This activity is a creative response after reading Beowulf.  This has students writing poetry, and it also contains a hands-on artistic component in the instructions.

This activity is a creative response after reading Beowulf.  This has students writing poetry, and it also contains a hands-on artistic component in the instructions. It is a remix of an original lesson by Kinsi King. 

Students will read three short stories about women, written in different historical periods. Students will read each story and discuss the development of female characters in a particular setting, the role of women, gender differences, and society's expectations.

Students compose epitaphs for deceased characters in "Hamlet," paying close attention to how their words appeal to the senses, create imagery, suggest mood, and set tone. Students will design gravestones to display their epitaphs. Students must capture the essence of their character's personality and station in life.

After students examine primary photographs, maps, and other documents that depict Chicago at the turn of the century, they will anticipate Sandburg's description of and attitudes towards the city. After reading a short biography of the poet they will make further predictions about the poem, and identify ways Sandburg uses literary techniques to make vivid the Chicago he knew. The lesson concludes with a piece of writing in which students describe a favorite place.

In this lesson students plan, write, illustrate, and publish their own children's picture books. First, students review illustrated children’s books to gain an understanding of the creative process and the elements that help make a children's book successful. Next, students use graphic organizers, peer feedback, and storyboards to brainstorm and create the relationship between the illustrations and text, as well as formalize character, setting, and conflict. Finally, students use a variety of methods to bind their books in an attractive manner and present their books to their peers.

In this lesson, students experiment with creating mood in their stories using digital photographs for inspiration. Students examine a list of mood words, then try to write and create moods that match the photos they see. Students may optionally read from a list of short stories that all excel at creating mood.

Students read Raymond Carver’s short story "A Small, Good Thing," focusing on characterization in order to develop one of the static characters—the hit-and-run driver who causes Scotty’s death—more fully. Students use a literary graphic organizer to analyze the three major characters. They compare the story to an older version titled "The Bath." Finally, they create an original anecdote involving the driver, share their stories, and respond to each other's writing.

As a way to support teachers with English Language Arts (ELA) instruction during the pandemic, the NCDPI ELA team created choice boards featuring standards-aligned ELA activities.The intended purpose of these choice boards is to provide a way for students to continue standards-based learning while schools are closed. Each activity can be adapted and modified to be completed with or without the use of digital tools. Many activities can also be repeated with different texts. These standards-based activities are meant to be a low-stress approach to reinforcing and enriching the skills learned during the 2019-2020 school year. The choice boards are to be used flexibly by teachers, parents, and students in order to meet the unique needs of each learner.Exploration activities are provided for a more self-directed or guided approach to independent learning for students. These activities and sites should be used as a way to explore concepts, topics, skills, and social and emotional competencies that interest the learner. 

This resource provides a lesson designed to help students understand the use of satire and the myriad technicques that authors may use to add it to their writing. Students use the film Shrek to examine the four techniques of exaggeration, incongruity, reversal and parody. Students prove their understanding by using satire to rewrite a fairly tale.

Students will read, critically analyze and write about a series of poems dealing with ghosts and spirits.

Students will read, critically analyze and write about a series of poems dealing with light and darkness.

This lesson pairs a magazine article about the Edmund Fitzgerald shipwreck in 1975 with the Gordon Lightfoot song, "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald." After comparing and contrasting the elements of each text, students will choose a historical event and, using the song as a model, create a narrative poem about their chosen event. In addition, more contemporary songs and current events will also work for this activity.

In this video from American Masters | Maya Angelou: And Still I Rise, students will explore the role of poetry in American politics, compare Angelou and Frost, and consider how Angelou’s poem reflects the challenges and concerns of the time. Discussion questions, teaching tips, and a student handout push students to engage with Angelou’s words and to think critically about her famous work.

This four-week unit focuses on the theme of nostalgia. Students will study several genres of literature (poetry, nonfiction, fiction) and write informal and formal analytical commentaries. Students will also do writing about their own childhood memories.

Students will watch and discuss video clips that show how two men in Chile coped with being prisoners in concentration camps during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. Each student will then create a non-fiction picture book that tells the story of one of these men and provides historical context.

In this lesson, students will discuss what myths are, identify how modern-day writers reinterpret myths to reflect contemporary themes and points of view, and rewrite a myth in a modern version from the point of view of another character in the story.

In this lesson, students will engage in peer review in order to revise their narratives, focusing on precise language.

This lesson allows students to see and experience how a story can drastically change when told from the perspective of a character whose voice was not heard in the story's original form. After reading and discussing a New York Times review of the latest Tarzan film, students will select a favorite children's story and rewrite it from another character's point of view, focusing on the character's view of the elements of the plot, other characters, and himself or herself.

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Students will review the use of understood "you" in writing and create their own creative nonfiction essay using understood "you" as the narrative technique.