This three-part video demonstrates a lesson plan for teaching vocabulary in context of literature. Part one shows an introductory activity to get students thinking about the words used in the text - in this case, Nathanial Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter. Parts two and three elaborate and show a small group discussion about the words and the text.

This task allows students to apply literary techniques employed in a text.  Although this is for And the Mountains Echoed, it is easily adapted to fit any work of fiction.  Often students will create a wheel because information stems out from the center, but allowing more creative freedom and letting students use an object that is more specific to the text is certainly encouraged.

This lesson has students analyze various elements of Tennessee William's classic play, A Streetcar Named Desire, to uncover the characterization of various characters in the play. Students can work in individuals or groups to create an oral presentation focused on one character from the play.

The 11th grade learning experience consists of 7 mostly month-long units aligned to the Common Core State Standards, with available course material for teachers and students easily accessible online. Over the course of the year there is a steady progression in text complexity levels, sophistication of writing tasks, speaking and listening activities, and increased opportunities for independent and collaborative work. Rubrics and student models accompany many writing assignments.Throughout the 11th grade year, in addition to the Common Read texts that the whole class reads together, students each select an Independent Reading book and engage with peers in group Book Talks. Students move from learning the class rituals and routines and genre features of argument writing in Unit 11.1 to learning about narrative and informational genres in Unit 11.2: The American Short Story. Teacher resources provide additional materials to support each unit.

In this unit, students will explore great works of American literature and consider how writers reflect the time period in which they write. They will write two literary analysis papers and also work in groups to research and develop anthologies of excellent American stories.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS

Students read and analyze stories from several 19th-, 20th-, and 21st-century American authors. After researching a time period, they select stories from that period to create an anthology. The readings enhance their understanding of the short story, increase their exposure to well-known American authors, and allow them to examine the influence of social, cultural, and political context.
Students examine elements of short stories and have an opportunity for close reading of several American short stories. During these close readings, they examine the ways that short story writers attempt to explore the greater truths of the American experience through their literature.

GUIDING QUESTIONS

These questions are a guide to stimulate thinking, discussion, and writing on the themes and ideas in the unit. For complete and thoughtful answers and for meaningful discussions, students must use evidence based on careful reading of the texts.

If you were to write a short story about this decade, what issues might you focus on?
What defines a short story? Just length?
To what extent do these stories reflect the era or decade in which they were written?
To what extent are the themes they address universal?

CLASSROOM FILMS

History.com has short videos on the Vietnam War (“Vietnam” and “A Soldier's Story”).

In this lesson, students will present their projects to the class. They will reflect on their own project and those of the other groups in the class.

In the final lesson in this episode, and as a warm-up for the final essay and project, students will discuss the organization of the student sample essay “The Search for Knowledge.”

In this lesson, students review techniques for writing strong literary analyses. Students take notes on the techniques, then practice by analyzing a passage from a literary work.

This multi-day lesson asks students to consider their own concepts of class and social status before diving into an analysis of those concepts in the novel, Pride and Prejudice. It concludes with students comparing the portrayal in the novel to a nonfiction text.

This lesson encourages students to justify their thoughts about literature by prompting them with ambiguous test questions. Students take the test without understanding that questions are intentionally unclear, then justify their answers with textual citations for credit.

This lesson provides examples of how to incorporate a discussion of setting into other parts of short story analysis. Students consider the setting in addition to the characters and themes in an attempt to tie all of the elements of a story together.

This activity asks students to examine and evaluate how the structure of a work can impact meaning and audience experience. Students are tasked with examining text structure, plotting events for a visual representation of the "highs and lows" of the story, and composing a formal paragraph explaining their findings/analysis. It is divided into 3 sections, which can be spread out and completed individually or it can be a single assignment. It should take students about 120 minutes to complete all parts.

In this lesson, students analyze songs as an introduction to poetry. Students search songs for examples of poetic devices and assemble them in a storyboard that matches each term with an illustration and a line from the song.

In this lesson, students define and discuss imagery before searching the text of John Steinbeck's classic novel Of Mice and Men for examples. Students will use their findings as the basis for a literary analysis essay.

This resource is a tool for text analysis. Students will read a text, complete an analysis chart, and write an analysis paragraph.

This resource provides teachers with background information, discussion questions, literary analysis, and extension literature to help guide students in exploring Chinua Achebe's "Things Fall Apart." It also provides questions that help with exploring plot, character development, imagery, and the placement of this book in the literary tradition.