Twelve Angry Men is a classic play about the American legal system. This lesson introduces students to key ideas they'll need to successfully complete a reading of the play. Students learn about drama terms before they start reading.

This lesson plan, centered around 1984 but adaptable to any piece of dystopian literature, asks students to make connections between the horrible futures predicted in the text and the reality of the world around them.

This collection uses primary sources to explore The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie. Digital Public Library of America Primary Source Sets are designed to help students develop their critical thinking skills and draw diverse material from libraries, archives, and museums across the United States. Each set includes an overview, ten to fifteen primary sources, links to related resources, and a teaching guide. These sets were created and reviewed by the teachers on the DPLA's Education Advisory Committee.

By "becoming" a character in a novel they have read and making lists from that character's perspective, students analyze the character while also enriching their vocabulary. Students gain a deeper understanding of a character by creating charts linking the character's actions with the character's traits. They explore adjectives through a variety of resources. They then use their analysis of the character and their knowledge of adjectives to create descriptive lists of their own three other characters from the novel.

This collection uses primary sources to explore The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. Digital Public Library of America Primary Source Sets are designed to help students develop their critical thinking skills and draw diverse material from libraries, archives, and museums across the United States. Each set includes an overview, ten to fifteen primary sources, links to related resources, and a teaching guide. These sets were created and reviewed by the teachers on the DPLA's Education Advisory Committee.

This lesson introduces an activity to help students analyze some of the lesser characters from The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Students search for quotations that characterize three minor characters before using those quotations as the starting point for an analytical essay about the book.

In this lesson, students examine several speeches from William Shakespeare's play Julius Caesar. Students track the occurrence of speeches, monitor what kind of speeches are made, and write about what the speeches reveal about their speaker.

This page offers teachers and students a glimpse into some of the differences between the film version and original text of Animal Farm, by George Orwell.

This lesson contains an assessment intended to measure student understanding of the theory of Objectivism - the central idea in Ayn Rand's novel, The Fountainhead.

Australian Aboriginal art is one of the oldest continuing art traditions in the world. Much of the most important knowledge of aboriginal society was conveyed through different kinds of storytelling—including narratives that were spoken, performed as dances or songs, and those that were painted. In this lesson students will learn about the Aboriginal storytelling tradition through the spoken word and through visual culture. They will have the opportunity to hear stories of the Dreamtime told by the Aboriginal people, as well as to investigate Aboriginal storytelling in contemporary dot paintings.

The students will read various short texts and answers questions directly related to Author's Purpose. They will then complete a short answer section accompanied with each text.

This collection uses primary sources to explore Toni Morrison's Beloved. Digital Public Library of America Primary Source Sets are designed to help students develop their critical thinking skills and draw diverse material from libraries, archives, and museums across the United States. Each set includes an overview, ten to fifteen primary sources, links to related resources, and a teaching guide. These sets were created and reviewed by the teachers on the DPLA's Education Advisory Committee.

The lesson includes an exploration of the genre of letters to the editor, a review of persuasive writing structure and letter format, and an emphasis on multi-draft writing. The lesson focuses on the character Roy Eberhardt from Carl Hiaasen’s Newbery Honor Book Hoot for its examples. Students can complete the activity for any book that they have read.

This introductory lesson provides materials for teachers to use while reading Ray Bradbury's classic novel Something Wicked This Way Comes, consisting of powerpoint presentations with important quotes from the chapters of the book.

In this writing lesson plan, students write about the events of Romeo and Juliet and try to figure out their root causes. Students can take a number of approaches, each of which includes summarizing the events of the play and finding evidence to support their interpretation of the causes of the events.

Created through a partnership between the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library of Congress, Chronicling America offers visitors the ability to search and view newspaper pages from 1690-1963 and to find information about American newspapers published between 1690"“present using the National Digital Newspaper Program.

This lesson focuses on the film adapatation of The Color Purple, by Alice Walker. After reading the novel, students watch the movie in class and compare the two. Students compare and contrast the two versions of the story in writing at the end of the lesson.

The delegates at the 1787 Convention faced a challenge as arduous as those who worked throughout the 1780s to initiate reforms to the American political system. In this unit, students will examine the roles that key American founders played in creating the Constitution, and the challenges they faced in the process.

Heavily influenced by social and scientific theories, including those of Darwin, writers of naturalism described"”usually from a detached or journalistic perspective"”the influence of society and surroundings on the development of the individual. In the following lesson plan, students will learn the key characteristics that comprise American literary naturalism as they explore London's "To Build a Fire" and Crane's "The Open Boat."

This lesson plan helps students review the elements of characterization and create original characters that jump off the page. Students work in pairs to revise previously created characters in order to enhance their characterization.