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.

The 7th grade poetry unit gives an in-depth approach to poetry. Included are worksheets, rubrics, and answers keys where applicable along with CCSS literature examples.

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

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 lesson is about the poem "Nobody's Friend" which was published in a full page ad in the Wall Street Journal.  It is used as the basis to talk about anti-bullying and bullying.  After reading and discussing, students will write their own poem using a synonym for bullying.

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.

Aesop's Fables is a collection of tales by the Greek storyteller Aesop. Most of the tales included here were translated and edited by Reverend George Fyler Townsend (1814-1900) in England and published under the title, Aesop's Fables. Townsend's translations were influential on many subsequent collections of fables. Some of the tales included here were taken from the book How to Tell Stories to Children and Some Stories To Tell, by Sara Cone Bryant and published in London in 1918. In some cases, we have included both Townsend's version and Bryant's version of the same tale.

Source: This book was compiled by the Florida Center for Instructional Technology and includes passages from multiple sources. Please refer to the passage pages for further source information.

This teacher's guide for The Dark Side of Nowhere by Neal Shusterman contains a summary of the text, discussion questions, activities, and research assignments.

The following unit incorporates multimedia and classroom activities to encourage students to explore and interact with poetry by first writing letters to important historical poets as practice for writing letters to the Academy of American Poets Board of Chancellors, a group that represents poetry in America at its best.

In this lesson students will identify the effective use of imagery and practice analyzing and creating imagery in particular selections.

This lesson helps students explore the elements of poetry and their effect on meaning, tone, and style. Students also analye various forms of poetry both in pairs and independently and create their own poems and presentation slide show to show how to analyze poetic elements within their writing.

In this lesson, students read Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech in conjunction with Nikki Giovanni's poem "The Funeral of Martin Luther King, Jr." in order to better understand the speech and the impact it had both on observers like Giovanni during the Civil Rights Movement and on Americans today. After researching and writing quiz questions about the vocabulary and content of King's speech, students practice it orally before performing it readers' theater-style in front of an audience. Students synthesize their learning by writing reflections exploring various questions about King's dream in today's society, Nikki Giovanni's response, and ways to promote social change.

This lesson explores how The Giver addresses issues of personal identity, memory, and the value of reading and education. It also examines how this newer read relates to other famous classics in this genre and books that students may have read on their own.

Change is an inevitable part of life that challenges many young adults. Understanding and accepting change are key components in career and future planning. In this lesson, students explore the theme of change through allegory and poetry by reading an example of literary allegory and creating their own pictorial allegories. Students first define allegory and complete a pictorial allegory or "me tree" that displays phrases describing their interests, trails, and dreams on outlines of their hands. Next, they read and discuss a text, such as Shel Silverstein’s, The Giving Tree or Sandy Stryker's Tonia the Tree that addresses change, and then review basic literary concepts as they complete a literary elements map and plot diagram. Finally, students further explore change, and what it means to them, as they write diamante poems related to the theme of change.

Katherine Paterson’s novel Bridge to Terabithia follows the relationship of fifth graders, Jess Aarons and Leslie Burke, as they meet and become friends. The book can be used as a means for students to understand and explore the value of friendship. In this lesson, which is most appropriate for use in fourth- through sixth-grade classrooms, students make predictions about the book and its main characters, complete character studies as part of an in-depth look at Jess and Leslie’s friendship, and relate the characters’ experiences to their own as they define friendship and identify ways to make and keep friends.

Students work together in small groups to read, discuss, and analyze fairy tales. After compiling a list of common elements, students collaborate on their own original fairy tales—based on events from their own lives or the lives of someone they know. Each student decides what kind of experience to write about, composes and revises a fairy tale, and then presents their story to the rest of the class.

In this lesson, students will read and discuss two poems to explore the use of figurative language. Students will identify tone and examples of imagery and metaphor in poems. They will also explain how imagery and metaphor work together to create tone and create images to describe a scene.