Using published writers' texts and students' own writing, this unit explores emotions that are associated with the artful and deliberate use of commas, semicolons, colons, and exclamation points (end-stop marks of punctuation).

In this lesson, to help you enter into the world of A Tale of Two Cities, you will think about Dickens’s time period and the reasons that he wrote a novel that takes place before he was born.In this lesson, to help them enter into the world of A Tale of Two Cities, students will think about Dickens’s time period and the reasons that he wrote a novel that takes place before he was born.

The attached close reading activities go with the novel The Call of the Wild by Jack London and are aligned to 9-12 CC ELA standards and focus on analyzing word choices, interpreting literary techniques, and determining themes.  Full Text: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/215/215-h/215-h.htm Audio Link: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVuRdoIItQC9ER0sqT4CTUV1uu7pi1JDK 

This is a poetry lesson that centers around Amanda Gorman's poem, New Day's Lyric. She published this poem near the end of 2021 (Covid-19). Filled with hope and gratitude, the poem is ideal for introducing the use of imagery as well as other poetic elements. It's an amazing poetic piece that ushers students into jumpstarting reflections through poetry. Expect writers to creatively ignite positive vibes that will disseminate throughout the classroom and beyond. What a great way to begin the new year!

This lesson plan covers racial themes in To Kill a Mockingbird.

In this module, students will read, discuss, and analyze contemporary and classic texts, focusing on how complex characters develop through interactions with one another and how authors structure text to accomplish that development. There will be a strong emphasis on reading closely and responding to text dependent questions, annotating text, and developing academic vocabulary in context.

In this module, students engage with literature and nonfiction texts that develop central ideas of guilt, obsession, and madness, among others. Building on work with evidence-based analysis and debate in Module 1, students will produce evidence-based claims to analyze the development of central ideas and text structure. Students will develop and strengthen their writing by revising and editing, and refine their speaking and listening skills through discussion-based assessments.

This module is intended for adult learners with some previous high school education who are pursuing the completion of their GED. This lesson focuses on identifying and evaluating foreshadowing, targeting the Common Core Readiness Standards for ELA/Literacy 2. Adult learners will read, analyze, and evaluate foreshadowing in multiple examples. This module involves reading, viewing, and writing components.

A short quiz on CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.2, featuring Robert Frost's poem, "The Road not Taken". The poem has a Dale-Chall difficulty level of 7-8, and a Flesch-Kincaid level of 12.8.

The 11th grade learning experience consists of 7 mostly month-long units aligned to the Common Core State Standards, with available course material for teachers and students easily accessible online. Over the course of the year there is a steady progression in text complexity levels, sophistication of writing tasks, speaking and listening activities, and increased opportunities for independent and collaborative work. Rubrics and student models accompany many writing assignments.Throughout the 11th grade year, in addition to the Common Read texts that the whole class reads together, students each select an Independent Reading book and engage with peers in group Book Talks. Students move from learning the class rituals and routines and genre features of argument writing in Unit 11.1 to learning about narrative and informational genres in Unit 11.2: The American Short Story. Teacher resources provide additional materials to support each unit.

As you read To Kill a Mockingbird each week, you will fill out your copy of the Running Theme Log for the theme you have selected.  Once you have selected your theme, you will track and analyze it for the next several weeks, so make sure you pick a theme you are most interested in.  You must have at least 1 entry per week but will likely find that you will have 3 or more entries a week depending on the theme you selected.  There is no maximum for the number of entries you can have, only a limit of at least 1 per week. Running Theme Log: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RWgozZZVN33CYmS9-soA_8FkklBoW7Yv10UehaZX-4A/edit?usp=sharing

Set in the Dominican Republic during the rule of Rafael Trujillo, In the Time of the Butterflies fictionalizes historical figures in order to dramatize the Dominican people's heroic efforts to overthrow this dictator's brutal regime. In the following activities, students will examine the actions of the characters in the novel and discuss an all encompassing definition for courage.

This unit is centered around an anchor text that may be common among content area teachers in a high school setting. Although this unit may be incorporated into any high-school English class, it is aligned with Common Core standards for 9-10. This unit will primarily focus on informational and argumentative texts, and can be used to incorporate more informational texts (as directed by the Common Core) into English classrooms at the high school level. This unit is best suited to a collaborative model of development in which ELA and content area teachers share an anchor text (The Universal Declaration of Human Rights) and communicate about how to connect diverse skills to common texts and essential questions.

GIST is a strategy to help students write brief, accurate, and complete summaries of material they read. In this lesson students work together summarizing larger and larger portions of text, but keeping their summaries at 25 words or fewer. Students will be able to summarize portions of informational or literary text. Students will be able to work in small groups to think critically about and discuss text.

