Lesson Plans

45 Result(s)
Grade Range
9-12
Lesson 1: Understanding the Context of Modernist Poetry

This lesson allow students to explore the forces that prompted the literary modernism movement, specifically focusing on modernist poetry. By allowing students to explore the movement independently, they will also be able to develop research and inquiry skills.

Grade Range
9-12
A Raisin in the Sun: Whose "American Dream"?

Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun provides a compelling and honest look into one family's aspirations to move to another Chicago neighborhood and the thunderous crash of a reality that raises questions about for whom the "American Dream" is accessible.  

Grade Range
9-12
Midnight Ride of Paul Revere: Fact, Fiction, and Artistic License

This lesson encourages close study of Wood's painting, American Revolution primary sources, and Longfellow's poem to understand the significance of this historical ride in America's struggle for freedom. By reading primary sources, students learn how Paul Revere and his Midnight Ride became an American story of patriotism.

Grade Range
9-12
Hawthorne: Author and Narrator

Compare the storyteller's voice with that of the writer, who was a contemporary of Whitman and Douglass.

Grade Range
9-12
Building Suburbia: Highways and Housing in Postwar America

This lesson highlights the changing relationship between the city center and the suburb in the postwar decades, especially in the 1950s. Students will look at the legislation leading up to and including the Federal Highway Act of 1956. They will also examine documents about the history of Levittown, the most famous and most important of the postwar suburban planned developments.

Grade Range
9-12
The Red Badge of Courage: A New Kind of Courage

In The Red Badge of Courage, Stephen Crane presents war through the eyes—and thoughts—of one soldier. The narrative’s altered point of view and stylistic innovations enable a heightened sense of realism while setting the work apart from war stories written essentially as tributes or propaganda.

Grade Range
9-12
Sor Juana, la poetisa: Los sonetos

Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, una muy importante figura literaria a nivel mundial y la primer gran poeta de la América Latina, es un producto del Siglo de Oro Español.

Grade Range
9-12
The Inner Chapters of John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath

John Steinbeck recognized that one of the most criticized elements of The Grapes of Wrath was his alternating use of inner chapters or “generals” that interrupt the narrative of the Joads. In this lesson, students will first determine the function of Steinbeck’s opening chapter which acts as the first “inner chapter.” Then, they will explore the relationship between inner chapters and the Joad narrative chapters throughout the novel.

Grade Range
9-12
Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart

Nigerian born Chinua Achebe is one of the world's most well-known and influential contemporary writers. His first novel, Things Fall Apart (1958), is an early narrative about the European colonization of Africa told from the point of view of the colonized people.