A Literary Glossary for Literature and Language Arts

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.

Material Type: Teaching/Learning Strategy

The Beatles, Lesson 6: From the Stage to the Studio

By the end of their 1966 summer tour, The Beatles had grown weary of the live concert setting. Concurrently, they had become increasingly comfortable within, and inspired by the possibilities of the recording studio. In the fall of 1966, in a culminating moment, The Beatles announced that they would no longer tour and would instead focus their creative energy on making records.

Material Type: Full Course

The Beatles, Lesson 5: The Teamwork Behind the Beatles

This lesson explores first the role Brian Epstein played in helping craft The Beatles' visual presence, group identity and team unity, the way he helped the group transition from successful nightclub act to international sensation.

Material Type: Full Course

The Beatles, Lesson 4: The Beatles and American Segregation

In this lesson, students learn about the Beatles active stance against segregation and consider what the band's example meant for an emerging youth culture.

Material Type: Full Course

The Beatles, Lesson 3: The Beatles, A New Kind of Star

Essential Question: How did The Beatles establish a new paradigm for the image of "the star," and how did that image support their global success?

Material Type: Full Course

The Beatles, Lesson 2: The Beatles and Teen Culture

In this lesson, students learn about the impact of The Beatles on their teenage audience, particularly in relation to the group's image as a "rock band."

Material Type: Full Course

The Beatles, Lesson 1: The Beatles Work Towards Success

"A lot of people thought we were an overnight sensation," says The Beatles' Paul McCartney in The Beatles: Eight Days a Week “The Touring Years," "but they were wrong." Indeed, though to many fans The Beatles seem to have been a big bang, bursting from Liverpudlian obscurity to international stardom with their 1963 debut album Please Please Me, quite the opposite is true. Between 1960-63, The Beatles worked. They were, after all, young men from the working classes of Liverpool, a city still recovering from World War II. They worked to earn money for basic necessities, playing pub sets both day and night and performing lengthy residencies in Hamburg, Germany, one of which included a stretch of 104 consecutive shows. They worked on repertoire, learning dozens of "cover" songs spanning several genres. They worked on their group sound, playing several sets a night and fine tuning the skills that helped them "hold" audiences at the dance floor, even those who may not have come specifically to see them.

Material Type: Full Course

Sountracks: Songs That Defined History, Lesson 11. the Journey to Marriage Equality in the United States

Students will consider how Germans resisted what the Berlin Wall symbolized during the Cold War by examining the musical cultures that developed in East and West Germany. To do this, students will watch clips from CNN Soundtracks and analyze primary and secondary historical sources such as newspaper articles, cartoons, interviews, and photographs.

Material Type: Full Course

Soundtracks: Songs That Defined History, Lesson 9. "Seneca Falls, Selma, Stonewall": The Stonewall Riots in the Fight For Equality

In this lesson, Barack Obama's second inaugural address serves as a launching point for classroom discussions on how the Stonewall Riots might be comparable to other seminal moments in the ongoing fight for equality in the United States. To supplement these discussions, students will analyze Rod Stewart's "The Killing of Georgie" as a poetic account of LGBTQ+ discrimination in the United States, and compare primary source documents from the Women's Rights, Civil Rights, and LGBTQ+ Rights movements.

Material Type: Full Course

Soundtracks: Songs That Defined History, Lesson 8. Third Wave: Women's Rights and Music in the 1990s

In this lesson, students will identify the origins of Third Wave Feminism and explore the diversity of the movement's demands, attitudes, and tactics by immersing themselves in three musical cultures from the 1990s: the Riot Grrrl punk rock scene exemplified by the band Bikini Kill, the female-fronted hip hop scene exemplified by Salt-N-Pepa, and the Tejano music sphere exemplified by Selena.

Material Type: Full Course

Soundtracks: Songs That Defined History, Lesson 7. Debating the Apollo 11 Moon Landing

Students will watch clips from CNN's Soundtracks to identify historic details of NASA's Apollo program. Students will then identify poet and musician Gil Scott-Heron's critical view of the Apollo program through his song, "Whitey On The Moon" and participate in a structured academic controversy activity to debate the controversy of the program.

Material Type: Full Course

Soundtracks: Songs That Defined History, Lesson 6. Musical Reactions to the Vietnam War

In this lesson, students examine how Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young's "Ohio," Merle Haggard's "Okie From Muskogee" and Edwin Starr's "War" articulated the divisive feelings Americans had about the war in the late 1960s and early 1970s. To supplement these songs, students will also watch clips from CNN Soundtracks and analyze polling data, news articles, and photographs from the era.

