Name | Description |
A Need for Sleep: A Close Reading of a Soliloquy from King Henry IV, Part II | In this lesson, students will consider the literary elements Shakespeare uses to communicate King Henry's inability to sleep. Students will analyze how diction, tone, syntax, and imagery help to convey King Henry's state of mind, and will write a short response to outline their analysis, using text to support their answers. |
The Modernist Struggle: Figurative Language and Repetition in T. S. Eliot’s Prufrock | Students examine the poem, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," and determine the mood of the poem from figurative language and repetitive elements contained in the poem. |
Budgeting: Finding Personal Financial Success | During this lesson, students will learn about budgets, checking and savings accounts, and interest. They will then have a research activity to focus on their future lives, which they will use to create a budget for their lives after they have finished their education and/or job training. This budget will be created using a spreadsheet or other technology to explore how various factors, such as interest rates, will affect their budget and necessary income. |
Universal Theme: The Cycle of Life | Through an analysis of E. E. Cummings' poem "anyone lived in a pretty how town,” an using the myth of Daedalus and Icarus, and Pieter Bruegel the Elder's painting "Landscape with the Fall of Icarus," as supplemental resources, students will analyze the theme of the importance of the cycle of life and nature as it pertains to human existence. The three texts come from dramatically different genres, time periods, and settings capturing the essence of a universal theme. |
Close Reading Exemplar: I am an American Day Address | This unit from Student Achievement Partner web resources has been developed to guide students and instructors in a close reading of Learned Hand's "I am an American Day Address". The activities and actions described below follow a carefully developed set of steps that assist students in increasing their familiarity and understanding of Hand's speech through a series of text-dependent tasks and questions that ultimately develop college and career ready skills. This unit is recommended as an activity for a "Great Conversation" Module and can be taught in two days of study and reflection on the part of students and their teachers. A third day or more could be added if the time is needed or extension activities are desired. |
Looking for the Byronic Hero Using Twilight's Edward Cullen | This comprehensive lesson from ReadWriteThink.org helps students understand the complexity of a character (primarily the hero or protagonist) in a literary work. Several resources are included and the lesson is clear and easy to follow. Also, the culminating project offers several choices that should encourage student curiosity and creativity. Although the lesson is written for five 50 minute sessions, the teacher implementing the activities could effectively complete the lesson in less time. |
"The American Puritan Tradition: Part III" | This lesson is part three of a three-part unit that will explore and analyze how different authors convey American Puritanism. In this lesson, students plan to write and then complete an essay to explore how two different authors and texts portray American Puritanism, Jonathan Edwards in “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” and Arthur Miller in “The Crucible.” |
Show Me a Hero, and I Will Write You a Tragedy – F. Scott Fitzgerald - Part 2 | This is Part two of this three-part series on the writings of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Through reading and analyzing excerpts from F. Scott Fitzgerald's short story "The Offshore Pirate" (1920) in Flappers and Philosophers, students will examine the characterization of Artida and Carlyle and compare the two characters. |
The American Puritan Tradition: Part 1 | This lesson is part one of three in a unit that will explore and analyze how American Puritanism has been represented in different texts. The goal of this lesson is for students to analyze the central idea and how the authors' style (figurative language, persuasive techniques) contributes to establishing and achieving the purpose in "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God." |
Gatsby Universal Themes Analysis – F. Scott Fitzgerald - Part 1 | This is Part one of a three-part series that focuses on passages from The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Through reading, text marking, and participating in collaborative discussions, students will analyze the universal themes: “Success can be corrupted by greed,” and “Irresponsibility can lead to destruction.” |
Poetry Analysis and Time Periods | Students will analyze how Robert Frost and Emily Dickinson each used figurative language to develop a specific tone in relation to mortality. They will also consider how each poet reflected the time periods within which they wrote. |
Lesson IV: The Trials of Phillis Wheatley-- A Debate | This is the fourth and final lesson in a small unit on the life and works of Phillis Wheatley. Although details are given only for this final lesson, some information is given on the preceding three lessons. |
Dealing with Grief: A Comparison of Tone and Theme | In this four-part lesson series, students will delve into the topic of grief through analysis of poetic devices, form, and point of view in poems by Emily Dickinson and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Students will connect theme to the poets’ viewpoints on the emotions, or the lack thereof, that one experiences during times of pain and loss. Students will read the poems multiple times to seek layers of meaning and write an in-depth analysis. |
Poetry Analysis Lesson 1: Figurative Language Creates Tone | Students will read Emily Dickinson poems, complete text marking and annotations of the poems, and write a response that explains their analysis of how Emily Dickinson uses figurative language to create tone. |
Poetry Analysis Lesson 2: Figurative Language and Theme | Students will identify and analyze how two authors use figurative language to support the themes of each of their poems. Students will complete text marking and annotations to show their analysis of each, and will write a response that explains their analysis of each. |
Name | Description |
Facilitating a Socratic Seminar with the play "The Piano Lesson" by August Wilson | This teaching idea guides students in generating questions for a student led seminar based on their reading of August Wilson's play, "The Piano Lesson". Students will then use their questions to conduct a Socratic Seminar about the play. |
Analyzing Grammar Pet Peeves | This teaching idea is designed to help students analyze grammar pet peeves. Students begin by thinking about their own grammar pet peeves and then read a "Dear Abby" column in which she lists several grammar pet peeves of her own. Students become aware that attitudes about race, social class, moral and ethical character and 'proper' language use are intertwined and that rants such as this one reveal those attitudes. Finally, students discuss the pet peeves as a class while gaining an understanding that issues of race, class, combined with audience expectations, help to determine what is considered 'proper' language use. |
Name | Description |
Of Sound Mind: Looking Toward the Future | Of Sound Mind tells the story of the frustrations, anxiety, and sorrow experienced by Theo, who is the only hearing son in a family that is deaf. Theo is torn between helping his family and planning for his future. Students investigate issues of family responsibility, maturity, and deafness in this unit as they cite textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says, work to analyze the impact of the author's choices regarding elements of the story, and write informative/explanatory texts to convey complex ideas clearly. |
Analyzing Famous Speeches as Arguments | After gaining skills through analyzing a historic and contemporary speech as a class, students will select a famous speech from a list compiled from several resources and write an essay that identifies and explains the rhetorical strategies that the author deliberately chose while crafting the text to make an effective argument. Their analysis will consider questions such as: "What makes the speech an argument?", "How did the author's rhetoric evoke a response from the audience?", and "Why are the words still venerated today?". |