$10 - $20 High School Literature Lesson

Figurative Language Lesson Plan and PowerPoint | Activities | Worksheets

About This Resource

★ Figurative Language

★ Lesson, PowerPoint, Activities, Assessment

★ Total of 102 pages (Absolutely no “nonsense” pages | slides)

★ Print and Digital

★ Full Lesson PACKET | 45 pages

★ Editable Lesson Plan | 5 pages (Modify as you wish)

★ Lesson POWERPOINT | 46 slides

★ Test/Assessment | 6 pages (with Answer Key)

★ Duration: 2-3 days

★ Suitable for grades 6-9, Special Ed, and English Language Learners

★ NO PREP Packet

Items in this product include:

☆ POWERPOINT (46 slides – very visually appealing!!)

☆ In-depth Lesson Plan (5 pages –PDF File)

☆ EDITABLE Lesson Plan (5 pages)

☆ 2 Figurative Language Note-Taking Sheets and Answer Key

☆ 2 Differentiated Do Now Worksheets and Answer Key

☆ 2 Mini Lesson Figurative Language Types Worksheets and Answer Key

☆ 2 Simile Practice Worksheets and Answer Key

☆ 2 Metaphor Practice Worksheets and Answer Key

☆ 2 Hyperbole Practice Worksheets and Answer Key

☆ 2 Idioms Practice Worksheets and Answer Key

☆ 2 Personification Practice Worksheets and Answer Key

☆ 2 Onomatopoeia Practice Worksheets and Answer Key

☆ 1 Passage Figurative Language Practice Worksheet and Answer Key

☆ Teacher’s Step-by-Step Direction Page for Flap Book Activity (with pictures)

☆ 2 Interactive Flap Book Pages to choose from (for activity)

☆ 1 Lesson Reflection Sheet

☆ Figurative Language Test/Assessment and Answer Key (31 questions)

GOOGLE SLIDES versions:

☆ PowerPoint

☆ All lesson practice worksheets

☆ Assessment

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This resource is also included in Google Slides! Text boxes have already been created to make it easier for you and your students! Each slide includes two instruction solution tabs for when students accidentally delete text boxes and when they want to zoom in (to enlarge worksheets). It's super helpful for students who are not that familiar with how to use Google Slides or need the extra assistance.

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RESOURCE BREAKDOWN:

▶️ Lesson Plan

This comprehensive Lesson Plan Packet aims to assist students in:

• Differentiating between figurative language and literal language
• Learning various types of figurative language such as simile, metaphor, hyperbole, idiom, personification, and onomatopoeia
• Understanding the meanings of these figurative language types
• Explaining the purpose behind using specific subjects, objects, and ideas to reference other concepts (emphasizing academic rigor)
• Deepening comprehension of how authors use figurative language techniques in their writing

This detailed Figurative Language Lesson covers simile, metaphor, hyperbole, idiom, personification, and onomatopoeia. It offers multiple opportunities for students to practice identifying these elements in writing and understanding their meanings. What sets this lesson plan apart is its step-by-step instructions for teachers, ensuring straightforward delivery and guidance. Each section of the lesson includes visual cues with small worksheet images on the left side, making it easy to navigate and use effectively.

***An editable version of the lesson plan is also included so you can customize it as needed!

▶️ Practice Worksheets (Print and Digital)

Each figurative language type includes two practice worksheets, along with Answer Keys, to assist you in teaching this lesson effectively and providing ample practice for students to identify and deepen their understanding of each type of figurative language.

▶️ This resource is also available on Google Slides! Text boxes have been pre-created to simplify use for both you and your students. Each slide features two instruction solution tabs, aiding students who may accidentally delete text boxes or wish to zoom in for a closer look at worksheets. This feature is especially beneficial for students who are less familiar with Google Slides or who require additional assistance.

▶️ PowerPoint (PowerPoint and GOOGLE SLIDES)

Furthermore, a 46-slide PowerPoint comprehensively covers the entire lesson. It includes stunning graphics that vividly depict the meanings of the featured figurative language types. Certain slides feature engaging urban-style graphics designed to captivate students' interest, ensuring they gain a thorough understanding of the lesson's content.

❌ The PowerPoint slides cannot be edited due to copyright restrictions imposed by the contributing font and clip art artists.

✅ The PowerPoint slides and lesson worksheets are also available in Google Slides! This allows you the flexibility to easily share these resources with your students.

▶️ Flap Book Interactive Activity

This resource features a fun and engaging interactive activity where students create flap books to write example sentences illustrating each figurative language type (simile, metaphor, hyperbole, idiom, personification, and onomatopoeia). They can personalize their flap books with colors, making them a wonderful addition to your bulletin boards. This activity can be completed independently, in pairs, or in groups according to your preference. Step-by-step instructions with pictures for teachers are also provided!

▶️ Assessment / Test (Print and Digital)

Lastly, there is a comprehensive test featuring 31 questions, including multiple-choice, matching, and one short-answer question. The Answer Key for the test is also included!

▶️ Answer Keys
Each worksheet includes a detailed Answer Key, eliminating the need for you to create answers yourself! These Answer Keys ensure smooth delivery of the lesson and PowerPoint.

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*Save $$$ by purchasing the Figurative Language BUNDLE!!

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This resource is also included in the following discounted bundles:

❤️ Figurative Language Bundle

❤️ ELA Lesson and PowerPoint Bundle

❤️ All ELA Mega Bundle

❤️ ELA/SEL MEGA Bundle

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Other Figurative Language resources you might be interested in:

❤️ Figurative Language Bundle

❤️ Figurative Language Lesson Plan and PowerPoint Packet

❤️ Figurative Language Text Message Conversations and Answer Keys

❤️ Figurative Language Practice Worksheet Bundle

❤️ Figurative Language in Music Worksheet and Key

❤️ Figurative Language Interactive Activity Packet

❤️ Figurative Language in Literature Graphic Organizers

❤️ Figurative Language Exit Slips, Quizzes, and Answer Keys

❤️ Figurative Language Task Cards and Answer Keys

❤️ Figurative Language Posters

Figurative Language Practice Worksheets:

❤️ Figurative Language Practice Worksheets, Test, and Key (Combo)

❤️ Personification Practice Worksheets, Test, and Answer Keys

❤️ Metaphor Practice Worksheets, Test, and Answer Keys

❤️ Hyperbole Practice Worksheets, Test, and Answer Keys

❤️ Simile Practice Worksheets, Test, and Answer Keys

❤️ Idioms Practice Worksheets, Test, and Answer Keys

❤️ Onomatopoeia Practice Worksheets, Test, and Answer Keys

Figurative Language Tests:

❤️ Figurative Language Test and Answer Key Bundle

❤️ Figurative Language Combination Test and Answer Keys

❤️ Simile Test and Answer Keys

❤️ Metaphor Test and Answer Keys

❤️ Hyperbole Test and Answer Keys

❤️ Idiom Test and Answer Keys

❤️ Personification Test and Answer Keys

❤️ Onomatopoeia Test and Answer Keys

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Created by © Queen's Educational Resources | All Rights Reserved

Your purchase includes one copy to be used in a single classroom. If you are looking for multiple copies, please be sure to purchase additional licenses.

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Click here to FOLLOW ME!

Please feel free to email me if you have any questions!

queenseducationalresources@gmail.com

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This 150-page EDITABLE curriculum has everything you'll need to deliver profoundly stimulating lessons on Nella Larsen's Passing. Invite your class to engage in student-driven discussions without compromising on intellectual rigor. The discussion questions, daily quizzes, literary device exercises, and analytical writing assignment will challenge your students to dig beneath the surface of the text and generate profound interpretive insights!!

Hold your students accountable for completing the nightly homework by beginning every class with a quick vocabulary and reading quiz. Facilitate dynamic discussions that motivate students to become attached to the thrill generating shared knowledge. Challenge students to explicate textual details using a wide range of interpretive lenses: formalist, psychoanalytic, etc. Inspire students to arrive at a whole new depth of insight!!

Here are some highlights from the 150-page editable curriculum:

• Discussion Question Handouts: Twenty pages of deeply thought-provoking discussion questions! One 2-page handout containing 8-10 questions for each of 6 sections of the novel. The discussion questions are the beating heart of these lesson plans. Every discussion question is grounded in concrete textual details and challenges students to arrive at lucid interpretive insights! The questions could be used to focus students’ thinking prior to beginning a discussion, to foster in-class writing such as stop-and-jots, or to assign written reflections for homework. Guaranteed to elicit student engagement and foster profound discussions! (18 pages)

• Discussion Question Answer Keys: The answer keys to the discussion questions are informed by the best academic articles written by scholars who specialize in African-American women writers of the Harlem Renaissance: Deborah McDowell, Cheryl Wall, Bell Hooks, Judith Butler, and others. Of course, there is rarely a single "correct" answer for any question; rather, the discussions questions are made up of higher-order questions designed to foster lively exchanges and interpretive debates among students. They challenge students to build interpretive arguments that require the support of carefully selected textual evidence. (50 pages)

• Quick Writes: A "quick write" can be used at any time in a class to get students to pause and reflect on the text in writing. Introduce a quick write before you begin a discussion to allow students to collect their thoughts. Or roll one out toward the end of a discussion to let students capture and refine their best ideas. (6 pages)

• Vocabulary Lists: Lists of 10 vocabulary words for each of the novel's 6 sections , complete with definitions and sample sentences with the words as used in Passing. A total of 60 SAT-worthy words. (6 pages)

• Reading & Vocabulary Quizzes: Daily quizzes with 10 questions on the nightly reading homework plus another 10 questions on the vocabulary words. If you choose not to have your students study vocabulary, you can still use the portion of the quiz devoted to reading comprehension. Grading these quizzes is simple and quick. They’re an easy way to log 6 to 12 grades into your gradebook. Answer keys included. (24 pages)

• Figurative Language Worksheets (x3): Three worksheets challenge students to identify the type of figurative used in fifty quotations from Passing. The types of figurative language include metaphor, simile, personification, hyperbole, paradox, and oxymoron. This bundle also features a glossary with definitions as well as examples of how each type of figurative language is used in Passing — so you can review them with students before they tackle the worksheets. Each worksheet can be used either as a quiz or as a fun refresher. Answer keys included. (12 pages)

• Quotation Race: Students work in pairs to identify the speakers of 50 key quotations from Passing. Introduce this fun activity when you need to mix things up, or to refresh students' memories in preparation for the AP exam. Answer key included. (6 pages)

• Q3 Practice Essay: Designed for teachers of AP Literature, this in-class practice essay will allow students to rehearse the "Q3" essay from the AP Literature and Composition Exam. The assignment asks students to write a 40-minute in-class essay in response to one amongst three recent Q3 prompts that featured Passing as one of the recommended works of literary merit. (5 pages)

• Analytical Writing Assignment: Challenge students to take their interpretations one step further by writing an analytical paper on Larsen's Passing. Let students choose from one of 5 thought-provoking sample topics — or invite them to develop a similar topic of their own. Rubric included. (4 pages)

The entire resource packet will come to you in two separate formats: Word docs *and* PDFs. Because the Word docs are fully editable, you'll be able to customize the materials to suit your teaching style and/or your students' skill levels — year after year! If you don't have Microsoft Word, you'll still be able to access the entire unit in PDF format, which is easy to navigate and quick to print.

Finally, I believe that teachers should be able to see what they'll be getting before they purchase. So the preview for this resource provides direct access to over 25 pages from the bundle. Click on the green “preview” button to see exactly what you’ll get....

Thank you for choosing “Rigorous Resources”!!

Happy teaching!

Adam Jernigan, Ph.D.

adamjernigan@gmail.com

P.S. The current school year is an especially good time to teach this novel because a cinematic adaptation of Passing was just released on Netflix in 2022. The film is directed by Rebecca Hall and features talented actors like Tessa Thompson and Ruth Negga. If you're considering teaching this thematically powerful and aesthetically beautiful novel, my enthusiastic advice is to do it!

P.P.S. Don't forget to click “follow” for email updates on new products by Rigorous Resources. New products will be 50% OFF for the first 24 hours!

Rigorous Resources is your one-stop shop for resources on American literature. Every unit was designed by a Ph.D. with a research specialization in American literature. Feel free to check out these complete units on canonical texts by diverse American authors:

Complete Unit on Tommy Orange's There There

Complete Unit on Arthur Miller's The Crucible

Complete Unit on Frederick Douglass's Narrative

Complete Unit on F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby

Complete Unit on Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God

Complete Unit on Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun

Complete Unit on Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye

Complete Unit on Gene Luen Yang's American Born Chinese

This bundle includes lessons for all stories in the book Flying Lessons and Other Stories edited by Ellen Oh. The stories are not included in this resource. Lessons are focused on the following stories:

- How to Transform an Everyday, Ordinary Hoop Court into a Place of Higher Learning and You at the Podium by Matt De La Peña

- The Difficult Path by Grace Lin

- Sol Painting, Inc. by Meg Medina

- Secret Samantha by Tim Federle

- The Beans and Rice Chronicles of Isaiah Dunn by Kelly J. Baptist

- Choctaw Bigfoot, Midnight in the Mountains by Tim Tingle

- Main Street by Jacqueline Woodson

- Flying Lessons by Soman Chainani

- Seventy-Six Dollars and Forty-Nine Cents by Kwame Alexander

- Sometimes a Dream Needs a Push by Walter Dean Myers

Each lesson includes WORKSHEETS and a PRESENTATION. Worksheets come in color and b/w. Presentations include answer keys.

Each lesson contains:

- Pre-reading journal prompt

- Story vocabulary (except Main Street)

- Tiered reading questions

- Questions focused on one particular ELA standard

- Answer keys

BONUS ESSAY WRITING PROMPTS ARE INCLUDED!

If you teach 90 minute block classes, you would likely get through one lesson per day. If you teach 50 minute classes like I do, each lesson could take two days. This bundle could last from 2 weeks to 4 weeks depending on your schedule.

If you are looking for the perfect way to introduce or review dystopian literature for your students with a rigorous yet engaging activity, look no further than our Escape from Dystopia Escape Room!

There is no wonder why escape rooms are so popular; they are highly engaging and encourage people to work together and think creatively in order to solve different puzzles... all while trying to beat the clock! This meticulously-crafted resource features all of the materials you need to conduct a full-length Dystopia Escape Room. Planning an escape room may seem like quite the daunting task, but this product provides everything from the basics and set-up instructions to signs and answer keys so that yours runs smoothly from start to finish. The activity involves movement, energy, creative thinking and most of all, collaboration. Your students will be having so much fun that they won’t even realize the higher order thinking skills they are applying in the playing of this game!

How does it work?

In order to escape from your dystopian classroom of despair and destruction, your students must escape your room by solving 5 different utopian and dystopian related puzzles, discovering a hidden message, and finding clues along the way.

• Dystopia FAQs: In the first task, students must complete a crossword puzzle with questions about dystopian and utopian societies. Once complete, they must unscramble circled boxes to reveal the first code.
• Trending Now: In the second task, students must match an actual current law, statistic or trend with the dystopian novel that shows what, if taken to the extreme, could happen to our world. Once completed correctly, letters within the shaded boxes will reveal the second code.
• Word Maze: In the third task, students must complete a word maze. Letters collected along the way will reveal a theme of dystopia and act as the third code.
• Unknown Citizen: In the fourth task, students must perform a close reading of W. H. Auden's The Unknown Citizen. This is the perfect poem for discussing the totalitarian aspects of dystopian societies and how citizens can completely lose their individuality within them. The letters of the multiple choice questions about the poem will form the fourth code.
• Dys/U topia?: In the fifth and final task, students must assemble two charts for Utopia and Dystopia using hypothetical elements of both types of society. Letters of the correct answers reveal the final code phrase to escape the classroom!

Product Includes:

- Escape Room Basics

- Detailed Day-Of Instructions

- Escape Room Print Checklist

- Student Teams Chart

- Materials for 5 Tasks: task signs to be folded upright, task instructions (2 per page for easy printing), and supplementary materials to be kept at stations

- Student Answer Booklet

- Teacher Answer Keys

- Code Word Theme Open Response for homework or in-class writing activity

- Escape Room Reflection for homework or in-class writing activity

This escape room can be used as an introduction to or as a review of dystopia, however students will need at least a fundamental understanding of utopian and dystopian societies prior to engaging in the escape room. Therefore, this 30-slide Introduction to Dystopia Powerpoint is included to be taught a day or two prior to this lesson.

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We've gone digital! Check out the digital version to support distance learning here:

⭐ Escape from Dystopia Digital ESCAPE ROOM & PowerPoint

Also, check out these great products for your unit on DYSTOPIA by Language Arts Excellence:

⭐ Dystopian Literature Socratic Seminar

The Handmaid's Tale

⭐ The Handmaid's Tale "Hot Seat!"

⭐ The Handmaid's Tale "Silent Conversation" Quote Pass Activity

⭐ The Handmaid's Tale Anticipation Guide & Lesson Plan

⭐ The Handmaid's Tale Journal Prompts

⭐ The Handmaid's Tale Quote Posters

⭐ The Handmaid's Tale Socratic Seminar Lesson Plan and Materials

The Lottery

⭐The Lottery Activity Bundle

⭐ The Lottery Social Media Materials

⭐ The Lottery Socratic Seminar Lesson Plan and Materials

⭐ The Lottery "Tossing Lines" Anticipation Guide

Harrison Bergeron

⭐ Harrison Bergeron ESCAPE ROOM

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⭐⭐⭐For the escape room enthusiasts out there, you can now build your own bundle at 20% off the cover price of 3 or more escape rooms! Click the link to check out all of the escape rooms Language Arts Excellence has to offer: Build Your Own Escape Room BUNDLE⭐⭐⭐

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Click to Follow Language Arts Excellence

Nutcracker Literature Bundle: ($18 value)

Combines The Nutcracker and the Mouse King Picture Book Study and the Nutcracked Novel Study and Vocabulary Unit.

Nutcracker and the Mouse King Picture Book Study ($5 Value)

This study works excellent as an introduction to studying the Nutcracker Ballet.

Using the picture book The Nutcracker and the Mouse King, the original Story by ETA Hoffman, illustrated by Gail de Marcken, and the Story adapted by Wren Mayse. The materials aim to enhance the readers understanding and interpretation of the Story.

What is Included: 23 Pages Total

· Goal and Instructional Pages for Teacher

· Lesson Plans for 10-days of lessons

· Pre-Reading Notes Page (1 page)

· Discussion Questions (9 pages)

· Story Outline (Plot Outline) (2 pages)

· Battle Plan Outline (2 pages)

· Answer Keys (4 pages)

Nutcracked Novel Study and Vocabulary ($8 Value)

Novel Study: These materials for Susan Adrian's novel Nutcracked aim to enhance readers' understanding and interpretation of the Story.

What is Included: 40 Pages

· Goal and Instructional Pages for Teacher

· Lesson Plans for 15-days of lessons- Incorporate vocabulary work in

· Discussion Questions (11 pages)

· Reality vs. Fantasy-Journal (1 page)

· Reality vs. Fantasy-Teaching Worksheet Activity (1 page)

· Reality vs. Fantasy-2 Worksheets (1 page each)

· Georgie's Problems (Conflict Worksheet) (1 page)

· Plot Diagram (1 page)

· Final Test (2 Options) (2 pages each)

· Answer Keys (8 pages)

Vocabulary: -In general, the goal for finding vocabulary words within a novel is to have students encounter words they may not have seen or heard before and then understand their meaning in the text and their everyday lives.

What is Included: 31 Pages

· Goals and Instructional Pages for Teacher

· Master Word Lists (3 pages)

· Student Dictionary (11 pages)

· Crossword Puzzles (3 pages)

· Word Search (1 page)

· Vocabulary in Context Worksheet (2 pages)

· Final Test (1 page)

· Answer Keys (6 pages)

This Bundle also includes a Bundle Guide: 8 Pages ($3 value)

· Goals and Instructions for the Bundle

· Brief Bundle Overview

· Full Bundle Lesson Plans (helps combine the two units into one)

Look to pair this Bundle with other Nutcracker Christmas School Activities. A complete 20-Day Christmas School Unit is available as a bundle through my website or TeachShare storefront.

UPDATED FOR THE 2024-2025 SCHOOL YEAR: Finally, a poetry unit designed for high-school English that teenagers genuinely love!! Your students' skills in close reading and literary analysis of poems will skyrocket....

