English III

Resources on the web

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

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

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)

Provided by: IRA/NCTE

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

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)

Provided by: IRA/NCTE

"Hamlet" and the Elizabethan Revenge Ethic in Text and Film

This lesson contains a set of five activities for students to explore the themes of honor, loyalty, and revenge in selected scenes from Hamlet. (Learn more)

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

Provided by: National Endowment for the Humanities

Focus on first lines: Increasing comprehension through prediction strategies

In this lesson, students examine opening sentences in literary works and make predictions about the content of the texts they will read later. (Learn more)

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

Provided by: IRA/NCTE

Faulkner's "As I Lay Dying": Crossing the River

Students consider the symbolism of the river crossing in As I Lay Dying and how Faulkner's use of multiple narrative perspectives relates to the author's thematic concerns. (Learn more)

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

Provided by: National Endowment for the Humanities

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

Exploring satire with The Simpsons

Using the images from the television show, The Simpsons, students explore the elements of satire—exaggeration, incongruity, reversal, and parody. (Learn more)

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

Provided by: IRA/NCTE

Exploring audience and purpose with a single issue

In this lesson, students explore the rhetorical concept of audience and purpose by focusing on an issue that divided Americans in 1925—the debate of evolution versus creationism raised by the Scopes Monkey Trial. (Learn more)

Format: lesson plan (grade 9 English Language Arts)

Provided by: IRA/NCTE

Edgar Allen Poe, Ambrose Bierce, and the unreliable biographers

Students become literary sleuths, attempting to separate biographical reality from myth. (Learn more)

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

Provided by: National Endowment for the Humanities

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

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)

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

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