Teaching American literature: An outline of units of study and engaging activities for a high school American literature course
Do you want to enhance your teaching of American Literature? Then use TED talks to teach valuable listening skills and make connectio...
Every English teacher has an American Lit course at some time in her career. Here are 12 ways to creatively and thoughtfully approach lessons, the curriculum, and the texts tackled in an American Literature course.
Links to source precede. Link to “Literary Periods and History Timeline” Link to “American Literature through Time” studyguide.org Link to Story Board That–American Li…
With these Transcendentalism projects, you'll be able to bring texts like Emerson's Self-reliance and Thoreau's Walden to life!
No matter whether you love or loathe the long novel you teach, the same struggles pop up every time we come around to teaching it year after year. For me, it’s To Kill a Mockingbird . It’s a 400 page monster! It’s fun dawdling around with setting and making maps of May
I finally nailed teaching symbolism! Using candy was both engaging and efficient - a major win that students remembered all year long!
Looking for some ways to engage students in American literature? Check out tips for working with technology, rhetoric, and poetry!
Here are my top 6 tips for teaching making your Gatsby unit memorable.
French games for grammar, vocabulary, and verb conjugation for Core and Immersion: French class made fun and engaging!
My junior classes traces the evolution of American literary movements. At times, this organization can be challenging because it's hard to get student excited about early American literature. However, over the years, I've learned to appreciate this structure for a few reasons: First, chronological study allows students to see how history and literature affect and reflect one another. Similarly, working with different literary movements helps students see the evolution of American literature.
Looking for some American literature worksheets to use with your ELA class? We've got your covered with 15+ American literature worksheets.
Teaching "The Crucible" | How to plan a unit that will engage and challenge your students | "The Crucible" activities, lessons, and unit plan
With these Transcendentalism projects, you'll be able to bring texts like Emerson's Self-reliance and Thoreau's Walden to life!
My favorite teaching units are my research and rhetorical analysis unit. I love teaching rhetorical analysis and assigning students a rhetorical analysis PAPA square. Read on to learn more about the rhetorical analysis PAPA square activity and to sign up to receive your own free copy! I love providing my students with the knowledge and resources they need to critically read and analyze text, know why it is powerful, and understand how the author crafted it. I feel that truly understanding the language and the text, primarily through rhetorical analysis, is something that makes all of my students critical thinkers.
Recently, I was talking to one of my pre-service secondary English teachers about her upcoming Transcendentalism Unit for student teaching. This student enjoyed learning about Transcendentalism in college, but was extremely nervous about teaching Transcendentalism to high school students, and rightly so! Transcendentalism is hard enough for them to learn to pronounce let alone understand.
The Crucible project ideas and activities to refresh your unit plan with engaging and meaningful teaching ideas.
The team from The Literature Network, an online community of literature lovers, created a nice infographic that visualizes a timeline of literary periods and movements. Click on the image to see it…
This post highlights 5 Ways to Effectively Examine "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" within the High School American Literature classroom!
An English teacher’s life is packed, and for the most part on top of that, we are doing more than just teaching English. For me, I’m the yearbook adviser, the graduation coordinator, senior class sponsor, member of the leadership committee, etc. I’m sure your situation is similar. So, when I can cut down on what […]
Are you looking for lesson plans for Their Eyes Were Watching God? Check out these 20+ teaching resources for Their Eyes Were Watching God.
Students can struggle with reading for a variety of reasons: rich vocabulary, lack of background knowledge, the author's writing style. To scaffold difficult texts, teach students to annotate through the gradual release process.
If you have ever taught Shakespeare’s plays or sonnets, then you know students can struggle to unlock the language and meaning of the text. The following two anchor charts have been tremendou…
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Ted talk "The Danger of a Single Story" is such a moving speech that it deserves to be taught in every class, and here's why.
Begin your American Literature curriculum with Power Point presentations that introduce each time period. With these no prep, 100% editable slide shows, you will be able to set the stage chronologically for each time period throughout American literature. Teach students the key events, literary characteristics, authors and works, important people, key quotes, and video links to recap. I've also included a slide that provides answers to why studying classic American literature is important and relevant to your teens' lives. Students will take the notes in their foldable booklet that they will create for each time period. Included: 1- Beginnings editable PPT 2-Enlightenment editable PPT 3-Romanticism and Dark Romanticism editable PPT 4-Realism editable PPT 5-Moderns editable PPT 6-Contemporary editable PPT Fold-able for note taking (print one for each time period if desired), PDF form Be the first to know about my new discounts, freebies and product launches. Look for the green star next to my store logo and click it to FOLLOW ME. Voila! You will now receive email updates about my store. For more ideas and inspiration: Faulkner's Fast Five Blog Julie's Classroom Stories on Instagram Julie's Classroom Stories on Facebook Teaching Middle and High School English Facebook Group Yearbook and Journalism Facebook Group Pinterest Terms of Use: Created by Julie Faulkner, updated 2019 Please, one classroom use only. Additional licenses are sold at checkout. This license is nontransferable. Not eligible for online environments unless password protected. Posting openly online is prohibited. No part of this resource can be used for commercial purposes, altered, or resold. This work is my original work, and taking portions of it to create something else for resale is prohibited. All art and images credited inside file.
