A classic Western, "True Grit" recounts the backcountry adventure of a one-eyed marshal, "Rooster" Cogburn, and a spirited fourteen-year-old, Mattie Ross, as they seek to avenge the death of Mattie's father. The Big Read Reader's Guide deepens your exploration with interviews, booklists, timelines, and historical information. We hope this guide and syllabus allow you to have fun with your students while introducing them to the work of a great American author.

This Bright Hub Education lesson plan is designed for teaching Henry James' The Turn of the Screw. Using the downloadable PowerPoint and reviews of James’ novel, students will write a “pull quote" critique of the novel as well as craft a thesis statement that clearly states his or her theory about the events of the novel.

This Random House for High School Teachers reader's guide includes questions, discussion topics, and suggestions for further reading intended to enrich student discussion of Ayana Mathis’s book, The Twelve Tribes of Hattie.

This lesson allows students to see and experience how a story can drastically change when told from the perspective of a character whose voice was not heard in the story's original form. After reading and discussing a New York Times review of the latest Tarzan film, students will select a favorite children's story and rewrite it from another character's point of view, focusing on the character's view of the elements of the plot, other characters, and himself or herself.

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Worksheets and lessons for various levels to help students identify and/or reveal literary conflicts in selected passages.

In this Random House for High School Teachers Guide to Un Lun Dun by author China Miéville, students will explore literary genre, plot structure and the construction of characters and protagonists. This guide is divided into eight parts, each with discussion questions and writing prompts, as well as a section of activities, vocabulary, and extension ideas.

This Random House for High School Teachers reader's guide includes questions intended to enrich student discussion of Harriet Beecher Stowe's 1852 novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin.

This Random House for High School Teachers reader's guide includes questions designed to enhance discussion of Colson Whitehead's book, The Underground Railroad.

Students will review the use of understood "you" in writing and create their own creative nonfiction essay using understood "you" as the narrative technique.

In this lesson, students will discuss Browning's "My Last Duchess" and draft a one-paragraph analysis of how the revelation at the end of the poem impacts the development of the Duke's character over the course of the poem.

In this lesson, stduents will write a response analyzing the relationship between Woolf's text, A Room of One's Own, and the character of Ophelia from Shakespeare's Hamlet.

In this video from Shakespeare Uncovered, students explore the use of soliloquy as a device to reveal character and advance plot. They consider how using soliloquy perhaps more truthfully exposes character than other devices like dialogue. In addition, students focus particularly on the famous soliloquy in Hamlet, "To be or not to be," and discuss how and why the topics of his speech are best explored through soliloquy.

This resource provides examples for teachers about how to use graphic organizers to help teach high school level novels.

This extensive unit plan centered around Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Eqsuivel explores Magical Realism and different critical viewpoints. It includes an overview of the subject matter, strategies for teaching, detailed daily lesson plans with assignments and activities for each day, assessment and discussion questions for each method of criticism, notes on the cultural and historical background, and suggestions for further reading.

This unit plan centered around "Like Water for Chocolate" by explores Magical Realism and different critical viewpoints. It includes an overview of the subject matter, strategies for teaching, detailed daily lesson plans with assignments and activities for each day, assessment and discussion questions for each method of criticism, notes on the cultural and historical background, and suggestions for further reading.

This Random House for High School Teachers reader's guide includes an introduction, discussion questions, and author biography designed to enhance student reading of Karen Russell’s book of short stories, Vampires in the Lemon Grove.

Through the study of American poetry, or particularly early American poetry, students can analyze and appreciate Wheatley’s poem for its meaning, diction and how she balances meaning during a difficult time for African Americans. 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.

This Random House for High School Teachers reader's guide includes questions designed to enhance discussion of Alice Walker's collection of short stories based on her own life, The Way Forward is With a Broken Heart.

A series of lessons to introduce students to writing a mutigenre paper. Students will analyze and identify literary elements present in selected novels, work in collaborative groups and sythesize various genres to publish a multigenre webpage.

Students will create "silent scenes" of Shakespeare's Julis Caesar rejecting and then accepting the crown, in order to better understand the story and its significance.