually Gifted Instructional Resources Project. This lesson plan has been vetted at the state level for standards alignment, AIG focus, and content accuracy.

Allegories are similar to metaphors: in both the author uses one subject to represent another, seemingly unrelated, subject. However, unlike metaphors, which are generally short and contained within a few lines, an allegory extends its representation over the course of an entire story, novel, or poem. This lesson plan will introduce students to the concept of allegory by using George Orwell’s widely read novella, Animal Farm, which is available on Project Gutenberg.

In this Common Core aligned teacher's guide to Beatrice and Virgil by Yann Martel, students will explore the idea that that there is more than one way of seeing and more than one way of communicating. This guide provides suggested topics for discussions, terms for consideration, supplemental reading, and activities.

This lesson plan with student activities gives students a preview to reading the Anglo-Saxon epic poem "Beowulf" by reading and understanding riddles written in Old English. Sound files are included, as well as translations, to help students see and hear the differences in English from then til now. Also, students will read and analyze the riddles for examples of the terms caesura, kenning, and alliteration.

In this lesson, students will watch a 25-minute video, Aretha Franklin ABC News Close Up (1968), as a pre-lesson activity. In class, students examine a timeline of landmark events that occurred during the women's movement from 1961 to 1971. While watching multiple live performances of Aretha Franklin, including "Dr. Feelgood," "Do Right Woman," "Respect," "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman," and "Chain of Fools," students will seek to identify Gospel influences and investigate whether issues related to women's rights are reflected in the songs as well. The extension activity includes an insightful personal narrative that provides an account of sexism that existed during the Civil Rights era.

In this set of lessons, students read excerpts from "The Death of Benny Paret" by Norman Mailer and "The Fight" by William Hazlitt. Students annotate the text, specifically looking for metaphor and simile, tone, and syntax. Working with a partner, students write three paragraphs, analyzing metaphor or simile, tone, and syntax in "The Death of Benny Paret." Working independently, students write one paragraph, choosing to analyze metaphor or simile, tone, or syntax in "The Fight."

Reading Robert Browning's poem "My Last Duchess," students will explore the use of dramatic monologue as a poetic form, where the speaker often reveals far more than intended.

In these activities, students utilize play to refine and clarify vocabulary without feeling embarrassed or singled out in the classroom. Suggested methods include creating non-examples to show understanding; using online tools like Wordle or Visual Thesaurus; drawing pictures of unknown words; and using physical movement and a intensity rating scale to determine nuance and meaning.

After students examine primary photographs, maps, and other documents that depict Chicago at the turn of the century, they will anticipate Sandburg's description of and attitudes towards the city. After reading a short biography of the poet they will make further predictions about the poem, and identify ways Sandburg uses literary techniques to make vivid the Chicago he knew. The lesson concludes with a piece of writing in which students describe a favorite place.

This lesson helps students understand the complexities of The Wife of Bath's character and the rhetoric of her argument by exploring the various ways in which Chaucer crafts a persona for her. After familiarizing themselves with the framing narrative of the Canterbury Tales and its language, students study the Wife of Bath as a character. Finally, students examine several primary source documents written about women and marraige in order to understand the context in which the Wife presents her argument.

Clarifying one’s identity is a process that goes on throughout life. In this poetry lesson, students will read, analyze and discuss Adrienne Rich's “Diving into the Wreck” as part of the complicated process of finding, and defining oneself.

Students will explore the connotations of the colors associated with the characters in F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby." They will discuss the meaning of connotation and how word meanings can change. Next they will work in groups to explore the cultural connotations of a particular color, present findings to the class, keep a color log as they read the novel, and write an analysis of a major character.

This lesson plan is designed to help students understand the term connotation and how it applies to poetry. In this lesson, students are asked to practice using the term connotation with everyday words while working in small groups. From there, they will analyze one of American author Phyllis Wheatley's poems, which can be found at this address: http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poems/being-brought-africa-america .

In this lesson, students gain background information to help them understand the context of A Modest Proposal as they read it. Also provided are activities to further student understanding after reading.