The 3-week unit features 60+ canonical poems written by a diverse spectrum of English-speaking poets. The poems and accompanying lesson plans are organized into 12 thematic packets which can be used in sequence over two weeks. That's over 200 pages worth of editable poetry resources!

This unit promises to elicit dynamic engagement from all students without compromising on intellectual rigor. The discussion questions, quick writes, literary device quizzes, and analytical writing assignments will challenge your students to dig beneath the surface of the text and generate profound interpretive insights!!

Here are some highlights from this editable 200-page curriculum:

• Homework Packets with Poems (5-6 Poems per Packet): The 12 homework packets contain a total of 71 poems by a diverse range of award-winning poets such as William Shakespeare, John Keats, Christina Rossetti, Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, Langston Hughes, Sylvia Plath, Robert Hayden, Theodore Roethke, Maya Angelou, Audre Lorde, Mary Oliver, Gary Soto, Li-Young Lee, Ada Limón, Elizabeth Acevedo, and others. The poems are collected into ten reading packets that focus on prominent literary devices and themes: 1) poems using sensory imagery, 2) poems using figurative language, 3) love poems, 4) poems on ethical dilemmas, 5) poems on complex parent-child dynamics, and 6) poems on cultural identity. Because teenagers have a lot to say about these themes, the poems will set the stage for your class to have fascinating and profoundly productive discussions!! (75 pages)

• Literary Devices Glossary: A glossary with definitions and examples of the various types of figurative language, imagery, stanzas, and syntactic devices. Many teachers already have a glossary of literary devices, but I'm providing this in case you need one. (2 pages)

• Literary Devices Quizzes: A total of ten quizzes, each with 10 questions about a wide range of literary devices: metaphor, personification, symbolism, imagery, alliteration, etc. Open each class with a quiz to assess whether your students can accurately identify the literary devices used in the poems from the homework packets. Answer keys included. (24 pages).

• Discussion Questions: This bundle features a list of discussion questions for the first poem in each of the homework packets. The discussion questions will ensure that every class discussion starts on a productive foot. Every discussion question is grounded in concrete textual details and challenges students to arrive at lucid interpretive insights! The questions lend themselves to a range of different pedagogical uses: 1) to focus students’ thinking prior to beginning a discussion, 2) to prompt in-class writing, 3) to assign written reflections for homework, etc. Guaranteed to elicit student engagement and foster deep thinking! Answer keys included. (60 pages)

• Quick Writes: The quick writes give students an opportunity to capture and refine the best ideas generated in the discussion. Quick writes can also help reticent students to gather their thoughts so they'll feel ready and eager to contribute. (24 pages)

• Analytical Writing Assignment: Challenge students to take their interpretations one step further by writing an analytical paper on a poem of their choice. The assignment sheet contains detailed instructions for how to generate a formalist analysis of a poem (analyzing how the poem's formal features contribute to its meaning). This kind of formalist analysis is exactly what students are asked to generate on the AP Literature exam! Sample paper included. (15 pages)

This entire resource packet will come to you in two separate formats: Word docs *and* PDFs. Because the Word docs are fully editable, you'll be able to customize the materials to suit the skill levels of your students — year after year! If you don't have Microsoft Word, you'll still be able to access all of the materials as PDF documents — which are easy to navigate and quick to print!

My store is called “Rigorous Resources” because all of the resources contain rigorous content that will motivate students to engage in thought-provoking and productive discussions. Thank you for choosing Rigorous Resources.

Happy teaching!

Adam Jernigan, Ph.D.

adamjernigan@gmail.com

Should you prefer to purchase the poetry units individually, here are links to the five poetry units:

Poetry Unit #1: Sensory Imagery in Poetry

Poetry Unit #2: Figurative Language in Poetry

Poetry Unit #3: Love Poems

Poetry Unit #4: Poems on Ethical Dilemmas

Poetry Unit #5: Poems on Family Relationships

Poetry Unit #6: Poems on Cultural Identity

Store: https://www.TeachShare.com/Store/Rigorous-Resources

If you are looking for the perfect way to introduce or review dystopian literature for your students with a rigorous yet engaging activity, look no further than this Escape from Dystopia ESCAPE ROOM for use with Google Drive!

There is no wonder why escape rooms are so popular; they are highly engaging and encourage people to think creatively in order to solve different puzzles... all while trying to beat the clock! Now, you can facilitate our popular Escape from Dystopia Escape Room at home for distance learning or in the classroom using your school's technology (thereby cutting down on paper and valuable prep time) with this meticulously-crafted resource. Distance learning can certainly be a struggle for both students and teachers, so this escape room aims to provide a welcome break from the monotony while encouraging higher order thinking skills and a fun introduction or review of dystopian literature.

How does it work?

In order to escape from your digital dystopian classroom of despair and destruction, your students must solve 5 different utopian and dystopian related puzzles, discover a hidden message, and find clues along the way.

• Dystopia FAQs: In the first task, students must complete a crossword puzzle with questions about dystopian and utopian societies. Once complete, they must unscramble circled boxes to reveal the first code.
• Trending Now: In the second task, students must match an actual current law, statistic or trend with the dystopian novel that shows what, if taken to the extreme, could happen to our world. Once completed correctly, letters within the shaded boxes will reveal the second code.
• Word Maze: In the third task, students must complete a word maze. Letters collected along the way will reveal a theme of dystopia and act as the third code.
• Unknown Citizen: In the fourth task, students must perform a close reading of W. H. Auden's The Unknown Citizen. This is the perfect poem for discussing the totalitarian aspects of dystopian societies and how citizens can completely lose their individuality within them. The letters of the multiple choice questions about the poem will form the fourth code.
• Dys/U topia?: In the fifth and final task, students must assemble two charts for Utopia and Dystopia using hypothetical elements of both types of society. Letters of the correct answers reveal the final code phrase to escape the classroom!

Product Includes:

- Instructions for how to access and share escape room and answer key through Google Drive

- Materials for 5 Tasks: digital task signs, detailed task instructions, and editable worksheets

- Digital Student Answer Booklet

- Digital Teacher Answer Key

This escape room can be used as an introduction to or as a review of dystopia, however students will need at least a fundamental understanding of utopian and dystopian societies prior to engaging in the escape room. Therefore, this 30-slide Introduction to Dystopia Powerpoint is included to be taught a day or two prior to this lesson.

___________________________________________________________________________

Also, check out these great products for your unit on DYSTOPIA by Language Arts Excellence:

⭐ Dystopian Literature Socratic Seminar

⭐ Escape from Dystopia ESCAPE ROOM (paper version)

The Handmaid's Tale

⭐ The Handmaid's Tale "Hot Seat!"

⭐ The Handmaid's Tale "Silent Conversation" Quote Pass Activity

⭐ The Handmaid's Tale Anticipation Guide & Lesson Plan

⭐ The Handmaid's Tale Journal Prompts

⭐ The Handmaid's Tale Quote Posters

⭐ The Handmaid's Tale Socratic Seminar Lesson Plan and Materials

The Lottery

⭐The Lottery Activity Bundle

⭐ The Lottery Social Media Materials

⭐ The Lottery Socratic Seminar Lesson Plan and Materials

⭐ The Lottery "Tossing Lines" Anticipation Guide

_____________________________________________________________________________________

⭐⭐⭐For the escape room enthusiasts out there, you can now build your own bundle at 20% off the cover price of 3 or more escape rooms! Click the link to check out all of the escape rooms Language Arts Excellence has to offer: Build Your Own Escape Room BUNDLE⭐⭐⭐

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Click to Follow Language Arts Excellence

This 135-page EDITABLE unit has everything you'll need for profoundly stimulating lessons on Willa Cather's My Ántonia!! Invite your class to engage in student-driven discussions without compromising on intellectual rigor. The pre-reading handouts, discussion questions, daily quizzes, and analytical writing assignment will challenge your students to dig beneath the surface of the text and generate profound interpretive insights!!

Hold your students accountable for completing the nightly homework by beginning every class with a quick vocabulary and reading quiz. Facilitate dynamic discussions that motivate students to become attached to the thrill generating shared knowledge. Challenge students to explicate textual details using a wide range of interpretive lenses: historicist, psychoanalytic, feminist, etc. Inspire students to arrive at a whole new depth of insight!!

Here are some highlights from the 135-page editable curriculum:

• Portrait of the Author: Willa Cather: This pre-reading handout will provoke students to make connections between Cather's life and central themes in My Ántonia — without spoiling any of the plot details. Includes a follow-up quiz with answer key. (4 pages)

• Discussion Question Handouts: Thirty-five of higher-order discussion questions guaranteed to inspire profoundly thoughtful class discussions! This unit features double-sided handouts with with 8-10 discussion for each of the novel's 12 sections. The discussion questions are the beating heart of these lesson plans. They challenge students to build interpretive arguments that require the support of carefully selected textual evidence — leading to keen interpretive insights! (35 pages)

• Vocabulary Lists: Lists of 10-12 vocabulary words for every section of the novel, complete with definitions and sample sentences with the words as used in My Ántonia. A total of over 120 SAT-worthy words. (12 pages)

• Vocabulary & Reading Quizzes: Quizzes with 10 questions per reading assignment. Build students’ vocabularies while holding them accountable for the nightly reading homework. Each quiz contains 7 questions on vocabulary words plus another 3 questions on reading comprehension. Grading these quizzes is simple and quick. They’re an easy way to log 12 grades into your gradebook. Answer keys included. (24 pages)

• Literary Devices Quiz: This quiz challenges students to identify the literary devices used in fifteen quotations from My Ántonia. The literary devices include metaphor, simile, personification, hyperbole, allusion, onomatopoeia, and more. This bundle also features a glossary with definitions of the literary devices as well as examples of how each device is used in Cather's novel — so you can review the devices with students before they tackle the worksheet. The worksheet can be used either as a quiz or as a fun refresher. Answer key included. (3 pages)

• Quotation Race: Students work in pairs to identify the speakers of 50 key quotations from My Ántonia. Introduce this fun activity when you need to mix things up, or to refresh students' memories in preparation for the AP exam. Answer key included. (6 pages)

• FRQ3 Practice Essay: Designed for AP Lit teachers, this in-class practice essay will allow students to rehearse the "FRQ3" essay from the AP Literature and Composition Exam. The assignment asks students to write a 40-minute in-class essay in response to one amongst three recent Q3 prompts that featured My Antonia as one of the recommended works of literary merit. (5 pages)

• Analytical Writing Assignment: Challenge students to take their interpretations one step further by writing an analytical paper on Willa Cather's wonderfully complex novel. Let students choose from one of eight profoundly thought-provoking sample topics — or invite them to develop a similar topic of their own. Rubric included. (4 pages)

My store is called “Rigorous Resources” because the units feature content-rich lessons guaranteed to boost your students' close-reading and critical-thinking skills. This unit filled with dozens of historically relevant visual images: documentary photographs of dugouts and sod houses from the 1870s and 1880s, portraits of Red Cloud and other historical figures, paintings by the prairie-born painter Harvey Dunn, and much more. But what really distinguishes this unit is how the pre-reading handouts, discussion questions, exercises on literary devices, and writing assignment are all designed to help student arrive at an abundance of interpretive insights!

The entire 135-page unit will come to you in two separate formats: Word Doc *and* PDF. Because the Word doc is fully editable, you'll be able to CUSTOMIZE the materials to suit your teaching style and/or the skill levels of your students — year after year! If you don't have Microsoft Word, you'll still be able to access the entire unit as a PDF — which is easy to navigate and quick to print!

As someone who great up in the midwest, I love teaching Cather's masterpiece about life on the Nebraska prairie. And I also love hearing from teachers who share a passion for great literature. If you have any questions while teaching this novel, please don't hesitate to reach out via email. Wishing you an amazing experience with My Ántonia!

Happy teaching!

Adam Jernigan, Ph.D.

adamjernigan@gmail.com

P.S. Don't forget to click “follow” for email updates on new products by Rigorous Resources. New products will be 50% OFF for the first 24 hours!

Rigorous Resources is your one-stop shop for resources on American literature. Every unit was designed by a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago with a research specialization in American literature. Feel free to check out these complete units on canonical texts by diverse American authors:

Complete Unit on Tommy Orange's There There

Complete Unit on Arthur Miller's The Crucible

Complete Unit on Frederick Douglass's Narrative

Complete Unit on F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby

Complete Unit on Nella Larsen's Passing

Complete Unit on Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God

Complete Unit on J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye

Complete Unit on Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun

Complete Unit on Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye

Complete Unit on Gene Luen Yang's American Born Chinese

This bundle featuring six of our best-selling language arts resources is the perfect teacher's survival kit that can be adapted for any short story or novel throughout the school year!

The variety of lesson plans, activities, and assessments in this bundle will spruce up your ELA curriculum and encourages learning in thoughtful, creative ways. Due to the diversity of resources, your students will be hitting several Common Core reading, writing, and speaking/listening standards with each activity. Your students will thank you for offering such engaging ways to learn!

Products included in this bundle:

⭐Characters in the Hot Seat

This product features all the materials you need to conduct a thoughtful and engaging "HOT SEAT" for almost any class novel! The hot seat is set up essentially like a talk show, however in order to allow for full class participation, there are multiple interviewers and multiple character guests. Through role play, this lesson tests your students' understanding of the novel and allows them to showcase their knowledge of the characters and the relationships between them. Your students will be having so much fun that they will not even realize the high-order thinking skills they are applying! This activity can easily modified for almost any novel as well as for the number of students in your classroom.

⭐Novel Playlist Assignment

This product features a creative and contemporary assignment in which students create their own music playlist for a novel by analyzing the lyrics of their favorite songs and synthesizing them with literary elements of their chosen book. This is a great activity that encourages students to think beyond the traditional 5 paragraph essay and consider literary elements in a deeper and more creative way. Your students will thank you for giving them a chance to have fun as they apply higher-order thinking skills!

⭐Socratic Seminar Lesson Plan and Materials

Socratic Seminars (or "Fish Bowl" Conversations as I like to call them with my students) are fantastic, higher order ways of assessing whether your students are able to understand and react to what they are learning in class. These seminars rely on the power of inquiry and allow students to take the lead in their learning and discussion. The only problem? They require a great deal of preparation. Fortunately, I did the work for you! This packet includes everything you need to conduct a structured and formal set of Socratic Seminars in your classroom and can be adapted for absolutely any topic. All you need are the questions to form the basis of these discussions!

⭐Literature Circle Task Cards

This set of 32 unique task cards contain engaging thought-provoking questions meant to prompt lively discussion for literature circles or books clubs in your middle or high school ELA classroom. Questions are mainly reader-response and are fully aligned to the Common Core. They can be used at any point during the reading of a novel or short story and are great as both full-class lesson plans or for time-fillers at the end of class. I also like to use these cards as bell-ringer activities to check in on my students' thoughts and understanding of the novel as we go. These are the perfect task cards to add to your teacher's toolbox and use all year long!

⭐Figurative Language Challenge

I created this "Figurative Language Challenge" activity and lesson plan several years ago for my middle school students as they were studying Edgar Allan Poe's figurative language-laden works. Little did I know that it would become the most requested game among my students of all time. This resource includes a meticulously-detailed lesson plan using warm-up, explanation, application, and synthesis, and a one-of-a-kind game that will get your students excited about identifying figurative language. This is the perfect lesson plan for a Friday or any time you need to amp up the energy in your classroom without sacrificing learning... and of course, it is Common Core aligned!

⭐ Differentiated Essay Prompts for ANY Novel!

This product features 20 beautifully-made task cards with generic essay prompts that will work for any novel. These prompts are differentiated so that they appeal to all learners and give all students a chance to shine in their essay writing! After years of tweaking my essay prompts, I have created questions that are thoughtful and concise so that in turn, they reap excellent student responses.

Purchasing these resources as a bundle saves 20% off the cover price!

___________________________________________________________________________

⭐Click to Follow Language Arts Excellence⭐

This 175-page EDITABLE curriculum has everything you'll need for profoundly stimulating lessons on Art Spiegelman's The Complete Maus!! Invite your class to engage in student-driven discussions without compromising on intellectual rigor. The pre-reading handouts, discussion questions, vocabulary lists, and analytical writing assignment will challenge your students to dig beneath the surface of the text and generate profound interpretive insights!!

The graphic novel is an aesthetically innovative genre in which meaning is created through the interplay of image and text. How do we read a novel in which two narrative channels — one verbal, the other visual — interact? And how do graphic novels challenge readers to expand the set of interpretive techniques that make up “close reading”? This bundle will help students understand complex questions about literary genres, aesthetic form, social and political history, and the responsibilities that come with representing historical atrocities like the Holocaust.

Here are some highlights from the 175-page curriculum:

• Pre-Reading Activity: Open this unit by reading and discussing Art Spiegelman's early 3-page comic, "Maus" (which was published in an underground comics magazine called Funny Animals in 1972). In addition to the 3-page comic itself, this unit features a double-sided Image Analysis Worksheet in which students encounter questions that will deepen their engagement with Maus. Answer key included. (10 pages)

• Discussion Question Handouts: Thirty-five pages of deeply thought-provoking discussion questions! One double-sided handout containing 8-10 questions for each of the book's 10 sections. The discussion questions are the beating heart of these lesson plans. Every discussion question is grounded in concrete textual details and challenges students to arrive at lucid interpretive insights! The questions could be used to focus students’ thinking prior to beginning a discussion, to foster in-class writing such as stop-and-jots, or to assign written reflections for homework. Guaranteed to elicit student engagement and foster profound discussions! (25 pages)

• Discussion Question Answer Keys: The answer keys to the discussion questions are informed by cutting-edge scholarship by historians and literature professors who specialize on topics like the Holocaust and Spiegelman's Maus. Of course, there is rarely a single "correct" answer for any question; rather, the discussions questions are made up of higher-order questions designed to foster lively exchanges and interpretive debates among students. They challenge students to build interpretive arguments that require the support of carefully selected textual evidence. (50 pages)

• Quick Writes: A "quick write" can be used at any time in a class to get students to pause and reflect on the text in writing. Introduce a quick write before you begin a discussion to allow students to collect their thoughts. Or roll one out toward the end of a discussion to let students capture and refine their best ideas. (10 pages)

• Image Analysis Worksheets: Three double-sided worksheets challenge students to analyze 10 visually complex panels from Maus. Students will reflect on how Spiegelman builds meaning by through the use of aesthetic strategies such as visual parallels, visual puns, symbolism, strategic ambiguity, the interweaving of past and present, etc. Help students figure out what it means to "close read" a graphic novel. Answer keys included. (10 pages)

• Quotation Race Worksheet: Students work in pairs to identify the speakers of 30 key quotations from Maus. Introduce this fun activity when you need to mix things up, or to refresh students' memories in preparation for the AP exam. Answer key included. (4 pages)

• Vocabulary Lists: Lists of 8 vocabulary words for every chapter, complete with definitions and sample sentences with the words as they are used in Maus. A total of 80 words. (10 pages)

• Reading & Vocabulary Quizzes: Daily quizzes with 10 questions on the nightly reading homework plus another 5 questions on the vocabulary words. If you choose not to have your students study vocabulary, you can still use the portion of the quiz devoted to reading comprehension. Grading these quizzes is simple and quick. They’re an easy way to log 10 grades into your gradebook. Answer keys included. (40 pages)

• Analytical Writing Assignment: Challenge students to take their interpretations one step further by writing an analytical paper on Art Spiegelman's complex graphic novel. Let students choose from one of four thought-provoking sample topics — or invite them to develop a similar topic of their own. Writing schedule and rubric included. (4 pages)

The resource packet will come to you in two separate formats: Word docs *and* PDFs. Because the Word doc is editable, you'll be able to customize the materials to suit your teaching style and/or the needs of particular students — year after year. If you don't have Microsoft Word, you'll still be able to access the PDF version, which is easy to navigate and quick to print!

Finally, because I believe that teachers on TeachShare should be able to see what they'd be getting before they make a purchase, the preview for this resource provides access to 50 pages from this 170-page bundle. Click on the green “preview” button to see exactly what you’ll get....

Thank you for choosing “Rigorous Resources”!!

Happy teaching!

Adam Jernigan, Ph.D.

adamjernigan@gmail.com

P.S. Don't forget to click “follow” for email updates on new products by Rigorous Resources. New products will be 50% OFF for the first 24 hours!

This bundle featuring six of our best-selling language arts resources is the perfect teacher's survival kit that can be adapted for any short story or novel throughout the school year!

The variety of lesson plans, activities, and assessments in this bundle will spruce up your ELA curriculum and encourages learning in thoughtful, creative ways. Due to the diversity of resources, your students will be hitting several Common Core reading, writing, and speaking/listening standards with each activity. Your students will thank you for offering such engaging ways to learn!

Products included in this bundle:

⭐Characters in the Hot Seat

This product features all the materials you need to conduct a thoughtful and engaging "HOT SEAT" for almost any class novel! The hot seat is set up essentially like a talk show, however in order to allow for full class participation, there are multiple interviewers and multiple character guests. Through role play, this lesson tests your students' understanding of the novel and allows them to showcase their knowledge of the characters and the relationships between them. Your students will be having so much fun that they will not even realize the high-order thinking skills they are applying! This activity can easily modified for almost any novel as well as for the number of students in your classroom.

⭐Novel Playlist Assignment

This product features a creative and contemporary assignment in which students create their own music playlist for a novel by analyzing the lyrics of their favorite songs and synthesizing them with literary elements of their chosen book. This is a great activity that encourages students to think beyond the traditional 5 paragraph essay and consider literary elements in a deeper and more creative way. Your students will thank you for giving them a chance to have fun as they apply higher-order thinking skills!

⭐Socratic Seminar Lesson Plan and Materials

Socratic Seminars (or "Fish Bowl" Conversations as I like to call them with my students) are fantastic, higher order ways of assessing whether your students are able to understand and react to what they are learning in class. These seminars rely on the power of inquiry and allow students to take the lead in their learning and discussion. The only problem? They require a great deal of preparation. Fortunately, I did the work for you! This packet includes everything you need to conduct a structured and formal set of Socratic Seminars in your classroom and can be adapted for absolutely any topic. All you need are the questions to form the basis of these discussions!

⭐Literature Circle Task Cards

This set of 32 unique task cards contain engaging thought-provoking questions meant to prompt lively discussion for literature circles or books clubs in your middle or high school ELA classroom. Questions are mainly reader-response and are fully aligned to the Common Core. They can be used at any point during the reading of a novel or short story and are great as both full-class lesson plans or for time-fillers at the end of class. I also like to use these cards as bell-ringer activities to check in on my students' thoughts and understanding of the novel as we go. These are the perfect task cards to add to your teacher's toolbox and use all year long!

⭐Figurative Language Challenge

I created this "Figurative Language Challenge" activity and lesson plan several years ago for my middle school students as they were studying Edgar Allan Poe's figurative language-laden works. Little did I know that it would become the most requested game among my students of all time. This resource includes a meticulously-detailed lesson plan using warm-up, explanation, application, and synthesis, and a one-of-a-kind game that will get your students excited about identifying figurative language. This is the perfect lesson plan for a Friday or any time you need to amp up the energy in your classroom without sacrificing learning... and of course, it is Common Core aligned!

⭐ Differentiated Essay Prompts for ANY Novel!

This product features 20 beautifully-made task cards with generic essay prompts that will work for any novel. These prompts are differentiated so that they appeal to all learners and give all students a chance to shine in their essay writing! After years of tweaking my essay prompts, I have created questions that are thoughtful and concise so that in turn, they reap excellent student responses.

Purchasing these resources as a bundle saves 20% off the cover price!

___________________________________________________________________________

⭐Click to Follow Language Arts Excellence⭐

This 150-page EDITABLE unit on Arthur Miller's The Crucible promises to elicit dynamic engagement from all students without compromising on intellectual rigor. The daily discussion questions, vocabulary lists, literary devices quiz, and analytical writing assignment will challenge your students to dig beneath the surface of the text and generate profound interpretive insights! This unit was designed to have more than enough rigor for honors, IB, and AP courses!

Hold your students accountable for completing the nightly homework by beginning every class with a quick vocabulary and reading quiz. Challenge students to analyze how Arthur Miller constructs each of the main characters by engaging in short in-class writing exercises focused on pivotal passages. Invite students to explicate textual details using a wide range of interpretive lenses: historicist, psychoanalytic, feminist, etc. Facilitate dynamic discussions that inspire students to arrive at a whole new depth of insight!!

Everything you’ll need to teach Arthur Miller's masterpiece is included in this bundle. The abundance of materials will give you lots of options to play with, and will make the experience of teaching The Crucible not just easy but invigorating!

Here are some highlights from this 150-page editable curriculum:

• Pacing Guide: Suggestions for how to pace the reading homework and organize the classwork for Arthur Miller's The Crucible. (2 pages)

• Pre-Reading Handouts: Two pre-reading handouts provide students with crucial background information about the Salem Witch Trials of 1692 as well as the HUAC Hearings of the 1950s. (4 pages)

• Discussion Question Handouts: Twenty pages of higher-order discussion questions guaranteed to inspire profoundly thoughtful class discussions! This unit features double-sided handouts with 8-10 discussion questions for each section of The Crucible. The discussion questions are the beating heart of these lesson plans. They challenge students to build interpretive arguments that require the support of carefully selected textual evidence — leading to keen interpretive insights! (30 pages)

• Discussion Question ANSWER KEYS: The answer keys to the discussion questions are informed by the best scholarly articles on The Crucible. Of course, there is rarely a single "correct" answer for any question; rather, the discussions questions are made up of higher-order questions designed to foster lively exchanges and interpretive debates among students. They challenge students to build interpretive arguments that require the support of carefully selected textual evidence. (50 pages)

• Vocabulary Lists: Lists of 10 vocabulary words to accompany every nightly reading assignment, complete with a definition and a sample sentence with the word as used in The Crucible. A total of over 80 SAT-caliber words. (8 pages)

• Vocabulary & Reading Quizzes: Daily quizzes with 10 questions on the nightly reading homework plus another 10 questions on the vocabulary words. Even if you choose not to have your students study vocabulary, you can still use the portion of the quiz devoted to reading comprehension. Grading these quizzes is easy and quick! They’re a great way to log 8 to 16 grades into your gradebook. Answer keys included. (32 pages)

• Literary Devices Quiz: This quiz challenges students to identify the types of literary devices — metaphor, simile, metonymy, symbolism, personification, hyperbole, etc. — used in 33 quotations from The Crucible. The curriculum also includes a glossary with definitions of the literary devices as well as examples of how they're used in Miller's play — so you can review the devices with students before they tackle the worksheet. The worksheet can be used either as a quiz or as a fun exercise. Answer key included. (5 pages)

• Quotation Race: Students work in pairs to identify the speakers of 25 quotes. Introduce this fun activity when you need to mix things up — or to review for the AP Exam. Answer key included. (4 pages)

• FRQ3 Practice Essay: Designed for AP Lit teachers, this in-class practice essay will allow students to rehearse the "FRQ3" essay from the AP Literature and Composition Exam. The assignment asks students to choose from among three recent FRQ3 prompts that featured The Crucible as one of the recommended works of literary merit. (5 pages)

• Analytical Writing Assignment: Challenge students to take their interpretations one step further by writing an analytical paper on Miller's wonderfully complex play. Let students choose from one of three profoundly thought-provoking sample topics — or invite them to develop an original topic of their own. Rubric included. (7 pages)

This unit is filled with dozens of visual images that shed light on important scenes from Miller's play: lithographs representing the Salem Witch Trials, transcriptions of suspects being interrogated by John Hathorne, photographs of Arthur Miller testifying before HUAC, etc. But what really distinguishes this unit is how the discussion questions, close-reading exercises, and writing assignment are all designed to deepen students' thinking and help them arrive at profound interpretive insights!

The entire resource packet will come to you in two separate formats: Word docs *and* PDFs. Because the Word docs are editable, you'll be able to customize them to suit your teaching style and/or the needs of particular students — year after year! If you don't have Microsoft Word, you'll still be able to access the entire unit in PDF format — which is easy to navigate and quick to print!

Thank you for choosing “Rigorous Resources”!!

Happy teaching!

Adam Jernigan, Ph.D.

adamjernigan@gmail.com

P.S. Don't forget to click “follow” for email updates on new products by Rigorous Resources. New products will be 50% OFF for the first 24 hours!

Rigorous Resources is your one-stop shop for resources on American literature.

Every unit was designed by a Ph.D. with a research specialization in American literature. Feel free to check out these complete units on canonical texts by diverse American authors:

Complete Unit on Tommy Orange's There There

Complete Unit on Frederick Douglass's Narrative

Complete Unit on F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby

Complete Unit on Nella Larsen's Passing

Complete Unit on Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God

Complete Unit on J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye

Complete Unit on Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun

Complete Unit on Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye

Complete Unit on Gene Luen Yang's American Born Chinese

This resource features a bundle of four exciting lesson plans, activities, and classroom decor for your unit on the hero's journey. Lessons have all been classroom-tested and allow for differentiation while encouraging optimal student engagement. You will not find tedious lists of comprehension questions and vocabulary words in this bundle; instead you will find materials that will allow your students to understand and connect with the hero's journey on a deeper level.

⭐ Hero's Journey Anticipation Lesson Plan:

This product features an engaging introductory lesson plan that will have your students thinking, writing, speaking, and moving on the first day of your hero's journey unit. In this activity, they must choose between 6 different quotes by famous figures about what makes a hero, articulate why the quote aligns with their own perspective, then share their findings with the rest of the class in a fun, non-intimidating way.

⭐ Hero's Journey Socratic Seminar:

This resource features everything you need in order to conduct a structured and formal set of Socratic Seminars in your classroom for any novel that follows the model of the hero's journey. Socratic Seminars are high-order ways of assessing whether your students are able to understand and react to your class texts. These seminars rely on the power of inquiry and allow students to take the lead in their learning and discussion. They are also a great way for students to work together and build upon one another's ideas without the assistance of a teacher. The only problem? They require a great deal of preparation. Fortunately, with this resource, the work has been done for you and you will have several days of student-led learning during your unit on the hero's journey!

⭐ Hero's Journey ESCAPE ROOM:

Though your students have been learning about the 12 stages, 8 archetypes, and countless examples of the hero's journey through literature and film, it is time for them to become heroes themselves by escaping your classroom! In order to do this, they must work in small teams to solve 5 different puzzles related to the hero's journey, discovering a hidden message, and finding clues along the way.

⭐ Hero's Journey Quote Posters:

Make your classroom pop with this set of 25 posters featuring provocative quotes about the hero's journey. Each 7.5 x 7.5 (square) PDF poster contains a quote about heroes imposed over a stunning photograph to spruce up your ELA classroom during your unit on the hero's journey. The square format makes for an eye-catching arrangement on your wall or bulletin board and serves as a great conversation starter. I suggest laminating the posters so that you can use them year after year!

Purchasing this bundle saves more than 20% off the cost of the four resources for your hero's journey unit.

___________________________________________________________________

Also, check out these great products for your unit on the hero's journey by Language Arts Excellence:

⭐ The Alchemist

⭐ Divergent

___________________________________________________________________

Click to Follow Language Arts Excellence

This 75-page EDITABLE unit has everything you'll need for profoundly stimulating lessons on Marjane Satrapi's The Complete Persepolis. Invite your class to engage in student-driven discussions without compromising on intellectual rigor. The discussion questions, quick writes, daily quizzes, and final writing assignment will challenge your students to dig beneath the surface of the text and generate profound interpretive insights!

The graphic novel is an aesthetically innovative genre in which meaning is created through the interplay of image and text. How do we read a novel in which two narrative channels — one verbal, the other visual — interact? How do graphic novels challenge readers to expand the set of interpretive techniques that make up “close reading”? This bundle will help students understand complex questions about literary genres, aesthetic form, coming-of-age novels, cross-cultural encounters, and the social and political history of Iran!

Hold your students accountable for completing the nightly homework by beginning every class with a quick vocabulary and reading quiz. Facilitate dynamic discussions that motivate students to become attached to the thrill generating shared knowledge. Challenge students to explicate textual details using a wide range of interpretive lenses: formalist, historicist, psychoanalytic, feminist, etc. Inspire students to arrive at a whole new depth of insight!

Everything you’ll need to teach The Complete Persepolis is included in this bundle:

• Unit & Pacing Guide: Suggestions for how to pace the reading homework and organize the classwork for Satrapi's graphic novel. (2 pages)

• Graphic Novel Glossary: A glossary of literary elements that are unique to the genre of the graphic novel: panel, tier, gutter, etc. Help your students learn to use the correct terminology when referring to the different features on any given page. (1 page)

• Discussion Questions: Eighteen of higher-order discussion questions guaranteed to inspire profoundly thoughtful class discussions! This unit features double-sided handouts containing 8-10 questions for each of the novel's 9 sections. The discussion questions are the beating heart of these lesson plans! They challenge students to build interpretive arguments that require the support of carefully selected textual evidence — leading to keen interpretive insights! The questions could be used to focus students’ thinking prior to beginning a discussion, to foster in-class quick writes, or to assign written reflections for homework. Guaranteed to elicit student engagement and foster profound discussions! (18 pages)

• Quick Writes: A "quick write" can be used at any time in a class to get students to pause and reflect on the text in writing. Introduce a quick write before you begin a discussion to allow your more reticent students to collect their thoughts. Or roll one out toward the end of a discussion to let students capture and refine their best ideas. (9 pages)

• Image Analysis Worksheet: A two-page worksheet inviting students to analyze 10 visually complex panels from Persepolis. Students will reflect on how Satrapi builds meaning by drawing on a distinctive palette of literary and artistic techniques: symbolic imagery, dramatic irony, high contrast, patterning, juxtaposition, etc. Students are challenged to analyze how the visual aesthetics of different panels contributes to the book's meaning. Answer key included. (4 pages)

• Quotation Race Worksheets: Students work in pairs to identify the speakers of 25 quotations. One worksheet features 15 memorable quotes from the main characters. A second worksheet features 10 challenging quotations from secondary characters. Introduce this fun activity when you need to mix things up. Answer key included. (4 pages)

• Vocabulary Lists: Lists of 10-12 vocabulary words accompany each nightly reading assignment. Every word comes with a definition as well as a sample sentence with the word as used in Persepolis. A total of over 100 words. (9 pages)

• Vocabulary & Reading Quizzes: Daily quizzes with 10 questions to follow each nightly reading assignment. Each quiz contains 7 questions on vocabulary words plus another 3 questions on reading comprehension. Grading these quizzes is simple and quick — an easy way to log 9 grades into your gradebook. Answer key included. (18 pages)

• Analytical Writing Assignment: Challenge students to take their interpretations one step further by writing an analytical paper on Satrapi's wonderfully complex graphic novel. Let students choose from one of five profoundly thought-provoking sample topics — or invite them to develop a topic of their own. Rubric included. (3 pages)

• Writing Schedule & Rubric: A writing schedule with instructions for completing each stage of the writing process. Rubric included. (2 pages)

Yes, this complete teaching unit covers both volumes of Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis. In fact, the pagination in this unit corresponds to the page numbers in Satrapi's compilation, The Complete Persepolis. While I would highly recommend that you teach both volumes of Persepolis — as the two volumes complement one another in important ways — you can still utilize this top-quality unit if you're only teaching one volume of Persepolis.

This resource packet will come to you in two separate formats: Word docs *and* PDFs. Because the Word docs are fully editable, you'll be able to customize the materials to suit your teaching style and/or your students' skill levels — year after year! If you don't have Microsoft Word, you'll still be able to access all of the materials in PDFs, which are easy to navigate and quick to print!

My store is called “Rigorous Resources” because the units feature rigorous content guaranteed to yield an abundance of interpretive insights. The preview for this resources provides direct access to over 30 pages of materials. Click on the green “PREVIEW” button to see what you’ll get. . . .

Thank you for choosing Rigorous Resources!

Happy teaching!

Adam Jernigan, Ph.D.

adamjernigan@gmail.com

P.S. Don't forget to click “follow” for email updates on new products by Rigorous Resources. New products will be 50% OFF for the first 24 hours!

Rigorous Resources is your one-stop shop for top-quality resources on highly engaging texts. Every unit was designed by a Ph.D. in English with over 20 years of teaching experience. Feel free to check out these comprehensive units on literary texts by diverse authors:

Complete Unit on William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet

Complete Unit on William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar

Complete Unit on J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye

Complete Unit on Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner

Complete Unit on F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby

Complete Unit on Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God

Complete Unit on Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun

Complete Unit on Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye

Complete Unit on Art Spiegelman's The Complete Maus

Complete Unit on Gene Luen Yang's American Born Chinese

This resource features a bundle of exciting presentations, lesson plans, and materials to supplement your unit on dystopian literature. Lessons have all been classroom-tested and allow for differentiation while encouraging optimal student engagement with any dystopian short story or novel. In this bundle, you will not find tedious lists of comprehension questions and vocabulary words; instead you will find material that will bring dystopias to life (well not literally!) in your classroom.

Included in this bundle:

⭐ Introduction to Dystopia Powerpoint: This resource features an engaging, interactive, editable PowerPoint Presentation for introducing or reviewing Dystopian Fiction to your students! PowerPoint Presentation runs through an entire lesson from warm-up to explanation, application, and summarizer. Also included are 2 pages of "guided notes" so that you may differentiate your lecture for all levels of students. Since utopias and dystopias are intrinsically motivating for students, this lesson is always a fun one and gets students excited about the upcoming unit on whatever dystopian novel or short story you'll be reading!

⭐ Escape from Dystopia ESCAPE ROOM: This meticulously-crafted resource features all of the materials you need to conduct a full-length Dystopia Escape Room. Planning an escape room may seem like quite the daunting task, but this product provides everything from the basics and set-up instructions to signs and answer keys so that yours runs smoothly from start to finish. The activity involves movement, energy, creative thinking and most of all, collaboration. Your students will be having so much fun that they won’t even realize the higher order thinking skills they are applying in the playing of this game!

⭐ Dystopian Literature Socratic Seminar: This resource features everything you need in order to conduct a structured and formal set of Socratic Seminars in your classroom for any dystopian short story or novel. It is the PERFECT addition to any dystopia unit for middle or high school students! Socratic Seminars are high-order ways of assessing whether your students are able to understand and react to your class texts. These seminars rely on the power of inquiry and allow students to take the lead in their learning and discussion. The only problem? They require a great deal of preparation. Fortunately, with this resource, the work has been done for you!

⭐ Dystopia Quote Posters: Make your classroom pop with this set of 25 posters featuring provocative quotes about dystopia. Each 7.5 x 7.5 (square) PDF poster contains a quote either about dystopias or from dystopian literature imposed over a stunning photograph to spruce up your ELA classroom during your dystopian unit. The square format makes for an eye-catching arrangement on your wall or bulletin board and serves as a great conversation starter. I suggest laminating the posters so that you can use them year after year!

Purchasing this bundle saves more than 20% off the cost of the resources for your unit on dystopia.

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UPDATED FOR THE 2024-2025 SCHOOL YEAR: Rigorous! Discussion-based! Informed by the latest cutting-edge scholarship!....

This 200-page EDITABLE curriculum has everything you'll need for profoundly stimulating lessons on Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God! Invite your class to engage in student-driven discussions without compromising on intellectual rigor. The discussion questions, daily reading quizzes, literary terms exercises, vocabulary lists, and analytical writing assignments will challenge your students to dig beneath the surface of the text and generate profound interpretive insights!!

Hold your students accountable for completing the nightly homework by beginning every class with a quick vocabulary and reading quiz. Facilitate dynamic discussions that motivate students to become attached to the thrill generating shared knowledge. Challenge students to explicate textual details using a wide range of interpretive lenses: historicist, psychoanalytic, feminist, etc. Inspire students to arrive at a whole new depth of insight!!