Creating mood in writing is a lot easier than it sounds. Find out how to help your students with this important skill with this post!
Teaching The Crucible is absolutely one of my favorite units of the year. I usually prefer choice reading units to whole class units; however, as a play that can be read, acted out, and watched, The Crucible works really well as a whole class work. What I really love about teaching this play is that
If you want to know how to annotate a book for AP English Literature and Composition, follow these 5 steps to annotate effectively and prepare for the AP exam.
This year, I decided to teach this skill over a few days at the beginning of the year. I've never taught it like this before. I usually wait until I move into nonfiction and argument writing and then I mention the difference in the three, but I never teach it as its own lesson. However, this year I thought maybe knowing how to do each of these early on would help as we start working on answering open-ended questions. I was inspired by this post over at The Creative Apple. I loved her anchor chart, which I believe she borrowed from this blog. Wanting to have an interactive page for our ISNs, I turned the anchor chart into this interactive folding page! {You can get it FREE right HERE!} They looked like this in our notebooks: Which open and look like this: Next, I had the kids read some short articles (I used some old Time for Kids magazines) and answer some simple, "right there" questions using either a quote, summary, or paraphrase to support their thinking. I am hoping that teaching this strategy early on will pay off. Often, I have students (usually my struggling learners) who will copy an entire paragraph from a text because they think they are supporting their answer. Typically, they don't use transitions and their answers come out disjointed and confusing and LONG! Do you teach this skill as its own lesson? How's it work for you? Happy Teaching!!
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Ted talk "The Danger of a Single Story" is such a moving speech that it deserves to be taught in every class, and here's why.
A couple of years ago, in a Storyboard piece on John McPhee‘s gorgeously built Encounters with the Archdruid, the acclaimed author Adam Hochschild wrote about narrative structure: A few years ago I was with a young cousin, a college student who told me she was majoring in civil engineering. “I’ve never really understood,” I asked her. […]
Color, cut and fold this cute Statue of Liberty to make her stand on a table. Make yourself a crown and torch to match!
Update, January 1, 2019: Hi! I have posted each resource as a free download in my new Teachers Pay Teachers store. I just uploaded the files, so they may not all be visible for a couple of hours, …
I read "The Yellow Wallpaper" again the other day and found it fantastically chilling, which led me to question my initial dislike for the story years ago when I read it the first time. After several seconds of thought I realized I had read it in college and the woman who taught it was advancing
Check out our rhetorical analysis of 21 Pilots’ hit song “Stressed Out” below! The corresponding lesson plans and resources are designed to teach argument using the video as a core text. Activities are specific to rhetorical analysis, anachronism, and synthesis — guaranteed to bring rigor to your classroom in an incredibly engaging fashion! Join the TeachArgument Community to access all of our pop culture lesson plans instantly, or grab these plans “a la carte” for only $4.99!
Literary criticism is challenging for students. But using familiar lyrics from Taylor Swift can help demystify complex literary lenses!
Introduce your class to the fundamentals of the American Transcendental movement with this informational text unit from my American Romantic and Transcendental Writers Unit and my American Literature Bundle (please do not purchase both) that features excerpts of Emerson’s “Self-Reliance” and Thoreau’s “Walden”. Students develop their historical awareness, vocabulary, literary analysis skills, rhetorical analysis skills and more. Students wrap up the unit with a RAFT writing activity and/or a test. All teacher notes and keys included. The specific sections include the following: Emerson Section Short WebQuest with Teacher Notes Vocabulary Activity and Quiz With Teacher Keys 1 1/2 Page Excerpt of “Self-Reliance” Group Analysis Activity with Teacher Notes 10 Analysis Questions with Teacher Notes Thoreau Section Short WebQuest with Teacher Notes 2 Page Excerpt of “Walden” 10 Analysis Questions with Teacher Notes Rhetorical Devices Overview and Activity with Teacher Notes Assessment Section RAFT Writing Activity with Rubric 20 Question Multiple Choice/Matching Questions Covering Key Ideas, Literary Purpose, Rhetorical Device Identification and Author/Quote Matching
With the new school year on the horizon, many teachers across the nation, myself included, are preparing for the back-to-school season. The first few days
