Students will learn about the impact of enjambment in Gwendolyn Brooks' short but far-reaching poem "We Real Cool." One element of this lesson plan that is bound to draw students in is a compelling video of working-class Bostonian John Ulrich reciting the poem.
Grace Lin's novel Where the Mountain Meets the Moon combines the story of a courageous young girl who travels to search for help for her family with a set of Chinese traditional tales. The lessons help students to understand the nature of this frame story and to write their own stories of meeting challenges.
The Red Badge of Courage’s success reflects the birth of a modern sensibility; today we feel something is true when it looks like the sort of thing we see in newspapers or on television news.
Students are bound to be curious to know what all that Greek writing means. This lesson plan uses an EDSITEment created Greek alphabet animation to help students "decode" the inscription on the Olympic medal. Because the Olympic medal is both a familiar and mysterious object for students, it presents an ideal prompt to build basic literacy in the Greek alphabet. Thus, this lesson uses the Athens 2004 medal inscription as an elementary "text" to help students practice reading Greek and to help reinforce the link between ancient Greek culture and the Olympic games.
This lesson explores elements of wonder, distortion, fantasy, and whimsy in Lewis Carroll's adaptation for younger readers of his beloved classic, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
As a man and his animal companion take a less-traveled path to their Yukon camp, they step into a tale of wilderness survival and dire circumstances in Jack London's "To Build a Fire". Throughout this short stories, students will have the opportunity to analytically read the short story while discussing major themes and American naturalism.
The harrowing adventure of four men fighting for survival after a shipwreck is chronicled by Stephen Crane in "The Open Boat." Students learn about narration, point of view, and man's relationship to nature in this classic example of American literary naturalism.
This lesson plan highlights the importance of First Amendment rights by examining Norman Rockwell’s Four Freedoms painting series. Students discover the First Amendment in action as they explore their own community and country through newspapers, art, and role playing.
In the first chapter of William Faulkner's emotionally charged novel, "The Sound and the Fury," Benjy Compson, the son with intellectual disability who narrates this section, matters in a most profound sense. It is through his voice--childlike, detached, and often disorienting--that readers are confronted with the reality of time as a recurring motif and how time affects and informs human experiences.