Nineteenth century middle-class American women saw their behavior regulated by a social system, known today as the cult of domesticity, which was designed to limit their sphere of influence to home and family. Yet within this space they developed networks and modes of expression that allowed them to speak out on issues facing the nation. Students will read four sets of passages and identify which principals of the cult of domesticity are illustrated and how. Students will also perform textual anlayses to determine audience, voice, point of view, themes, and the rhetoric used.

This Random House for High School Teachers reader's guide includes an introduction, discussion questions, and author biography designed to enhance student reading of The Dive from Clausen’s Pier, Ann Packer’s critically acclaimed and bestselling debut novel.

 Students will write a 6 Word Memoir. Using the Waterlogue app on mini iPads, as well as the PicSee app, students will layer their 6 Word Memoir over a sketch, personal photograph or found image reflective of its theme.

Students will learn how the field of war correspondence has evolved. Through reading chapters of Edith Warton's book, "Fighting France From Dunkerque to Belfort," students will cite examples of wartime reporting. FInally, students will create and present their own correspondence report.

In this lesson, students will explicate "Thanatopsis" by William Cullen Bryant, and will identify poetic elements as well as sound effects in the poetry.

In this lesson students use art and poetry to explore and understand the major characteristics of the Romantic period. After learning about the Romantic period students deepen their understanding through an evaluation of William Wordsworth's definition of poetry. Students then complete an explication of a painting from the Romantic period. Finally, students complete a literary analysis of a Wordsworth poem followed by an essay showing their understanding of Romanticism.

This resource provides a lesson designed to help students understand the use of satire and the myriad technicques that authors may use to add it to their writing. Students use the film Shrek to examine the four techniques of exaggeration, incongruity, reversal and parody. Students prove their understanding by using satire to rewrite a fairly tale.

These three activities help students decipher some of the symbolism in the famous American play, Death of a Salesman. Students also consider the ways their own lives can relate to the play.

This resource contains examples of each of the following types of figurative language: similies, metaphors, hyperbole, and personification.

This resource contains figurative language poems for various levels with text-based questions for each.

This resource contains figurative language worksheets with text-based questions and answer keys for each.

In this lesson, students complete two assessment tasks for The Catcher in the Rye. Students complete an essay test on the novel with a choice of prompts, assessing student knowledge of both the novel and informational writing.

Known as both a Southern and a Catholic writer, Flannery O'Connor wrote stories that explore the complexities of these two identities. In this lesson, students will challengethese dichotomieswhile closely reading and analyzing "A Good Man is Hard to Find."

This activity engages students in an analysis of the 2008 speech by Barack Obama on race. Students will then create an annotated version of the speech that has them analyze and comment upon Obama's use of history, rhetoric, and language in his message. Students can also create a hypertext of this assignment in order to publish works in different media.

This lesson-plan focuses on students analyzing, critiquing, and examining the language and meanings of historical and cultural documents such as The Pledge of Allegiance and the First Amendment. Through this activity they will also examine the impact and meaning of language, as well as the relevance of the meaning behind the words of each document. All handouts are downloadable and printable from this site.

Students will complete close textual reading questions aligned with Common Core shifts for literacy. Scroll to "ELA 11-12 A Modest Proposal" to access download.

This lesson seeks to sensitize students to the complex nature of revenge as it is portrayed in Shakespeare's "Hamlet." Students learn how the play interprets Elizabethan attitudes towards revenge as reflected in the structure of the Elizabethan revenge tragedy. Students will analyze the use of language and actions to motivate the avengers in the play; recognize Elizabethan theatrical conventions and their impact; and compare the text with a modern film interpretation.

A teacher's guide to Thomas C. Foster's How to Read Literature Like a Professor. Includes common core aligned pre-reading promts, discussion questions, post-reading promts and writing activities.

In the TED Ed lesson focused on rhetoric, students will explore the fundamentals of deliberative rhetoric and discover some tips for appealing to an audience’s ethos, logos, and pathos. Discussion questions and additional resources are linked in the sidebar.

In this video resource from PBS Learning Media, students will explore the types of humor that exist, such as Irony, Satire, Farce, and Parody. They will research and find examples of humor that appeal to them. Next, they will choose a passage written by Mark Twain and analyze it to determine what type of humor is used.

This worksheet contains 23 examples of figurative language from O. Henry's short stories for students to identify and explain.