English II

Understanding audience

This activity is designed to help students identify their audience and determine appropriate language use based on the audience.

Format: lesson plan (grade 10 English Language Arts)

By Bonnie Mcmurray and Julie Joslin.

Teaching voice

This lesson helps students to develop an effective voice by selecting words that are clear, concrete, and exact. Exercises are based on model sentences from world literature selections.

Format: lesson plan (grade 10 English Language Arts)

By Pamela Beal.

Sentence combining and decombining

Students will focus on stylistic choices and sentence fluency by combining, decombining, and recombining sentences in professional writing, peer writing, and their own writing.

Format: lesson plan (grade 9–12 English Language Arts)

By Peter Bobbe.

Making patterns make sense

Students will analyze organizational patterns in analytical writing by reading, Oh, the Places You'll Go! by Dr. Seuss. Students will then apply these patterns to their own writing by creating children's books about success.

Format: lesson plan (grade 10 English Language Arts)

By Heather Bower.

Improving student essay writing

English II teachers are constantly searching for strategies to improve students' analytical responses to literature. This lesson is designed for all types of learners, offering various activities for all learning styles. Individual, small group, and whole class activities on essay writing culminate with the student writing his or her own formal response to literature.

This generic writing activity may be used with any literary unit and at any point in your students' development of the writing process.

Format: lesson plan (grade 10 English Language Arts)

By Shawn Parker.

Highlighting revisions, glossing changes

By highlighting their revisions and explaining (i.e.,glossing) the changes they have made to a draft of their work, students will not only become more proficient writers but will also become more conscious of the process of revision and thus more reflective writers. Further, teachers will find it easier to monitor and evaluate student revisions.

Format: lesson plan (grade 10 English Language Arts)

By Peter Bobbe.

Examining effective openers and closures in writings

Students will listen to a reading of Dr. Seuss' and Jack Prelutsky's Hooray for Difendoofer Day! Students will then work cooperatively to edit one another's rough drafts of analytical essay, focusing on openers and closures.

Format: lesson plan (grade 10 English Language Arts)

By Heather Bower and Michele Hicks.

Do you really believe in magic?

Students are introduced to the genre (or mode) of Magical Realism in World Literature by reading Gabriel Garcia-Marquez's short story, "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings." This lesson plan is modified for an English Language Learner (ELL) at the Intermediate Low (IL) proficiency level.

Format: lesson plan (grade 9–12 English Language Arts and English Language Development)

By Ann Gerber and Tericia Summers.

Diction in Maya Angelou's poem "Remembering"

The class will annotate and discuss Angelou's poem. Then they will select specific words and complete a webbing that asks them to explore the connotations of the word as well as consider the author's purpose in using it.

Format: lesson plan (grade 9–10 English Language Arts)

By Vickie Smith.

Analyzing author style using sentence combining

This activity should be completed before reading the essay “Beach People, Mountain People” by Suzanne Britt. Students will combine three sets of kernel sentences based on the first paragraph of Britt's writing. They will then compare their sentences to Britt's. The class will discuss what sentence combining strategy or strategies they used and observe how Britt varies her sentences.

Format: lesson plan (grade 9–10 English Language Arts)

By Vickie Smith.

A “defining moment” in editorial writing

Students will be introduced to the definition mode of writing. Students will learn to define a particular subject by responding in an editorial format. Students will first compose an editorial graphic organizer, which will aid in composing a completed editorial using the writing process. This lesson includes modifications for a Novice Low Limited English student.

Format: lesson plan (grade 9–12 English Language Arts and English Language Development)

By Susan Brooks and Carrie Mabry.

Resources on the web

What's my subject? A subject-verb agreement mini-lesson

In this lesson, students explore subject–verb agreement using real-life examples from newspapers and song lyrics. (Learn more)

Format: lesson plan (grade 9–12 English Language Arts)

Provided by: IRA/NCTE

Using technology to analyze and illustrate symbolism in Night.

This step-by-step lesson introduces students to Elie Wiesel's use of symbolism in his autobiographical novel, Night. After learning about symbolism and discussing its use in the book, students create photomontages using online... (Learn more)

Format: lesson plan (grade 10 English Language Arts)

Provided by: IRA/NCTE

So what do you think? Writing a review

After examining samples of movie, music, restaurant, and book reviews, students devise guidelines for writing interesting and informative reviews. (Learn more)

Format: lesson plan (grade 9–12 English Language Arts)

Provided by: IRA/NCTE

Propaganda techniques in literature and online political ads

This lesson suggests using Aldous Huxley's Brave New World to introduce students to propaganda techniques used in literature and popular culture. This short unit would be appropriate to use with various novels and when discussing advertising campaigns... (Learn more)

Format: lesson plan (grade 10–12 English Language Arts)

Provided by: IRA/NCTE

Literary scrapbooks online: An electronic reader-response project

This lesson leads students to reflect on and respond to literature by creating an online scrapbook. (Learn more)

Format: lesson plan (grade 9–12 English Language Arts)

Provided by: IRA/NCTE

Is a sentence a poem?

In this lesson, students analyze syntax, imagery, and meaning in a chosen one-sentence poem to decide what makes it a poem. Then students write one-sentence poems describing a picture. (Learn more)

Format: lesson plan (grade 9–12 English Language Arts)

Provided by: IRA/NCTE

Holocaust and resistance

Students reflect on the Holocaust from the point of view of those who actively resisted Nazi persecution. (Learn more)

Format: lesson plan (grade 9–10 English Language Arts and Social Studies)

Provided by: National Endowment for the Humanities

Geography and history in songs

Students look at some historical paintings on the Internet and describe the things the paintings reveal about the places depicted in the paintings. (Learn more)

Format: lesson plan (grade 9–12 Visual Arts Education and English Language Arts)

Provided by: National Geographic

Draft letters: Improving student writing through critical thinking

This lesson challenges students to think critically about their writing on a specific assignment before submitting their work to a reader. (Learn more)

Format: lesson plan (grade 9–12 English Language Arts)

Provided by: IRA/NCTE