Material Type: Full Course

Soundtracks: Songs That Defined History, Lesson 5. What Walls Can't Hold Back: Musical Resistance in Cold War Berlin

In this lesson, students will consider how Germans resisted what the Berlin Wall symbolized during the Cold War by examining the musical cultures that developed in East and West Germany. To do this, students will watch clips from CNN Soundtracks and analyze primary and secondary historical sources such as newspaper articles, cartoons, interviews, and photographs.

Material Type: Full Course

Soundtracks: Songs That Defined History, Lesson 4. 9/11: Country Music Reponds

Students will examine the lyrics and context surrounding three country songs related to the 9/11 attacks: Alan Jackson's "Where Were You When the World Stopped Turning?" Brooks and Dunn's "Only in America," and Toby Keith's "Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue." Through the lens of these songs, they consider ways Americans reacted to the tragedy of September 11th, and discuss whether some reactions might be more appropriate than others.

Material Type: Full Course

Soundtracks: Songs That Defined History, Lesson 3. Kanye and Katrina: Environmental Racism in New Orleans

Students will analyze demographic data, and watch footage from CNN's Soundtrakcs series and a congressional hearing after the disaster to better understand the magnitude of Hurricane Katrina, and the way the federal government's response brought to light issues of racial neglect. Students will also invesitgate how Kanye West's comments during a national fundraiser articulated the disappointment and anger many black American's felt following Hurricane Katrina.

Material Type: Full Course

Soundtracks: Songs That Defined History, Lesson 2. #BlackLivesMatter: Music in a Movement

In this lesson. students will read statements from Black Lives Matter and watch a clip from CNN's Soundtracks to explore the significance of the movement and the music made in response to the issues they rally behind. Students will also analyze clips from the music videos of artists Kendrick Lamar and Beyonce Knowles-Carter to understand music's relation to the Black Lives Matter movement.

Material Type: Full Course

Soundtracks: Songs That Defined History, Lesson 10. Art, Music, and the AIDS Epidemic

In this lesson, students examine the first decade of the AIDS epidemic from a variety of vantage points: from the scientists who worked to discover the cause of the epidemic to the public health officials who developed methods of treatment to the activists who demanded that the nation pay attention. Then, students examine how the LGBTQ+ community responded to the epidemic through music and art by watching clips from CNN Soundtracks and conducting a gallery walk featuring artists whose lives were directly impacted by the AIDS crisis.

Material Type: Full Course

Soundtracks: Songs That Defined History, Lesson 1. "Alright" and the History of Black Protest Songs

Students will compare Kendrick Lamar's "Alright" with black protest songs of the past in order to identify common themes and ideas tat artists have used to illustrate black experience in the United States.

Material Type: Full Course

Critical Ways of Seeing The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in Context

Huckleberry Finn opens with a warning from its author that misinterpreting readers will be shot. Despite the danger, readers have been approaching the novel from such diverse critical perspectives for 120 years that it is both commonly taught and frequently banned, for a variety of reasons. Studying both the novel and its critics with an emphasis on cultural context will help students develop analytical tools essential for navigating this work and other American controversies. This lesson asks students to combine internet historical research with critical reading. Then students will produce several writing assignments exploring what readers see in Huckleberry Finn and why they see it that way.

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan, Unit of Study

English Literature: Victorians and Moderns

English Literature: Victorians and Moderns is an anthology with a difference. In addition to providing annotated teaching editions of many of the most frequently-taught classics of Victorian and Modern poetry, fiction and drama, it also provides a series of guided research casebooks which make available numerous published essays from open access books and journals, as well as several reprinted critical essays from established learned journals such as English Studies in Canada and the Aldous Huxley Annual with the permission of the authors and editors. Designed to supplement the annotated complete texts of three famous short novels: Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw, Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, each casebook offers cross-disciplinary guided research topics which will encourage majors in fields other than English to undertake topics in diverse areas, including History, Economics, Anthropology, Political Science, Biology, and Psychology. Selections have also been included to encourage topical, thematic, and generic cross-referencing. Students will also be exposed to a wide-range of approaches, including new-critical, psychoanalytic, historical, and feminist.

Material Type: Reading, Textbook

Authors: Camosun College, Dr. James Sexton