This resource accompanies our Rethink 8th 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 8th grade ELA content.

Grouped by each state, by genre, or thematically, this resource has hundreds of folklores, fairy tales and fables for any age group.

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.

An interactive resource on annotating and close textual reading from Solomon Northup's Twelve Years a Slave.

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.

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 Students explore the historical references in the novel and generate questions for further research.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.

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.

Students examine books, selected from the American Library Association Challenged/Banned Books list, and write persuasive pieces expressing their views about what should be done with the books at their school.

Common Lit is a searchable collection of free fiction and nonfiction texts searchable by thematic connection, subject, discussion questions or text. Please note in order to access the entire site you will need to create a free account.

A guideline for teachers to compare the works of Edgar Allan Poe and Ambrose Bierce and discuss how their narration choices affect the piece and the reader.

In this lesson, students engage in a close reading of Hopper's painting and an Edward Hirsch poem to explore the types of emotion generated by each work in the viewer or reader, and how the painter and poet each achieved these responses.

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 are introduced to the genre of folktales and engage in a study of several Russian folktales. They are asked to read the tales aloud, and then to fill in a chart about each one. Next, they analyze the charts, answering questions about the folktales’ setting, main characters, and "uniquely Russian" attributes. They also compare and contrast Russian folktales with folktales they may have heard as young children. The lesson culminates with a writing assignment in which students will analyze the folktales or create their own.

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.

This resource contains figurative language poems for various levels with text-based questions for each.

This lesson provides hands-on differentiated instruction by guiding students to search for the literal definitions of figurative language using the Internet. It also guides students in understanding figurative meanings through the use of context clues and making inferences.

Science fiction has the potential to spark lively discussions while inviting students to extrapolate from their own working knowledge of scientific principles. They first define the science fiction genre and then read and discuss science fiction texts. Next, they conduct research to find science facts that support or dispute the science included in the plot of the science fiction book they read. Students then revisit their definition of the genre and revise based on their reading. Finally, students complete a project that examines the science fiction genre in relation to real-world science concepts and topics.

In this lesson students do a close reading of “Learning to Read,” a poem by Francis Watkins Harper about an elderly former slave which conveys the value of literacy to blacks during and after slavery. The activities also prompt students to examine the nature of literacy in the 21st century and the value they put upon it.

GIST is a strategy to help students write brief, accurate, and complete summaries of material they read. In this lesson, students work together summarizing larger and larger portions of text, keeping their summaries at 25 words or fewer.