This lesson focuses on A Christmas Memory, a short story by Truman Capote. Students read the text independently and answer text-dependent questions before beginning work on a written assignment that accompanies the text.

In this lesson, students read a designated chapter of "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn". In small groups, students discuss chapter summary and answer specific questions related to the chapter. Groups will present summaries, addressing answers to specific questions, thereby chunking information.

In this Penguin Classics guide to Augustine of Hippo's book City of God, students will learn the background of the book as well as the author, and deepen their understanding of the text through indepth discussion questions. Supplemental texts are suggested.

In this lesson on Oedipus the King, students will examine Oedipus's character and determine his opinion of whom to hold accountable for Laius's murder.

Collaborative Strategic Reading (CSR) is a technique that teaches students to work cooperatively on a reading assignment to promote better comprehension. CSR learning logs are used to help students keep track of learning during the collaboration process. Students think about what they are reading and write down questions/reflections about their learning. The completed logs then provide a guide for follow-up activities and evaluation methods.

This Random House for High School Teachers reader's guide includes discussion questions for The Collected Autobiographies of Maya Angelou to aid in student comprehension and understanding of the famous author and her life.

In this eight day unit, students will delve into the ways that the poetry of William Carlos Williams and Cubist and Precisionist paintings share similarities in approach. The culminating activity involves writing an essay comparing a poem to a painting inspired by that poem.

This Random House for High School Teachers reader's guide includes discussion questions to aid students in analyzing and interpreting the Complete Poems and Selected Letters of John Keats, one of England's great Romantic poets.

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.

A concept map help students visualize various connections between words or phrases and a main idea. There are several types of concept maps; some are hierarchical, while others connect information without categorizing ideas. Most are comprised of words or phrases surrounded by a circle or square that connect to one another and ultimately back to the main idea through graphic lines. These lines help students to "negotiate meaning" as they read and make the meaning connections between the main idea and other information.

This activity gives students the opportunity to look closely at the connotation in Countee Cullen's poem "Any Human to Another." There are three versions with varying levels of support.

In this lesson, students engage in a choral reading of Shakespeare in an effort to better understand his works. By reading rearranged character lines - sometimes out of context - students see new sides to characters in Shakespeare plays they have already read.

In this lesson on "The Tell-Tale Heart" and "I felt a Funeral, in my Brain," students will discuss connections across the two texts and use that to identify and support a shared central idea.

This Random House for High School Teachers reader's guide includes questions, discussion topics, and an author biography intended to enhance student reading of Louis de Bernieres's Corelli's Mandolin.

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

This teacher's guide for Counting Backwards by Laura Lascarso includes questions that cover key ideas and details as well as craft and structure, and postreading activities.

In this lesson students view examples of applealing blogs, learn the basic elements of blog creation, and then create a blog from the perspective of a fictional character. Students demonstrate their understanding of the text by including images, quotations, links, and commentary on their blogs. Students then help one another develop their blogs by acting as editiors during the creation stage and reviewing one another's blogs upon completion.

Students create video book reviews on self-selected reading and comment on each other's posts using empathy and social responsibility. 

This page contains a set of discussion questions for Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky.