The annual Elie Wiesel Writing and Visuals Arts Competition is open to students in grades 6 through 12 and serves to inspire middle and high school students and teachers to learn more about the Holocaust, racism, bigotry, and the dangers of prejudice. The questions posed each year guide students to explore the lessons of the Holocaust while examining contemporary issues such as bullying, peer pressure, unthinking obedience to authority, and indifference.

This collection uses primary sources to explore The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. Digital Public Library of America Primary Source Sets are designed to help students develop their critical thinking skills and draw diverse material from libraries, archives, and museums across the United States. Each set includes an overview, ten to fifteen primary sources, links to related resources, and a teaching guide. These sets were created and reviewed by the teachers on the DPLA's Education Advisory Committee.

This lesson provides resources to assist in using Roald Dahl's short story Lamb to the Slaughter to teach characterization. It provides an anticipatory activity, versions of the text for the student and teacher, text-dependent questions, and a mastery activity. While it does not include instructional materials, these are great resources to build a lesson around. 

This lesson explores how The Giver addresses issues of personal identity, memory, and the value of reading and education. It also examines how this newer read relates to other famous classics in this genre and books that students may have read on their own.

Our literary glossary provides a comprehensive list of terms and concepts along with lesson plans for teaching these topics in K-12 classrooms. Whether you are starting with a specific author, concept, or text, or teaching a specific literary term, but do not have a lesson or activity for students to work with, teachers and students will find what they're looking for here.

This resource provides a simple, focused grading tool to assess poetry analysis. It can be applied to demonstrations of skill through writing or speaking.

For more than 400 years, Shakespeare's 37 surviving plays, 154 sonnets, and other poems have been read, performed, taught, reinterpreted, and enjoyed the world over. This Teacher's Guide includes ideas for bringing the Bard and pop culture together, along with how performers around the world have infused their respective local histories and cultures into these works.

English Instructional Plan – Women’s Equality, Civil Rights, and the Super Hero: Using Paired Passages to engage student learning outcomes   Students will read paired passages about different aspects of women’s fight for equality or the Civil Rights Movement. These readings will provide background knowledge to students to connect these movements to two superheroes: Wonder Woman and Black Panther. This will allow students to analyze the intersection between historical movements and superheroes through various forms of writing. Primary Strand: 8.5/8.6, 9.5/9.6 - Reading Integrated Strand/s:  Writing/Communication/Multimodal Literacies

This lesson takes students through the examination of the poem Remember and its use of figurative language to set the stage for considering how the physical world around us has changed in the past 50 years. Students research a specific local plant, animal, or element of weather and how it has changed over time, and then use Twine to represent their research in a digital story. This lesson culminates with the discussion of whether or not we are doing a good job of listening to Virginia’s natural elements over the past 50 years. This lesson was created through a partnership between CodeVA and the Virginia Tribal Education Consortium (VTEC). 

This resource is designed as an end-of-unit choice assessment board for students. Although students are permitted to select from a variety of response options, the teacher can still control what each option includes, thus ensuring that the responses students generate meet the unit objectives.

This resource is designed as an end-of-unit choice assessment board for students. Although students are permitted to select from a variety of response options, the teacher can still control what each option includes, thus ensuring that the responses students generate meet the unit objectives.

This resource is designed as an end-of-unit choice assessment board for students. Although students are permitted to select from a variety of response options, the teacher can still control what each option includes, thus ensuring that the responses students generate meet the unit objectives.

Storyboardthat.com is a website that allows students to use an electronic storyboard platform to create illustrations and graphics. This is a website that is free to use, and is a great way for students to visually demonstrate comprehension.

Storyboardthat.com is a website that allows students to use an electronic storyboard platform to create illustrations and graphics. This is a website that is free to use, and is a great way for students to visually demonstrate comprehension.

Storyboardthat.com is a website that allows students to use an electronic storyboard platform to create illustrations and graphics. This is a website that is free to use, and is a great way for students to visually demonstrate comprehension.

Storyboardthat.com is a website that allows students to use an electronic storyboard platform to create illustrations and graphics. This is a website that is free to use, and is a great way for students to visually demonstrate comprehension.

English Instructional Plan – Using vocabulary skits to connect unfamiliar words by tapping into social emotional memoryAfter being introduced to a series of new words through a cloze reading activity, students will create mind maps (using graphics, word origin maps, and meaningful sentences) to learn a set of words that will be used within a thematic unit. Once students have some time exploring the words, they will be tasked with creating vocabulary skits that connect the words to their personal experiences, so that they will encode the words by tapping into their emotional memory. This activity will include a model lesson, but is intended for teachers to adapt to any set of words. The content of the lesson is best suited for 8th grade

Reading text that is challenging, thought provoking or informative, provides a challenge to young learners if connections cannot be made. This "Willbook" allows for learners to create connections by asking and answering self reflective questions.  These questions allow for the learner to identify and connect with any reading.  Learners may add or subtract and create their own connection questions as learner agency develops.