LAFS.1112.W.1.1Archived Standard

In this lesson, students will listen to a mini-lecture by a history professor regarding two passages included in Thomas Jefferson's first draft of the Declaration of Independence but deleted from the final version. Students will then participate in an analysis of the two passages, then write an argumentative essay about the professor's argument.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson, students will listen to a mini-lecture by a history professor regarding two passages included in Thomas Jefferson's first draft of the Declaration of Independence but deleted from the final version. Students will then participate in a close-reading analysis of the two passages to understand the professor's argument, explaining it in an essay. The hypocrisy of slavery is the primary theme: Can a people who enslave others validly plead for their own freedom?

Type: Lesson Plan

Students will read and analyze the satire in Mark Twain's, "Advice to Youth." Students will answer text-dependent questions and write a short analysis regarding how Twain uses satire to support his claim.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson, students will perform multiple close readings of the well-known "To be or not to be" soliloquy from William Shakespeare's Tragedy of Hamlet. Students will then write two paragraphs to show their analysis of Shakespeare’s use of figurative language and its effect on the text.

Type: Lesson Plan

Huck Finn's moral journey parallels Mark Twain's own questions about slavery. Like the photographers of the nineteenth-century, Twain, a Realist, struggled with how best to portray fictionalized characters, while still expressing truth and creating social commentary. In this lesson, students use a Venn Diagram to compare and contrast Mark Twain's novel and/or excerpts from Frederick Doulgass' narrative to original photographs of slaves from the late-nineteenth century. Then they write an essay to compare the different portrayals, arguing to what extent art can reliably reflect truth. In addition, they will discuss art as social commentary.

Type: Lesson Plan

After reading or viewing a text, students are introduced to propaganda techniques and then identify examples in the text. Students discuss these examples, and then explore the use of propaganda in popular culture by looking at examples in the media. Students identify examples of propaganda techniques used in clips of online political advertisements and explain how the techniques are used to persuade voters. Next, students explore the similarities of the propaganda techniques used in the literary text and in the online political ads to explain the commentary the text is making about contemporary society. Finally, students write a persuasive essay in support of a given statement.

In this lesson, some specific references are made to Brave New World as examples. A text list suggests additional novels, short stories, plays, and movies that will also work for this activity.

Type: Lesson Plan

This mini-lesson invites students to think of a literary character as a peer, creating an authentic connection between literature and life. While the lesson uses The Catcher in the Rye as an example, the activities could be centered on the primary character of any novel. Students choose a perspective on the character (from options suggested by the teacher) and work in small groups to identify scenes in the novel that reflect their view. They then select songs appropriate for the character and write a rationale for each song chosen, including supporting evidence from the text. When students present their completed playlists in class, their classmates inevitably make observations that increase everyone's insights into the character and the novel.

Type: Lesson Plan

Students will read and analyze the "Narrative of the Captivity" for Rowlandson's use of allusion as it contributes to the meaning of her account. In addition, they will identify and analyze the central idea and supporting details as they contribute to meaning.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson, students first complete a survey to establish their beliefs about technology before using a literary elements map to explore the role of fictional technology in a novel such as 1984, Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451, REM World, or Feed (additional titles that could be used, including short stories, are included within the lesson plan). Next, using evidence from the text, students discuss and debate what they believe the story's author is saying about technology. As an assessment, students will utilize one of the items from the survey that caused the most disagreement in group discussions to form an argument as to why they think the author would agree or disagree with that particular statement on the survey. Students will write a letter to persuade another student in the class who disagrees with their viewpoint. Another group discussion can follow the exchange of these letters.

Type: Lesson Plan

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.

Type: Lesson Plan

After reading Richard Wright's short novel Rite of Passage, students will demonstrate their understanding of plot, character, and conflict by writing recommendations for the protagonists' future to a juvenile court system judge.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this unit, students will examine the challenges of transitioning into adulthood faced by Taylor, who is an 18-year-old girl with autism. Taylor must go to Waskesiu Lake for the summer because her mother has a new job. Wild Orchid explores how Taylor learns to apply the coping strategies she has been taught when she finds herself in a new environment. She learns that she can be independent and think for herself. Through this lesson plan, students will work to determine two or more themes of a text, analyze the impact of the author's choices regarding the elements of a story, and write arguments to support claims with valid reasoning and sufficient evidence in response to questions.

Type: Unit/Lesson Sequence

After gaining skill 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?

Type: Unit/Lesson Sequence