After reading the novel The Outsiders, students will be asked to write down the “dream life” that each of the main characters could be living, describing in detail the different things that would be in the different lives of three main characters. They will then design these ideal lives from their writing on three Merge Cubes using three cospaces designs. Students will then look at each other’s cubes and try to guess which character fits with each side of the cube and why while they document their thought process with each cube examination.

This resource accompanies our Rethink 7th Grade ELA course. It includes ideas for use, ways to support exceptional children, ways to extend learning, digital resources and tools, tips for supporting English Language Learners and students with visual and hearing impairments. There are also ideas for offline learning. 

This parent guide supports parents in helping their child at home with the 7th grade ELA content.

In this unit, students will be reading and writing myths following the structure of short stories and eventually publishing their own work.

The 7th grade poetry unit gives an in-depth approach to poetry. Included are worksheets, rubrics, and answers keys where applicable along with CCSS literature examples.

This resource contains activities to help students draw conclusions/make inferences. Such activities include: guess the emotion, you are what you bring, using pictures, and links to additional resources.

This teacher's guide for Addie on the Inside by James Howe contains discussion questions, activities, and research assignments.

There is no one poem that represents the experience of African Americans in the United States, yet the history of racism in this country is seared deeply into the lives of many African Americans. “The Weakness” by Toi Derricotte recounts an experience with racism through the eyes of a young, light-skinned African American girl going shopping with her grandmother in a department store in 1945. The poems in The African American Experience offer a number of perspectives from African American poets that add a rich complexity to students’ perceptions of African American lives.

Seven-year old Annie Dillard enjoys playing football with the boys in her neighborhood because it requires her to play with concentration and courage. In this CCSS lesson, students will explore this story through text dependent questions, academic vocabulary, and writing assignments.

Seventeen-year-old best friends dream of becoming light-weight boxing champions of the world. They train together until they find out that they will meet in the ring to determine who will fight in a championship tournament. In this CCSS lesson, students will explore this story through text dependent questions, academic vocabulary, and writing assignments.

In this lesson, students will continue to analyze working conditions in the mill and how they affect Lyddie. This lesson adds a focus on word choice and figurative language, as students discuss how author Katherine Paterson’s choice of language helps the readers better understand Lyddie’s working conditions and how they affected her.

The purpose of this project is two-fold: first, to encourage students to make the reading of poetry a creative act; and, second, to help students appreciate particular literary devices in their functions as semaphores or interpretive signals. Those devices that are about the imagery of a poem (metaphor, simile, personification, description) can be thought of as magnifying glasses: we see most clearly that upon which the poet focuses our gaze. Similarly, those poetic devices that are about the sound of the poem (alliteration, consonance, enjambment, onomatopoeia, and repetition) can be thought of as volume buttons or amplifiers: we hear most clearly what the poet makes us listen to most attentively.

This is a poem about love that Poe has written in memory of his wife, whom he calls Annabel Lee. In this CCSS lesson, students will explore this story through text dependent questions, academic vocabulary, and writing assignments.

This resource is a collection of discussion questions to supplement The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein.

In this lesson, the students will read and reread the passage closely and focusing their reading through a series of questions and discussion about the text, students will be able to understand the structure and purpose of this particular soliloquy and how it delves into universal themes regarding the human condition.

In this CCSS lesson, students will explore this story through text dependent questions, academic vocabulary, and writing assignments. Printable text files included.

What drives changes to classic myths and fables? In this lesson students evaluate the changes Disney made to the myth of "Hercules" in order to achieve their audience and purpose.

In The Bear Boy, a man does not teach his son the ways of Pueblo life and how to transition into manhood. In this CCSS lesson, students will explore this story through text dependent questions, academic vocabulary, and writing assignments.

Students use Shakespeare's Secret, a featured title on the Teachers' Choices Booklist (International Reading Association, 2006), as a springboard to exploration of the controversy regarding the authorship Shakespeare's works. The novel makes liberal use of the historical details surrounding William Shakespeare's life, and exposes students to the possibility raised by some theorists that Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford, was the true author of the works that have long been attributed to the Bard. Students explore the historical references in the novel and generate questions for further research. As they research these questions on suggested websites, they organize their findings with the help of the ReadWriteThink Notetaker. Then they work in small groups to create and present short dramatic skits that creatively connect the novel with the historical facts.

A teachers guide for Betsey Brown by Ntozake Shange, including chapter-specific questions for increased comprehension, questions for class discussion, and suggestions for further study.

