This resource accompanies our Rethink 7th Grade ELA course. It includes ideas for use, ways to support exceptional children, ways to extend learning, digital resources and tools, tips for supporting English Language Learners and students with visual and hearing impairments. There are also ideas for offline learning. 

This parent guide supports parents in helping their child at home with the 7th grade ELA content.

In this unit, students will be reading and writing myths following the structure of short stories and eventually publishing their own work.

This teacher's guide for Addie on the Inside by James Howe contains discussion questions, activities, and research assignments.

Seven-year old Annie Dillard enjoys playing football with the boys in her neighborhood because it requires her to play with concentration and courage. In this CCSS lesson, students will explore this story through text dependent questions, academic vocabulary, and writing assignments.

Seventeen-year-old best friends dream of becoming light-weight boxing champions of the world. They train together until they find out that they will meet in the ring to determine who will fight in a championship tournament. In this CCSS lesson, students will explore this story through text dependent questions, academic vocabulary, and writing assignments.

 This is a hands-on project that uses George Orwell's novel, Animal Farm, as the touchstone text. Students work in groups to construct a functioning windmill that can generate electricity. Each student has a role based on the characters in the book. There are also segments of the project that focus on extracting key information from the text.

The purpose of this project is two-fold: first, to encourage students to make the reading of poetry a creative act; and, second, to help students appreciate particular literary devices in their functions as semaphores or interpretive signals. Those devices that are about the imagery of a poem (metaphor, simile, personification, description) can be thought of as magnifying glasses: we see most clearly that upon which the poet focuses our gaze. Similarly, those poetic devices that are about the sound of the poem (alliteration, consonance, enjambment, onomatopoeia, and repetition) can be thought of as volume buttons or amplifiers: we hear most clearly what the poet makes us listen to most attentively.

This is a poem about love that Poe has written in memory of his wife, whom he calls Annabel Lee. In this CCSS lesson, students will explore this story through text dependent questions, academic vocabulary, and writing assignments.

An Anticipation Guide is a strategy that is used before reading to activate students' prior knowledge and build curiosity about a new topic. Before reading a selection, students respond to several statements that challenge or support their preconceived ideas about key concepts in the text. Using this strategy stimulates students' interest in a topic and sets a purpose for reading. Anticipation guides can be revisited after reading to evaluate how well students understood the material and to correct any misconceptions.

This resource is a collection of discussion questions to supplement The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein.

In this lesson, the students will read and reread the passage closely and focusing their reading through a series of questions and discussion about the text, students will be able to understand the structure and purpose of this particular soliloquy and how it delves into universal themes regarding the human condition.

In this CCSS lesson, students will explore this story through text dependent questions, academic vocabulary, and writing assignments. Printable text files included.

In this lesson, students read Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar", then research the assassination of another historical figure.

What drives changes to classic myths and fables? In this lesson students evaluate the changes Disney made to the myth of "Hercules" in order to achieve their audience and purpose.

In The Bear Boy, a man does not teach his son the ways of Pueblo life and how to transition into manhood. In this CCSS lesson, students will explore this story through text dependent questions, academic vocabulary, and writing assignments.

Students use Shakespeare's Secret, a featured title on the Teachers' Choices Booklist (International Reading Association, 2006), as a springboard to exploration of the controversy regarding the authorship Shakespeare's works. The novel makes liberal use of the historical details surrounding William Shakespeare's life, and exposes students to the possibility raised by some theorists that Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford, was the true author of the works that have long been attributed to the Bard. Students explore the historical references in the novel and generate questions for further research. As they research these questions on suggested websites, they organize their findings with the help of the ReadWriteThink Notetaker. Then they work in small groups to create and present short dramatic skits that creatively connect the novel with the historical facts.

A teachers guide for Betsey Brown by Ntozake Shange, including chapter-specific questions for increased comprehension, questions for class discussion, and suggestions for further study.

Students work in groups to read and discuss a book, keeping track of their feelings and opinions about the book, as well as facts and quotations, as they read. Students then decide which parts of their review they wish to annotate, with each student in the group responsible for one topic. Each student writes about his or her topic, including bibliographic information.

This teacher's guide for The Boy on the Wooden Box by Leon Leyson with Marilyn J. Harran and Elisabeth B. Leyson contains discussion questions and activities for reading comprehension, learning about craft and structure, integrating information, and writing practice.