Here are some highlights from the 200-page editable curriculum:

• Discussion Question Handouts: Thirty pages of deeply thought-provoking discussion questions! One 2-page handout featuring 8-10 questions for each of the novel's 9 sections. The discussion questions are the beating heart of these lesson plans. Every discussion question is grounded in concrete textual details and challenges students to arrive at lucid interpretive insights! The questions could be used to focus students’ thinking prior to beginning a discussion, to foster in-class writing such as stop-and-jots, or to assign written reflections for homework. Guaranteed to elicit student engagement and foster profound discussions! (30 pages)

• Discussion Question Answer Key: A sixty-page answer key featuring in-depth answers to almost every discussion question. The answer key has been informed by articles and books by Hurston scholars such as Henry Louis Gates Jr., Mary Helen Washington, Hazel Carby, Carla Kaplan, and others. Of course, there is rarely a single "correct" answer for any question. Rather, the discussions questions are designed to foster lively exchanges and interpretive debates among students. They challenge students to build interpretive arguments that require the support of carefully selected textual evidence. Your students are likely to come up with better answers than mine! (60 pages)

• Vocabulary Lists: Lists of 10 vocabulary words for every nightly reading assignment, complete with definitions and sample sentences with the words as used in Their Eyes Were Watching God. A total of 90 SAT-worthy words. (9 pages)

• Reading & Vocabulary Quizzes: Daily quizzes with 10 questions on the nightly reading homework plus another 10 questions on the vocabulary words. If you choose not to have your students study vocabulary, you can still use the portion of the quiz devoted to reading comprehension. Grading these quizzes is simple and quick. They’re an easy way to log 9 grades into your gradebook. Answer keys included. (36 pages)

• Literary Devices Quizzes (x3): These three quizzes challenges students to identify the literary devices used in sixty quotations from Their Eyes Were Watching God. For example, the quiz on figurative language features thirty quotations that contain the following figures of speech: metaphor, simile, personification, symbolism, apostrophe paradox, and more. The quiz on sound devices features fifteen quotations that contain alliteration, assonance, consonance, and onomatopoeia. This bundle also features a glossary with definitions of the literary devices as well as examples of how each device is used in Hurston's novel — so you can review the devices with students before they tackle the quiz. Answer key included. (8 pages)

• Quotation Race: Students work in pairs to identify the speakers of 25 key quotations from Their Eyes Were Watching God. Introduce this fun activity when you need to mix things up, or to refresh students' memories in preparation for the AP exam. Answer key included. (4 pages)

• Poetry Pairing: Deepen your engagement with the themes in Their Eyes Were Watching God by reading and discussing several poems written by friends of Hurston who were involved in the Harlem Renaissance: Langston Hughes, Claude McKay, and Countee Cullen. This poetry mini-unit Includes two homework packets with a total of 10 poems, discussion questions, answer keys, and poetic device quizzes. (30 pages)

• FRQ3 Practice Essay: Designed for AP Lit teachers, this in-class practice essay will allow students to rehearse the "FRQ3" essay from the AP Literature and Composition Exam. The assignment asks students to write a 40-minute in-class essay in response to one of three recent FRQ3 prompts that featured Their Eyes Were Watching God as one of the recommended works of literary merit. (5 pages)

• Analytical Writing Assignment: Challenge students to take their interpretations one step further by writing an analytical paper on Hurston's wonderfully complex novel. Let students choose from one of five thought-provoking sample topics — or invite them to develop a similar topic of their own. Rubric included. (4 pages)

My store is called “Rigorous Resources” because all of the units feature content-rich lessons guaranteed to boost your students' close-reading and critical-thinking skills. At the same time, these lessons are filled with dozens of historically relevant visual images: paintings and photographs by preeminent African-American artists, portraits of Hurston, and much more. But what really distinguishes this unit is how the discussion questions, literary device quizzes, and writing assignments are designed to help student arrive at an abundance of interpretive insights!

The entire resource packet will come to you in two separate formats: Word docs *and* PDFs. Because the Word docs are fully editable, you'll be able to customize every page to suit your teaching style and/or the needs of particular students — year after year! If you don't have Microsoft Word, you'll still be able to access the PDF files, which are easy to navigate and quick to print!

Thank you for choosing “Rigorous Resources”!!

Happy teaching!

Adam Jernigan, Ph.D.

adamjernigan@gmail.com

P.S. Don't forget to click “follow” for email updates on new products by Rigorous Resources. New products will be 50% OFF for the first 24 hours!

Rigorous Resources is your one-stop shop for resources on American literature. Feel free to check out these complete units on canonical texts by diverse American authors:

Complete Unit on Tommy Orange's There There

Complete Unit on Arthur Miller's The Crucible

Complete Unit on Frederick Douglass's Narrative

Complete Unit on F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby

Complete Unit on Nella Larsen's Passing

Complete Unit on Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun

Complete Unit on Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye

Complete Unit on Gene Luen Yang's American Born Chinese

This resource features a bundle of all of our lesson plans, materials, and activities for Edgar Allan Poe's chilling tale of revenge, The Cask of Amontillado. Each product is thoughtfully crafted and allows students to think outside the box by delving deeply into the story's themes, characters, vocabulary, and plot development. Lessons have all been classroom-tested and allow for differentiation while encouraging optimal student engagement. This activity bundle provides a week's worth of material to bring the story to life!

Included in this Bundle:

• The Cask of Amontillado Literature Guide: This 25-page literature guide features a Common-Core aligned mini-unit for the story. It provides basis for comprehension, vocabulary acquisition, and reader response for The Cask of Amontillado and encourages students to think critically about Poe's use of irony, foreshadowing, literary elements, and symbolism. A full answer key is provided along with one bonus student-tested lesson plan. The wide range of activities in this guide will keep your students engaged and help them to gain a deep understanding of and appreciation for one of the most horrifying tales in American literature.

• The Cask of Amontillado ESCAPE ROOM: This meticulously-crafted resource features all of the materials you need to conduct a full-length Escape Room for The Cask of Amontillado. Planning an escape room may seem like quite the daunting task (and it is!), but this product provides everything from the basics and set-up instructions to signs and answer keys so that yours runs smoothly from start to finish. The activity involves movement, energy, creative thinking and most of all, collaboration. Because this is a skills-based escape room, it is the perfect way to review the story for the final quiz or test. Your students will be having so much fun that they won’t even realize the higher order thinking skills they are applying in the playing of this game!

• The Cask of Amontillado Socratic Seminar: This resource features lesson plans and materials to conduct a formal set of Socratic Seminars for Edgar Allan Poe's chilling tale of insult and revenge. Socratic Seminars (or "Fish Bowl" Conversations as referred to in this resource) are higher order ways of assessing whether your students are able to understand and react to your class texts. These seminars rely on the power of inquiry and allow students to take the lead in their learning and discussion. The only problem? They require a great deal of preparation. Fortunately, this student-tested resource includes everything you need to conduct a structured and formal set of Socratic Seminars in your classroom surrounding the short story, The Cask of Amontillado by Edgar Allan Poe... and no preparation is required by you at all.

• The Cask of Amontillado Family Crest Activity (also included within Literature Guide): This product features a thoughtful and engaging supplemental activity for the story. In this mini-project that can be done in class or as homework, students will closely examine Montresor's family crest (or is it!?), then create their own symbolic family crest using meticulous instructions and the template provided. They will also need to thoroughly explain what they have included on their family crest. A detailed lesson plan is included for use on the following day that allows students to showcase and explain their family crests using an imaginative teaching method. This is a great activity to get your students to think symbolically and to reflect upon the ideals of their own families. Your students will thank you for offering such a thoughtful activity to go along with their reading of The Cask of Amontillado!

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This 60-page EDITABLE unit has everything you'll need for profoundly stimulating lessons on Octavia Butler's Kindred!! Invite your class to engage in student-driven discussions without compromising on intellectual rigor. The daily quizzes, discussion prompts, and writing assignment will challenge your students to dig beneath the surface of the text and unlock profound interpretive insights!

Hold your students accountable for completing the nightly homework by beginning every class with a quick vocabulary and reading quiz. Challenge students to explicate textual details using a wide range of interpretive lenses: formalist, historicist, feminist, psychoanalytic, etc. Facilitate dynamic discussions that inspire students to arrive at a whole new depth of insight!!

Everything you’ll need to teach the novel is included in this bundle:

• Unit & Pacing Guide: Suggestions for how to pace the reading homework and organize the classwork for Octavia Butler's Kindred. (2 pages)

• Author Introduction: A brief summary of the life of Octavia Butler and the research that she conducted before writing Kindred. (1 page)

• Discussion Questions: Sixteen pages of higher-order discussion questions guaranteed to inspire profoundly thoughtful class discussions! This unit features double-sided handouts with 8-10 questions for each of the novel's 8 sections. The discussion questions are the beating heart of this curriculum. They challenge students to build interpretive arguments that require the support of carefully selected textual evidence — leading to keen interpretive insights! Guaranteed to build skills in close reading and critical reasoning! (16 pages)

• Quick Writes: A "quick write" can be used at any time in a class to get students to pause and reflect on the text in writing. Introduce a quick write before you begin a discussion to allow your more reticent students to collect their thoughts. Or roll one out toward the end of a discussion to let students capture and refine their best ideas. (8 pages)

• Vocabulary Lists: Lists of 10-12 vocabulary words to accompany every nightly reading assignment. Every vocabulary word comes with a definition and a sample sentence with the word as used in Kindred. A total of over 100 words. (8 pages)

• Vocabulary & Reading Quizzes: Build students’ vocabularies while holding them accountable for the nightly reading homework. Each quiz contains 7 questions on vocabulary words plus another 3 questions on reading comprehension. Grading these quizzes is simple and quick. They’re an easy way to log up to 8 grades in your gradebook. Answer key provided. (16 pages)

• Writing Assignment: Challenge students to take their interpretations one step further by writing an analytical paper on Butler’s wonderfully complex novel. Let students choose amongst 5 profoundly thought-provoking sample topics — or invite them to develop an original topic of their own. (2 pages)

• Poetry Pairings: Seven thematically relevant poems by two exceptionally talented black women poets, Lucille Clifton and Natasha Trethewey. (7 pages)

This unit is filled with dozens of visual images that shed light on important scenes from Octavia Butler's novel: documentary photographs of antebellum plantations, excerpts from Butler's handwritten drafts and journals, paintings of biblical figures referenced in the novel, etc. But what really distinguishes this curriculum is how the discussion starters and writing prompts deepen students' thinking and help them arrive at profound interpretive insights!

This resource packet will come to you in two separate formats: Word docs *and* PDFs. Because the Word docs are fully editable, you'll be able to customize the materials to suit your teaching style and/or the skill levels of your students — year after year! If you don't have Microsoft Word, you'll still be able to access the entire unit as PDFs, which are easy to navigate and quick to print!

Because I believe that teachers should be able to see what they'd be getting before they purchase, the preview for this resource provides direct access to dozens of actual pages from the unit. Click on the green “preview” button to see exactly what you’ll get....

Thank you for choosing “Rigorous Resources”!!

Happy teaching!

