English III

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.

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.

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.

Resources on the web

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 did they say? Dialect in The Color Purple

This lesson, taught in conjunction with Alice Walker's The Color Purple, encourages appreciation of dialects by exploring their meaning and origins. Students experience a variety of dialects and participate in small-group settings. (Learn more)

Format: lesson plan (grade 11 English Language Arts)

Provided by: IRA/NCTE

Weaving the multigenre web

In this lesson, students read novels, analyze the literary elements, and create a multigenre project to present information to their peers. (Learn more)

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

Provided by: IRA/NCTE

Varying views of America

In this lesson, students work in a collaborative setting to examine the ways that perspective influences how individuals vary in their tone toward similar experience based on their point of view. (Learn more)

Format: lesson plan (grade 11 English Language Arts)

Provided by: IRA/NCTE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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)

Provided by: IRA/NCTE

The Devil and Daniel Webster

In this lesson, from Illuminations, students examine a recursive sequence. They approximate and interpret rates of change from numerical data and draw reasonable conclusions about the situation being modeled. (Learn more)

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

Provided by: National Council of Teachers of Mathematics

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