Although American colonists complained bitterly about British taxation policy, it was not until 1775 that they decided to take up arms against the king. What changed? The Battles of Lexington and Concord. The killing of Americans by British troops transformed a largely peaceful resistance into an armed rebellion. In this lesson students will read three primary sources that illustrate this shift, including a farmer's diary, a broadside, and a sermon. Students will perform close readings and answer a series of text-dependent questions.

This literacy assessment is based on a chapter from a book about math and how it connects to everyday life and includes one text and ten text-dependent questions and explanatory information for teachers regarding alignment to the CCSS.

This lesson pairs a magazine article about the Edmund Fitzgerald shipwreck in 1975 with the Gordon Lightfoot song, "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald." After comparing and contrasting the elements of each text, students will choose a historical event and, using the song as a model, create a narrative poem about their chosen event. In addition, more contemporary songs and current events will also work for this activity.

This literacy assessment includes two text excerpts and 13 text-dependent questions and explanatory information for teachers regarding alignment to the CCSS.

Although virtually unknown during her life, this visionary New England poet is now praised as one of America's most original writers. The Big Read Readers Guide deepens your exploration with biography, timelines, and historical information. We hope these educational materials allow you to have fun with your students while introducing them to the work of a great American poet.

In this review activity designed to reinforce student understanding of grammar, punctuation, and spelling, the class will be divided into teams that race against each other to correctly identify and correct sentences on the board.

Students will examine their preconceptions about Shakespeare and his work. Then, after reading one theater critic's case for reading and seeing Shakespeare, they will use the Times to explore adaptations of a Shakespearean play they are currently studying. Finally, they will use these as a springboard for staging their own scenes from the play in a new way, using an adaptation they have read about as a model.

How do great authors build suspense and keep us engaged? In this lesson students will discuss how they "read" their favorite televsion shows in order to make predictions about what will happen, then apply these skills to speculate about happens to literary characters after the novel or play ends. Finally, they will use the inferences they gain thorugh close reading to create imagined futures for these characters in comic strips, next chapters, letters, journals, or videos.

Stephen Crane's own experiences informed his short story "The Open Boat," one of the best examples of American literary naturalism. In this lesson students answer text-dependent questions in order to examine the relationship bewteen man and nature as well as the role of the third person, omniscient narrator.

This lesson has students explore point of view. Students first identify types of point of view by identifying the pronouns used before working to incorporate it into their own writing.

In this lesson, students explore the important elements of resume writing by using fictional characters from books they've read to create resumes. Students first examine what goes into a good resume, then choose a fictional character to create one for.

In this recurring lesson, students watch an artistic video clip and use the words in their current vocabulary lesson to process the content through several types of creative writing. This gives students a chance to write in a unique voice and to understand the meaning of their vocabulary words in a new context. They also have the opportunity to analyze their peers' use of the vocabulary when they read and discuss each other's stories.

Students are invited to explore the cultural offerings around them "” from architecture to books, dance, fashion, film, food, music, theater, TV and video games "” and write reviews about what they experience. The New York Times models along with advice from current Times critics to help them through the process.

This resource provides a lesson designed to assist learners with successfully writing an argumentative essay. Students will view a presentation, review basic, essay elements and attempt to defend, challenge or qualify claims of their stance regarding passion over reason.

In the TED Ed lesson focused on grammar, students will explore the proper use of apostrophes in writing. Discussion questions and additional resources are linked in the sidebar.

This lesson examines Charlotte Perkin Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaer" through critcal reading and analysis of the short story. Students will also use text-dependent questions to write a reflective, thematic essay.