Driving question:What is the most irrelevant theme to today's modern society from The Great Gatsby?Purpose:1. Students to think critically and analytically.2. Students to gain a more in-depth understanding of how to find themes within texts and be able to have a deeper connection with modern society. Standards: 1) 9-10. RL. 2.2: Analyze in detail the development of two or more themes or central ideas over the course of a work of literature, including how they emerge and are shaped and refined by specific details.2) 9-10.RN.4.3: Analyze seminal U.S. and world documents of historical and literacy significance, including how they address related themes and concepts. Grabbers: To show clips from the movie to highlight themes that will be assigned to students. These clips can be used as evidence for the students projects (video clips are in teacher materials tab).https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKs6tUxVC7M - Morals and American Dreamhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqA1ISMJJQY - Society and Class or Moralshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyZrLD_fDLY - materialism and Gender Roleshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yH7eRHHVGGA - materialismhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTWumSE8GXM - moralityhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCxbZ8D7N1o - gender rolesLesson Summary:After the class has read the Great Gatsby, Groups of five will be assigned one main theme from the reading and they will have to support why they think their theme is the most relevant in today’s modern society. They will find sub arguments within the text in order to support this claim and present this information through a digital presentation. Students will also be required to use direct references and quotes to defend their answer. Groups should split up the work evenly and work collaboratively. Students will present their digital presentations to the class. Students will then have a debate taking the persuasive stance on why they think their theme is the most relevant and support it through evidence from their research. After the digital presentations are turned in, presented, and each student is informed by other group's theme in detail by the presentation and challanged by debate, students will write an individual reflection on what theme they personally think is the most relevant in today's society.Lesson Narrative:Introduction: Remind students of presentation expecptations and focuses on the central question asked - What is the most irrelevant theme to today’s modern society from The Great Gatsby?Presentations: Students representing groups that support the six themes from the book, (morality, American dream, society, class, materialism, and gender roles) give presentations that are informative, descriptive, and supported with evidence from the book and other outside sources to the class. Instructor: Asks leading questions during presentations to allow students to go more in depth on their theme. Addresses any questions or misinterpretations that occurred during the presentations. Debate: Each group will then be challenged by the other students of different themes and should argue why their theme is the most relevant in today's society. Each group should respectfully address one another and challenge each others ideas and to support their own with their evidence from their presentations. Each group should work together in order to work towards the goal of being the most relevant by collaboration.Instructor: The instructor uses questions to clarify factual claims, ask for supporting evidence, include other members within the class in the debate, and connect the presentations to the discussion to broaden the understanding of each theme/side to the book and it's relevance.Debriefing: The instructor again asks the driving question. Clarifies any confusion, questions, or misinterpretations raised during the debate. Then summarizes what happened during the debate and lets the class think about other group's stance on their themes. Culminating Activity:1. Provide closure for major driving question.2. Gives the opportunity for students to be persuasive and show their understanding of the lesson. Lesson SummaryAfter researching, presenting, and discussing the central driving question mentioned before, students should be able to write an individual essay based off of previous experience with the project. The individual essay will require the students to reflect on their understanding and take from their personal opinion on what they think the most relevant issue in The Great Gatsby to today's modern society. Example of Culminating ActivityA Persuasive EssayAnswer the following question as an individual reflection from the previous lesson: What is your personal opinion on what theme from the Great Gatsby is the most relevant in today's society? Now that you have researched, presented, and discussed extensively the main 6 themes from the Great Gatsby: morality, American dream, society, class, materialism, and gender roles, pick ONE of these themes and have sub-arguments, evidence, and quotes to support your opinion. This paper should be at least 5 paragraphs long, see guidelines below. The paper should be in MLA format and cited correctly. No direct quotes should be longer than three lines. Paragraph 1: Introduction - short summary of the book, thesis Paragraph 2: Sub-argument with evidence from book, movie, class presentations, debate, and other outside sources to support this argument. Paragraph 3: Sub-argument with evidence from book, movie, class presentations, debate, and other outside sources to support this argument.Paragraph 4: Sub-argument with evidence from book, movie, class presentations, debate, and other outside sources to support this argument. Paragraph 5: Conclusion - Wrap up thoughts, restate thesis 

This unit is designed to accompany the study of George Orwell's Animal Farm. Resources encourage students to recognize a variety of propaganda techniques and to connect those techniques to media that they can find in their everyday lives. Resources also help students to understand the historical uses of propaganda by governments and political parties to influence public opinion. Resources can be used independently of the novel.

Whether freshmen or AP seniors, students often forget to back up their statements about texts with evidence for support or to begin with the text when considering answers to literary questions.  The more we ask them to provide textual evidence in discussion, analysis activities, essays, and on tests, the more ingrained this important skill will become.  This lesson was designed for freshmen at the beginning of the year as they begin analyzing literature.  The handout and question refer specifically to the story "Poison" by Roald Dahl, but feel free to remix the lesson to work with another text, older students or nonfiction.

After reading "The Tempest" or any other play by William Shakespeare, students work in small groups to plan, compose, and perform a choral reading based on a character or theme.