English III

Adding Support and Detail Without Getting Arrested!

This lesson plan is designed to teach students the concept of using facts to support ideas and to interpret (elaborate on) those facts in order to create a synthesized paragraph.

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

By Bonnie Mcmurray and Julie Joslin.

Justice for All? To Kill a Mockingbird and A Time to Kill

Following a study of the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, students will view the courtroom scenes in To Kill a Mockingbird and A Time to Kill and determine factors which influenced the verdicts in each trial.

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

By Becky Ackert and Deborah Belknap.

Selecting Evidence to Support an Argument

This is a strategy lesson to teach students how to select evidence from a text to support an argument for an essay. It was designed to take two class periods and is comprised of three mini-lessons; these lessons include teacher modeling strategy to large group, student practice with strategy in small groups, and student practice with strategy individually on what will ultimately be the essay that they write.

Format: lesson plan (grade 11 English Language Arts)

By Caroline Sain.

Lesson plans on the web

Connotation, character, and color imagery in The Great Gatsby.

Students explore the cultural connotations of the colors associated with the characters in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby and write a character analysis based on their findings. (Learn more)

Format: lesson plan (grade 11 English Language Arts)

Provider: IRA/NCTE

Copyright infringement or not? The debate over downloading music

In this lesson, students investigate the controversial topic of downloading music from the Internet as part of a persuasive debate unit. (Learn more)

Format: lesson plan (grade 9 English Language Arts)

Provider: IRA/NCTE

Dramatizing History in Arthur Miller's "The Crucible"

Students examine some of Arthur Miller's historical sources and read a summary of the historical events in Salem. (Learn more)

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

Provider: National Endowment for the Humanities

Examining transcendentalism through popular culture

This lesson, presented by ReadWriteThink, examines the elements of transcendentalism and challenges students to find examples of the literary movement in popular culture. (Learn more)

Format: lesson plan (grade 9 English Language Arts)

Provider: 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)

Provider: National Endowment for the Humanities

Finding Common Ground: Using Logical, Audience-Specific Arguments

In this lesson that focuses on the art of persuasion and argumentation, students use a hypothetical situation to predict and articulate the audience’s predicted resistance to their arguments. (Learn more)

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

Provider: IRA/NCTE

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)

Provider: IRA/NCTE

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 English Language Arts and Visual Arts Education)

Provider: National Geographic

Identifying and understanding the fallacies used in advertising

Students examine the fallacies that they encounter daily through exposure to advertising. (Learn more)

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

Provider: IRA/NCTE

Lights, camera, action...music: Critiquing films using sight and sound

In this lesson, students learn to evaluate elements of cinematography as a literary text. (Learn more)

Format: lesson plan (grade 11 English Language Arts)

Provider: 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)

Provider: 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 World, and Fahrenheit 451. (Learn more)

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

Provider: 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)

Provider: National Endowment for the Humanities

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 used in government elections. (Learn more)

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

Provider: 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)

Provider: IRA/NCTE

That's not fair! Examining civil liberties with the U.S. Supreme Court

In this lesson, high school students work in collaborative groups to explore the issue of civil liberties by conducting Internet research on related court cases of their choosing. (Learn more)

Format: lesson plan (grade 11 English Language Arts)

Provider: IRA/NCTE