Adam Jernigan, Ph.D.

adamjernigan@gmail.com

P.S. Don't forget to click “follow” for email updates on new products by Rigorous Resources. New products will be 50% OFF for the first 24 hours!

Rigorous Resources is your one-stop shop for resources on American literature. Feel free to check out these complete units on canonical texts by diverse American authors:

Complete Unit on Tommy Orange's There There

Complete Unit on Arthur Miller's The Crucible

Complete Unit on Frederick Douglass's Narrative

Complete Unit on F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby

Complete Unit on Nella Larsen's Passing

Complete Unit on Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God

Complete Unit on Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun

Complete Unit on Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye

Complete Unit on Gene Luen Yang's American Born Chinese

This resource features a bundle of all of our lesson plans, materials, and activities for Paolo Coelo's inspirational best-selling novel, The Alchemist. Each product is thoughtfully crafted and allows students to think outside the box by delving deeply into the novel's themes, characters, and plot development. Lessons have all been classroom-tested and allow for differentiation while encouraging optimal student engagement. You will not find tedious lists of comprehension questions and vocabulary words in this bundle; instead you will find materials that will bring the novel to life!

Included in this Bundle:

⭐ The Alchemist "Silent Conversation" Quote Pass Activity

This product features a thoughtful and engaging activity for use during the study of The Alchemist. Centering around 5 different provocative passages from the book, this lesson provides your students with a chance to think, reflect, and respond to their peers without ever saying a word. This creative approach is a great way to differentiate instruction among your students and allows even your most quiet students to shine. I am confident that this no-prep lesson will become a must-do activity within your unit on The Alchemist!

⭐ The Alchemist Anticipation Guide & Lesson Plan

This product features an anticipation guide for The Alchemist, and a meticulously-explained lesson plan that is in my opinion, the absolute best way to approach a new novel. Using a non-intimidating method called "Numbered Heads", this activity will get your students thinking, writing, conversing, and reporting about themes you will be encountering during your study of The Alchemist.

⭐ The Alchemist Bell Ringer Journal Prompts

This resource features a set of 25 reader response journal prompts for use during your unit on The Alchemist. Each bell ringer is comprised of a quote from the novel and a thoughtfully crafted question that encourages students to personally connect with his inspirational words. Prompts can be used as bell-ringers (most popular and mean the first 5 minutes of every class for a month are planned for you!), summarizers, stations, full class or small group discussion questions, for homework, task cards, sub plans, as a filler activity… the possibilities are endless!

⭐ The Alchemist ESCAPE ROOM

This meticulously-crafted resource features all of the materials you need to conduct a full-length Escape Room for The Alchemist. Planning an escape room may seem like quite the daunting task, but this product provides everything from the basics and set-up instructions to answer keys so that yours runs smoothly from start to finish. The activity involves movement, energy, creative thinking and most of all, collaboration. All tasks are skills-based so that with this fun lesson, learning is not sacrificed. Your students will be having so much fun that they won’t even realize the higher order thinking skills they are applying in the playing of this game!

⭐ The Alchemist Quote Posters

Make your classroom pop with this set of 20 gorgeous posters featuring quotes from The Alchemist. Each 7.5 x 7.5 (square) poster contains a provocative quote from the novel imposed over a stunning photograph meant to inspire your students and motivate them to follow their dreams. The square format is reminiscent of Instagram and makes for an eye-catching arrangement on your wall or bulletin board. I suggest laminating the posters and using them not just during your Alchemist unit, but all year long!

⭐ The Alchemist Socratic Seminar Materials

This resource features lesson plans and materials to conduct a formal set of Socratic Seminars for The Alchemist. Socratic Seminars (or "Fish Bowl" Conversations as referred to in this resource) are higher order ways of assessing whether your students are able to understand and react to your class texts. These seminars rely on the power of inquiry and allow students to take the lead in their learning and discussion. The only problem? They require a great deal of preparation. Fortunately, this student-tested resource includes everything you need to conduct a structured and formal set of Socratic Seminars in your classroom surrounding The Alchemist... and no preparation is required by you at all.

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This 180-page EDITABLE unit has everything you'll need to deliver profoundly stimulating lessons on Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun!! Invite your class to engage in student-driven discussions without compromising on intellectual rigor. The pre-reading handouts, higher-order discussion questions, daily reading quizzes, and analytical writing assignment will challenge your students to dig beneath the surface of the text and generate profound interpretive insights!!

Hold your students accountable for completing the nightly homework by beginning every class with a quick vocabulary and reading quiz. Facilitate dynamic discussions that motivate students to become attached to the thrill generating shared knowledge. Challenge students to analyze textual details using a wide range of interpretive lenses: historicist, psychoanalytic, feminist, etc. Inspire students to arrive at a whole new depth of insight!!

Because every page in this unit is fully editable, that you'll be able to customize the materials to suit your particular students. Best of all, the detailed answer keys in this teacher-friendly unit will set you up to deliver content-rich lessons ever single day!

Here are some highlights from this editable 180-page curriculum:

• Portrait of the Author: Lorraine Hansberry (Pre-Reading Handout): Like the characters in her play, Lorraine Hansberry grew up on the South Side of Chicago and faced intimidation when her family purchased a house in a predominantly white suburban community. This pre-reading handout will provoke students to make connections between Hansberry's life and central themes in A Raisin in the Sun — without any plot spoilers. Includes a follow-up quiz with answer key. (6 pages)

• Image Analysis Worksheet (Pre-Reading Worksheet): This worksheet challenges students to identify and analyze significant details from a painting in Jacob Lawrence's The Migration Series (1941). What do the details in the painting reveal about the housing conditions that African-American migrants faced when they moved to northern cities like New York and Chicago? Answer key included. (3 pages)

• Discussion Question Handouts: Twenty-five pages of higher-order discussion questions guaranteed to inspire profoundly thoughtful class discussions! The unit includes double-sided handouts with 8-10 questions for each the play's 7 scenes. The discussion questions are the beating heart of these lesson plans. They challenge students to build interpretive arguments that require the support of carefully selected textual evidence — leading to keen interpretive insights! The questions could be used to focus students’ thinking prior to beginning a discussion, to foster in-class writing through quick writes, or to assign written reflections for homework. Guaranteed to elicit student engagement and foster profound discussions! (25 pages)

• Discussion Question Answer Keys: The answer keys to the discussion questions are informed by cutting-edge scholarship by English professors who specialize on topics like American theater and African-American literature: Imani Perry, Steven P. Carter, Margaret B Wilkerson, James Baldwin, bell hooks, and many others. Of course, there is rarely a single "correct" answer for any question; rather, the discussions questions are made up of higher-order questions designed to foster lively exchanges and interpretive debates among students. They challenge students to build interpretive arguments that require the support of carefully selected textual evidence. (45 pages)

• Quick Writes: A "quick write" can be used at any time in a class to get students to pause and reflect on the text in writing. Introduce a quick write before you begin a discussion to allow students to collect their thoughts. Or roll one out toward the end of a discussion to let students capture and refine their best ideas. (7 pages)

• Vocabulary Lists: Lists of 10 vocabulary words for each of the play's seven scenes, complete with definitions and sample sentences with the words as used in A Raisin in the Sun. A total of 70 SAT-worthy words. (7 pages)

• Reading & Vocabulary Quizzes: Daily quizzes with 10 questions on the nightly reading homework plus another 10 questions on the vocabulary words. If you choose not to have your students study vocabulary, you can still use the portion of the quiz devoted to reading comprehension. Grading these quizzes is simple and quick. They’re an easy way to log 7 to 14 grades into your gradebook. Answer keys included. (28 pages)

• Literary Devices Quiz: This quiz challenges students to identify the literary devices used in thirty quotations from A Raisin in the Sun. The literary devices include metaphor, simile, personification, hyperbole, oxymoron, allusion, and more. This bundle also features a glossary with definitions of the literary devices as well as examples of how each device is used in Hansberry's play — so you can review the devices with students before they tackle the worksheet. The worksheet can be used either as a quiz or as a fun refresher. Answer key included. (5 pages)

• Quotation Race: Students work in pairs to identify the speakers of 50 key quotations from A Raisin in the Sun. Introduce this fun activity when you need to mix things up, or to refresh students' memories in preparation for the AP exam. Answer key included. (8 pages)

• Q3 Practice Essay: Designed for teachers of AP Literature, this in-class practice essay will allow students to rehearse the "Q3" essay from the AP Literature and Composition Exam. The assignment asks students to write a 40-minute in-class essay in response to one amongst three recent Q3 prompts that featured A Raisin in the Sun as one of the recommended works of literary merit. (5 pages)

• Analytical Writing Assignment: Challenge students to take their interpretations one step further by writing an analytical paper on Hansberry's play. Let students choose from one of five thought-provoking sample topics — or invite them to develop a similar topic of their own. Rubric included. (4 pages)

My store is called “Rigorous Resources” because every unit features engaging lessons guaranteed to boost your students' close-reading and critical-thinking skills. In addition, the unit is filled with dozens of historically relevant visual images: portraits of Lorraine Hansberry, stills from the original Broadway production, paintings of the Great Migration by Jacob Lawrence, and much more. But what really distinguishes this resource is how the pre-reading handouts, discussion starters, literary device quizzes, and writing assignment are all designed to help student arrive at an abundance of interpretive insights!!

The resource packet will come to you in two separate formats: Word docs *and* PDFs. Because the Word doc is editable, you'll be able to customize the materials to suit your teaching style and/or the needs of particular students — year after year. If you don't have Microsoft Word, you'll still be able to access the PDF version, which is easy to navigate and quick to print!

Thank you for choosing Rigorous Resources.

Happy teaching!

Adam Jernigan, Ph.D.

adamjernigan@gmail.com

P.S. Don't forget to click “follow” for email updates on new products by Rigorous Resources. New products will be 50% OFF for the first 24 hours!

Rigorous Resources is your one-stop shop for resources on American literature. Feel free to check out these complete units on canonical texts by diverse American authors:

Complete Unit on Tommy Orange's There There

Complete Unit on Arthur Miller's The Crucible

Complete Unit on Frederick Douglass's Narrative

Complete Unit on F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby

Complete Unit on Nella Larsen's Passing

Complete Unit on Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God

Complete Unit on Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye

Complete Unit on Gene Luen Yang's American Born Chinese