A series of worksheets with answer keys to help students of differing levels define unfamiliar vocabulary using context clues.

Students prepare for this lesson by reading Poe's "Fall of the House of Usher" (or another short story). After a minilesson on the difference between freewriting and rehashing the plot, students freewrite a response to the story to generate an original framework for a literary analysis essay. Students discuss what makes a solid thesis and then develop a thesis idea from their body of freewriting. This central idea serves as an organizational principle for creating an outline for an original literary analysis essay.

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.

The lessons in this curriculum resource will guide students through reading strategies, debate, individual reflection, group activities, and discussions of The Scarlet Letter.

Students read Raymond Carver’s short story "A Small, Good Thing," focusing on characterization in order to develop one of the static characters—the hit-and-run driver who causes Scotty’s death—more fully. Students use a literary graphic organizer to analyze the three major characters. They compare the story to an older version titled "The Bath." Finally, they create an original anecdote involving the driver, share their stories, and respond to each other's writing.

Students develop a working definition of transcendentalism by answering and discussing a series a questions about their own individualism and relationship to nature. Over the next few sessions, students read and discuss excerpts from Emerson’s “Nature” and “Self-Reliance” and Thoreau’s Walden. They use a graphic organizer to summarize the characteristics of transcendental thought as they read. Students then examine modern comic strips and songs to find evidence of transcendental thought. They gather additional examples on their own to share with the class. Finally, students complete the chart showing specific examples of transcendental thought from a variety of multimodal genres.

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.

This follow-up assignment to the reading of Chaucer's General Prologue gives students the opportunity to work in a collaborative setting with technology while explicating text and researching historical infromation. Aditionally students will work as a team to create group wikis.

August Wilson's play "The Piano Lesson" readily invites students to ask a number of questions--big and small--about the characters, setting, conflict, and symbols in the work. After reading the first act students learn how to create effective discussion questions and then put them to use in student-led seminars after act one and again at the end of the play.

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."

The Frayer Model is a strategy that uses a graphic organizer for vocabulary building. This technique requires students to (1) define the target vocabulary words or concepts, and (2) apply this information by generating examples and non-examples. This information is placed on a chart that is divided into four sections to provide a visual representation for students.

In 1845, the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, and Written by Himself was published. In it, Douglass criticizes directly often with withering irony those who defend slavery and those who prefer a romanticized version of it.

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 are introduced to Jonathan Swift's "Gulliver's Travels" by reading "The Butter Battle Book" by Dr. Seuss. After reading the picture book, students discuss the historical allusions as a class and identify its main satirical theme. Students then work in small groups to find additional background information and present it to the class. They chart details from the book and link each one to the historical information they have discovered. Students then repeat this process with "Gulliver's Travels," eventually discovering the overall message that the text communicates about society.

Students will read scientific text about top predators in Arctic marine ecosystems and how they may be affected by global climate change. Students will work individually or collaboratively to write a report based on the scientific text they have read and participate in a large-group discussion session based on their analysis.

In this lesson, students will discuss and write messages about how it feels to be grouped or identified by gender. Then, students will work in groups to record and discuss messages shared with others in the class.

This resource contains a GDrive Folder that houses 4 separate root word quizzes. Each quiz contains 21 terms for a total of 84. I have linked the list I used for these quizzes, I do not own the list nor do I take any credit for its creation.

In this lesson on Hamlet, students will read and view Act 1.1. Students will focus on language, initial plot points, and the setting.