Known as both a Southern and a Catholic writer, Flannery O'Connor wrote stories that explore the complexities of these two identities. In this lesson, students will challengethese dichotomieswhile closely reading and analyzing "A Good Man is Hard to Find."

Learn how writer Zora Neale Hurston incorporated and transformed black folklife in her novel Their Eyes Were Watching God. By exploring Hurston's own life history and collection methods, listening to her WPA recordings of folksongs and folktales, and comparing transcribed folk narrative texts with the plot and themes of the novel, students will learn about the crucial role of oral folklore in Hurston's written work.

This lesson plan provides a sequence of activities that you can use with your students before, during, and after readingGate A-4. Use the whole sequence, or any of the activities, to help your diverse students enter and experience the poem.

The object consists of a text in the public domain that has been downloaded from the web, uploaded into the web-based application Kami, and annotated by me with instructions and reflection questions for the students. Students whould read the story while adding their own annotations (such as observations or questions). They may also highlight or underline sections of text and respond to the comments of other students.

      The activity is meant to integrate a whole-class read-aloud and an independent active reading of the text, taking the best from both: students will be able to engage in a discussion with their classmates while reading reflecting, and annotating at their own pace.

This lesson sensitizes students to the similarities and differences between cultures by comparing Shakespearean and Bunraku/Kabuki dramas. The focus of this comparison is the complex nature of revenge explored in The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark and Chushingura, or the Treasury of the Loyal Retainers.

This lesson plan asks students to read To Kill A Mockingbird carefully with an eye for all instances and manifestations of courage, but particularly those of moral courage.

This pathway outlines blended steps that lead students through analysis of words, sounds and visuals around Michael Jackson's "Man in the Mirror" song and video.  The concept of empathy will be introduced and will carry thematically throughout the entire unit.  Students will learn abou tthe literary terms: 

Theme, symbolism, imagery, repetition, annotation, connotation, denotation

This course investigates the uses and boundaries of fiction in a range of novels and narrative styles--traditional and innovative, western and nonwestern--and raises questions about the pleasures and meanings of verbal texts in different cultures, times, and forms. Toward the end of the term, we will be particularly concerned with the relationship between art and war in a diverse selection of works.

This pathway is an introduction to short story with a focus on the literary terms and devices of characterization, theme, juxtaposition, setting, structure, alliteration and diction.  By the end of this unit, students will be able to summarize and analyze the listed elements of short story.  Students will be asked to identify important words and explain why these words are significant to the overall message.  Students will engage with both text and visual representations to foster discussions about how diction and images influence meaning.  Finally, students will compare and contrast "The Last Flower" literary elements with another self-chosen short story.

The lessons in this unit provide you with an opportunity to use online resources to further enliven your students' encounter with Greek mythology, to deepen their understanding of what myths meant to the ancient Greeks, and to help them appreciate the meanings that Greek myths have for us today. In the lessons below, students will learn about Greek conceptions of the hero, the function of myths as explanatory accounts, the presence of mythological terms in contemporary culture, and the ways in which mythology has inspired later artists and poets.

Students align original FSA photographs from the 1930s and the author's own journal entries, to trace parallel elements John Steinbeck then incorporated into passages in The Grapes of Wrath.

The Folger Shakespeare Library provides the full searchable text of "Julius Caesar" to read online or download as a PDF. All of the lines are numbered sequentially to make it easier and more convenient to find any line.

Curriculum unit of three lessons explores Williams's use of expressionism to more fully comprehend the theatrical devices and themes in The Glass Menagerie. In Lesson 1, students identify and explicate Williams' expressionist techniques.

In this lesson, students closely examine Dickinson's poem "There's a certain slant of light" in order to understand her craft. Students explore different components of Dickinson's poetry and then practice their own critical and poetry writing skills in an emulation exercise. Finally, in the spirit of Dickinson's correspondences, students will exchange their poems and offer informed critiques of each others' work.

By studying other female characters in "The Awakening," students will see how Chopin carefully provides many examples of a socially acceptable "role" that Edna could adopt.

Long perceived as a recluse who wrote purely in isolation, Emily Dickinson in reality maintained many dynamic correspondences throughout her lifetime and specifically sought out dialogues on her poetry. These correspondences"”both professional and private"”reveal a poet keenly aware of the interdependent relationship between poet and reader.

Poet. Orator. Actress. Activist. Writer. Singer. Phenomenal Woman. These and many more superlatives are used to describe the incomparable Maya Angelou. Gone too soon in 2014 at the age of 86, Dr. Angelou's legacy will live on through the words she used to eloquently, powerfully, and honestly express emotions, capture experiences, and spread hope.

Lesson OverviewIn this lesson, students will be introduced to Edgar Allan Poe's theory on the “single effect” of the short story. They will read a passage from Poe as well as his short story “The Tell-Tale Heart.”Lesson PreparationRead the lesson and student content.Anticipate student difficulties and identify the differentiation options you will choose for working with your students.Decide how you will put students in pairs for the lesson's tasks.

This seminar addresses the inherent challenges of translating poetry from different languages, cultures and eras. Students do some translation of their own, though accommodations are made if a student lacks even a basic knowledge of any foreign language.

Poets achieve popular acclaim only when they express clear and widely shared emotions with a forceful, distinctive, and memorable voice. But what is meant by voice in poetry, and what qualities have made the voice of Langston Hughes a favorite for so many people?