English III

Two perspectives on slavery: A comparison of personal narratives

This activity for grade 11 will help students evaluate and critique authors' perspectives. Students will read two first-person narratives and analyze how each text is influenced by its author's cultural background.

Format: lesson plan (grade 11 English Language Arts)

By Dayna Durbin Gleaves.

Singing the "Song of Life"

This lesson requires students to use their reading, comprehension, and analysis skills to analyze a poem and respond creatively to the selection.

Format: lesson plan (grade 11 English Language Arts)

By Angela Taylor.

Picturing America at the turn of the twentieth century

Students link together the literature and the history of the United States at the turn of the twentieth century. Questions guide students as they study visual documents. Students also read the teacher's choice of two widely anthologized short stories and an excerpt from a best-selling novel of the period. Two exercises will raise student awareness of the impact that visual images have on their lives: one that is based on internet advertising and a second that results in a student-produced scrapbook.

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

By Scott Culclasure.

Literature-based newspaper: Their Eyes Were Watching God

Students will create an Eatonville newspaper depicting the characters and events in Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God.

Format: lesson plan (grade 11 English Language Arts)

By Jennifer Swartz.

Jonathan Edwards and the art of persuasion

In this lesson, students will study the elements of persuasive writing in Jonathan Edward's “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” according to the following criteria: speaker, audience, occasion, and means of persuasion, and then analyze a contemporary piece of writing, such as an advertisement, for similar elements.

Format: lesson plan (grade 11 English Language Arts)

By Dave Guiley.

The American Dream

In conjunction with a unit on Puritanism, students will define and illustrate their personal definition of the American Dream or their concept of the dream in general.

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

By Becky Ackert and Deborah Belknap.

Resources on the web

Writing about writing: An extended metaphor assignment

In this lesson, students use Richard Wilbur's poem “The Writer” as an inspiration as they write their own extended metaphor describing themselves as writers. (Learn more)

Format: lesson plan (grade 9 and 11 English Language Arts)

Provided by: IRA/NCTE

Word maps: Developing critical and analytical thinking about literary characters

In this lesson, students read the short story “After Twenty Years” by O. Henry and focus on the author's use of characterization. (Learn more)

Format: lesson plan (grade 9 English Language Arts)

Provided by: IRA/NCTE

What portraits reveal

Students recognize that portraits, whether paintings or photographs, can tell us more about people of the past than just what they looked like. (Learn more)

Format: lesson plan (grade 8 and 11 Visual Arts Education and English Language Arts)

Provided by: National Endowment for the Humanities

Was the United States ready for Pearl Harbor?

In this lesson, from Xpeditions, students consider the United States' level of preparedness for the Pearl Harbor attack and discuss what the U.S. could have done to be better prepared. (Learn more)

Format: lesson plan (grade 11 English Language Arts and Social Studies)

Provided by: National Geographic

Style: Translating stylistic choices from Hawthorne to Hemingway and back again

In this lesson, students translate passages that demonstrate specific stylistic devices and then translate fables into the style of one of the authors they have been reading. (Learn more)

Format: lesson plan (grade 11 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

Review redux: Introducing literary criticism through reception moments

Using literary critiques of Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun, students learn to place literature in social and historical context in order to identify reception moments. (Learn more)

Format: lesson plan (grade 11 English Language Arts)

Provided by: IRA/NCTE

Reader response in Hypertext: Making personal connections to literature

In this lesson, students choose four quotations that inspire personal responses to a novel they have read and create a multi-genre project to express these feelings. (Learn more)

Format: lesson plan (grade 11 English Language Arts)

Provided by: IRA/NCTE

The pros and cons of discussion

This comprehensive lesson challenges students to discuss the question, “Are people equal?” and compare their answers about current society to answers to the same question about Kurt Vonnegut's futuristic short story, “Harrison Bergeron”. (Learn more)

Format: lesson plan (grade 11 English Language Arts)

Provided by: IRA/NCTE

Poetry: Sound and sense

In this lesson, students read and listen to several poems while concentrating on the author's language choices. (Learn more)

Format: lesson plan (grade 11 English Language Arts)

Provided by: IRA/NCTE

Perspectives on the slave narrative

This lesson introduces students to one of the most widely-read genres of 19th-century American literature and an important influence within the African American literary tradition even today: the slave narrative. (Learn more)

Format: lesson plan (grade 11–12 English Language Arts and Social Studies)

Provided by: National Endowment for the Humanities

Paying attention to technology: Exploring a fictional technology

This lesson asks students to complete a short survey to establish their beliefs about technology and then compare their opinions to the ideas in a novel that depicts technology (such as 1984, Brave New... (Learn more)

Format: lesson plan (grade 9 and 11–12 English Language Arts)

Provided by: IRA/NCTE

Outside in: Finding a character's heart through art

In this lesson, students explore the idea of alienation by examining Edward Hopper's art and Raymond Carver's fiction. (Learn more)

Format: lesson plan (grade 9 and 11 English Language Arts)

Provided by: IRA/NCTE

Myth and truth: The Gettysburg Address

In this lesson, students explore myths surrounding the Gettysburg Address. (Learn more)

Format: lesson plan (grade 11 English Language Arts)

Provided by: IRA/NCTE