English III

Resources on the web

Mark Twain and American humor

Students examine structure and characterization in the short story and consider the significance of humor through a study of Mark Twain's “The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County.” (Learn more)

Format: lesson plan (grade 11 English Language Arts)

Provided by: National Endowment for the Humanities

Making connections to myth and folktale: The many ways to “Rainy Mountain”

In this assignment, students write a three-voice narrative based on N. Scott Momaday’s structure in The Way to Rainy Mountain. (Learn more)

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

Provided by: IRA/NCTE

Literary parodies: Exploring a writer's style through imitation

In this lesson, students analyze the features of a poet's work and then create their own poems based on the original model. (Learn more)

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

Provided by: IRA/NCTE

Lincoln goes to war

This lesson explores the decision-making process that precipitated the Civil War, focusing on deliberations within the Lincoln administration that led to the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter in April 1861. (Learn more)

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

Provided by: National Endowment for the Humanities

Life on the Great Plains

Students examine the concept of geographic region by exploring the history of the Great Plains. (Learn more)

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

Provided by: National Endowment for the Humanities

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

A Harlem Renaissance retrospective: Connecting art, music, dance, and poetry

Students conduct Internet research, work with an interactive Venn diagram tool, and create a museum exhibit that highlights the work of selected artists, musicians, and poets of the Harlem Renaissance. (Learn more)

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

Provided by: IRA/NCTE

Giving voice to history

In this ARTSEDGE lesson, students explore the period during World War II when U.S. government ordered more than 120,000 Japanese Americans to detainment camps. (Learn more)

Format: lesson plan (grade 5 and 11 English Language Arts and Social Studies)

Provided by: The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts

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

From Friedan forward—considering a feminist perspective

In this lesson that focuses on feminism, students are challenged to think about how opinions develop and change based on such things as age, experience, time, and place. (Learn more)

Format: lesson plan (grade 11 English Language Arts)

Provided by: IRA/NCTE

Families in Bondage

Uses letters written by African Americans in slavery and by free blacks to loved ones still in bondage to give students a glimpse into slavery and its effects on African American family life. (Learn more)

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

Provided by: National Endowment for the Humanities

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

Designing museum exhibits for “The Grapes of Wrath”: A multigenre project

In this lesson, students read The Grapes of Wrath and create multigenre projects that explore issues from the Depression era. (Learn more)

Format: lesson plan (grade 11 English Language Arts)

Provided by: IRA/NCTE

Decoding “The Matrix”: Exploring dystopian characteristics through film

In this lesson, students are introduced to the definition and characteristics of a dystopian work by watching video clips from The Matrix and other dystopian films. (Learn more)

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

Provided by: IRA/NCTE

Broken worlds

This lesson, one of a multi-part unit from ARTSEDGE, provides a variety of options for conducting comparative analysis between two plays. (Learn more)

Format: lesson plan (grade 11 English Language Arts)

Provided by: The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts

Blogtopia: Blogging about your own utopia

In this lesson, students study utopian literature, design a unique utopian society and publish an explanation of their ideal world on a blog. (Learn more)

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

Provided by: IRA/NCTE

A Biography Study: Using Role-Play to Explore Authors' Lives

In this ReadWriteThink lesson, students select American authors to research. They create timelines and biopoems about their authors and then collaborate in teams to design and present a panel presentation where they role-play their authors. The final project... (Learn more)

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

Provided by: IRA/NCTE

Audio listening practices: Exploring personal experiences with audio texts

In this lesson designed to develop students’ involvement with media literacy, students keep a daily diary that records how and when they listen to radio, music (e.g., songs on MP3 players, podcasting), and other streaming media or archived broadcasts. (Learn more)

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

Provided by: IRA/NCTE

Analyzing the purpose and meaning of political cartoons

In this lesson, students evaluate political cartoons for their meaning, message, and persuasiveness. (Learn more)

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

Provided by: IRA/NCTE

“You're the Top!” Pop culture then and now

In an exploration of Cole Porter's song, “You're the Top!,” students write about present-day pop culture and learn about pop culture of the past. (Learn more)

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

Provided by: IRA/NCTE