Students work in groups to read and discuss a book, keeping track of their feelings and opinions about the book, as well as facts and quotations, as they read. Students then decide which parts of their review they wish to annotate, with each student in the group responsible for one topic. Each student writes about his or her topic, including bibliographic information.

This teacher's guide for The Boy on the Wooden Box by Leon Leyson with Marilyn J. Harran and Elisabeth B. Leyson contains discussion questions and activities for reading comprehension, learning about craft and structure, integrating information, and writing practice.

Students examine books, selected from the American Library Association Challenged/Banned Books list, and write persuasive pieces expressing their views about what should be done with the books at their school.

This three week lesson provides instruction in the basic elements of literature by reading Dickens' A Christmas Carol. Students are also provided the opportunity to understand how their choices can change their attitudes and behavior through a reading of the novel and a series of writing assignments.

In this activity, students will divide into two teams to conduct a mock trial based on The Ransom of Redchief by O. Henry.

As the narrator sends her son Laurie off to kindergarten, she fears that her sweet child may be thrown out of school. In this CCSS lesson, students will explore this story through text dependent questions, academic vocabulary, and writing assignments.

This lesson uses several strategies for scaffolding learning after reading a novel. The students work collaboratively to create Facebook profiles, Instagram profiles, plot diagrams and many other activities to evaluate their comprehension and analysis of a novel. This lesson gives students the opportunity to take charge of their learning by giving them choice.

In this lesson, students use the Cornell notes tool to do close reading of informational text.

An absentee father takes his daughter on a hunting trip. The experience leads them to discover that that they are not strangers after all. They both learn that as you get to know someone you learn about yourself as well. In this CCSS lesson, students will explore this story through text dependent questions, academic vocabulary, and writing assignments.

This curriculum guide covers six works of Laurie Halse Anderson (Chains, Forge, Ashes, Fever 1793, Independent Dames: What You Never Knew About the Women and Girls of the American Revolution, and Thank You, Sarah: The Woman Who Saved Thanksgiving), and contains discussion prompts, key vocabulary terms, and ideas for assignments and activities related to each book.

Students will view a reality television episode and read a news article related to reality television. Then students will complete a graphic organizer to create an argument for or against children participating in reality television. Students will apply supportive details for writing a persuasive paragraph.

This teacher's guide for The Dark Side of Nowhere by Neal Shusterman contains a summary of the text, discussion questions, activities, and research assignments.

The story's narrator notices one morning that his nine-year-old son is ill. The boy reveals that while at school in France he heard that a person cannot live with a temperature over 44. The father explains the difference between the Fahrenheit and Celsius scales and tells his son that he is not going to die. In this CCSS lesson, students will explore this story through text dependent questions, academic vocabulary, and writing assignments.

The following unit incorporates multimedia and classroom activities to encourage students to explore and interact with poetry by first writing letters to important historical poets as practice for writing letters to the Academy of American Poets Board of Chancellors, a group that represents poetry in America at its best.

E-book readers, or digital readers, are devices that can host thousands of electronic books and allows readers to interact with digital texts through the use of e-book tools and features. In this lesson, students will read e-books and use digital tools (dictionaries and notes) to support their development of vocabulary. Specifically, students will assume roles of “word detectives” as they look up words in digital dictionaries and use other strategies to identify the meaning of vocabulary words.

Students will become engaged learners through this unit that prepares students for studying ancient Greece with digital storytelling skills. First students develop a list of questions to research Greek gods, heroes, and creatures. Then with a partner, they choose the topic of their research and divide the questions between themselves. After conducting research, the partners write scripts for their digital story using the online tool PowToon.

This teacher's guide for Doll Bones by Holly Black contains a prereading activity, discussion questions, and postreading assignments.

Double-Entry Journaling improves students' comprehension, vocabulary, and content retention. This interactive strategy activates prior knowledge and present feelings, and promotes collaborative learning. It fosters the connection between reading and writing as students are able to "reply" to the author or speaker as they write their responses. The technique offers flexibility in that teachers can use any form of written text, read alouds, or listenings that are assigned in class.

Students will read the story, Tar Beach by Faith Ringgold and compare thier own lives with that of a girl in a tenement builidng in New York City. Through reading the story, students will better understand the hopes and dreams of the less fortunate.

Student will predict ideas or events that may take place in the text, give rationale for predictions, confirm and discuss predictions as the story progresses.

Students will be taught the "drill skill and kill" method to be used on grammar concepts within an argumentative paper.