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.

In this lesson students will read and analyze “The Flowers” by Alice Walker. Lesson 2 from the Author’s Craft unit focuses on diction. Students will examine how Walker’s word choice creates tonal shifts in the story that support the theme. The lesson requires student to collect evidence, discuss, and complete a writing assignment in which they continue the story while using diction to maintain the tone. Image source: "Rose" by Kapa65 on Pixabay.com.

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 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 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.

In this lesson, students analyze Jacob Lawrence'sThe Migration of the Negro Panel no. 57(1940-41), Helene Johnson's Harlem Renaissance poem"Sonnet to a Negro in Harlem"(1927), and Paul Laurence Dunbar's late-nineteenth-century poem"We Wear the Mask"(1896), considering how each work represents the life and changing roles of African Americans from the late nineteenth century to the Harlem Renaissance and The Great Migration.

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.

This lesson focuses on character analysis throughout William Golding's novel Lord of the Flies. While contemplating both direct and indirect characterization techniques, students will be able to consider how characterization builds relationships among the boys in the novel.

Uncover the sources of Twain's comic genius in American traditions of dialect humor and literary satire.

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 will explore Dickinson's poem "Safe in their Alabaster Chambers" both as it was published as well as how it developed through Dickinson's correspondence with her sister-in-law Susan Huntington Gilbert Dickinson.

Lesson 2 is a study of symbols in William Golding's novel "Lord of the Flies." After reviewing the general concept of symbolism, students focus on four of the most dominant symbols that permeate the novel: the island itself; the conch; the Lord of the Flies effigy; fire.

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.

Lesson 3 guides students through Melville's seamless integration of several literary genres"”sermon, scientific writing, drama, and hymn"”and moves into an analytical discussion of "Moby-Dick" as a masterwork that goes above and beyond the appeal of its fictional genre.

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.

Our literary glossary provides a comprehensive list of terms and concepts along with lesson plans for teaching these topics in K-12 classrooms. Whether you are starting with a specific author, concept, or text, or teaching a specific literary term, but do not have a lesson or activity for students to work with, teachers and students will find what they're looking for here.

This course is an introduction to many of the central issues in a branch of philosophy called philosophy of mind.

After reading “The Most Dangerous Game” students will comb through the text to pull out the best examples of imagery from the story. They will work together in groups of three to collect five examples (per person) of imagery. Students must be able to see each other’s examples, so they don’t repeat them, but also help each other identify which imagery is being documented.