This lesson should accompany Grace Lin's short story The Difficult Path. This resource includes a 12 page slides presentation with pre-reading questions, 7 vocabulary words from the story, tiered reading questions, and questions focused on one particular standard: Analyze how a modern work of fiction draws on themes, patterns of events, or character types from other stories. The presentation includes an answer key.

This resource also includes student handouts with the same activities. You will see these in the preview. You will get a colored copy along with a b/w printer friendly copy.

This resource should accompany the short story The Beans and Rice Chronicles of Isaiah Dunn by Kelly J. Baptist. The page numbers listed in this resource align with the book Flying Lessons and Other Stories. This resource includes 4 pages of both color and b/w worksheets which include a pre-reading journal question, tiered reading questions, vocabulary, and a focus on supporting analysis with textual evidence. A 10 page presentation accompanies the worksheets and includes an answer key.

This is a sensitive story. One of the tiered reading questions addresses coping strategies in times of grief. This question needs to be approached in an open, honest, non-judgmental way. If this is not the way you operate, skip this resource.

This resource should be use with the short story How to Transform an Everyday, Ordinary Hoop Court into a Place of Higher Learning and You at the Podium by Matt De La Peña. This is the first short story in the book Flying Lessons and Other Stories. This resource includes a presentation with 11 slides which you can display to students. It also includes a colored and b/w version of 4 pages of student worksheets. The first page focuses on point of view, the second on vocabulary, the third on tiered reading response questions, and the fourth on a focus standard- RL.8.3. The presentation contains an answer key.

This resource should accompany the short story Secret Samantha by Tim Federle. This story can be found in the book Flying Lessons and Other Stories.

This resource includes five student worksheets in color and in b/w for printing. There is also a presentation to accompany the worksheets. The presentation and worksheets include a pre-reading journal entry, vocabulary from the story, tiered reading questions, and post-reading questions focused on a standard about determining the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text.

This resource should accompany Meg Medina's short story Sol Painting, Inc. This short story can be found in the book Flying Lessons and Other Stories, which is an amazing compilation of short stories by diverse authors about diverse characters. This resource includes a 12 page presentation and 6 student worksheets. The worksheets and presentation include a pre-reading journal entry, a focus on theme and central idea (which I teach as two separate things), vocabulary using context clues, tiered reading questions, and post-reading questions regarding the story's themes and central idea. The worksheets come in a colored version for posting online and a b/w version for printing.

This resource defines theme as the message, lesson, or moral of the story. Central idea is defined as what the story is all about- a single sentence which unifies all elements of the story.