EffortlessELA

This standards-based product includes historical context for the Benjamin West painting depicting the death of a British General in the French and Indian War, a Renaissance painting that inspired West's depiction, and a poem about the general by Thomas Paine. There are nine multiple choice, text-dependent analysis questions. Some questions refer to a single text and some questions require thinking across texts. There is one short writing prompt asking students to compare and contrast the artist'

This is an 6 question, standards-based, multiple choice quiz on the Nadine Gordimer short story/ fairy tale "Once Upon a Time" (text not included).

This product contains 10 standards-based, text dependent multiple choice questions on the Roald Dahl short story "Lamb to the Slaughter" that focus on word choice, how suspense is built, and how irony is used.

This standards-based product contains the Guy de Maupassant short story "The Necklace" and the fairy tale "Cinderella." Students will practice analysis through 10 text-dependent multiple choice questions focused on central idea, characterization, and plot development in "The Necklace." Students will practice close reading and annotation in order to complete a short, written response explaining how characterization and theme operate together to create mearning in "The Necklace." Students will

This standards-based product synthesizes the Bruegel painting (Landscape with the fall of Icarus) with the W.H. Auden poem (Musee du Beaux Arts) and lyrics and video to the Pink Floyd song "Learning to Fly" (song lyrics and video not included due to copyright concerns, but placeholders are built into the lesson to indicate where their insertion or presentation are appropriate. This can be easily turned into a google doc with hyperlinks for a digital lesson). There are 8 multiple choice, standard

This standards-based product includes the David Sedaris personal essay/short story "Me Talk Pretty One Day" and the Julia Alvarez personal essay/short story "My English." 6 multiple choice questions pertain to "Me Talk Pretty One Day" and 8 multiple choice questions pertain to "My English." These questions primarily focus on author's purpose/POV and the author's experiences learning new languages in different cultures. A writing prompt and planning sheet guide students through writing to synthe

This standards-based product contains 10 multiple choice questions. Five questions pertain to the autobiographical short story "Salvation" by Langston Hughes, four relate to chapter one of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and one covers both texts. A chart (sample responses included) asks readers to document details related to plot, characterization, theme, figurative language, and the use of diction. An extended writing prompt (rubric included) asks writers to use the ideas gathered in thi

This is five question, multiple-choice, standards based assessment on the personal essay "Superman and Me" by Alexie Sherman. Questions are text dependent and require close reading in order to select answers. If you find this useful, go to my store and check out the following lessons for more multiple choice practice on the same standards: ELA Test Prep (Author's purpose): Rushdie "Out of Kansas" (Wizard of Oz) ELA Test Prep (Characterization): Julia Alvarez "My English" Short Story.

This standards-based product contains an image of Andy Warhol's "Marilyn Diptych," a 4 paragraph excerpt from Camille Paglia's art criticism essay "Sun and Rain: Andy Warhol, Marilyn Diptych," and lyrics to Elton John's "Candle in the Wind." 6 multiple choice questions help students think through standard CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.9-10.7 (Analyze the representation of a subject or a key scene in two different artistic mediums, including what is emphasized or absent in each treatment (e.g., Auden's "M

This standards-based product contains a two-column, Cornell notes style presentation of the Ernest Hemingway story "A Very Short Story" along with close reading prompts focused on characterization and making inferences. The prompts reference bolded portions of the story in order to focus student reading on specific words and phrases for analysis. This exercise demonstrates how much meaning can be derived from the seemingly smallest details using Hemingway's "iceberg theory" to illustrate that mo

This standards-based product synthesizes the George Orwell (1984, Animal Farm) personal essay/short story "Shooting an Elephant" (footnoted text included) with a summary of "The Legend of St. George" and a painting portraying St. George's confrontation with the dragon. Students are prompted to take notes on what they see in the painting's composition before reading the legend and the personal essay. After reading the texts, students are prompted to create a venn diagram on the similarities and d

This standards based product previews "Indian Camp" with a one page summary on how the 19th and early 20th century brought changes to economics, the medical profession, and ideas about child development. These ideas as well as thoughts about how Early European and American thinkers viewed Native Americans place the short story in a social, historical, and philosophical context that students will use to think about important questions of theme and characterization. Responsed are organized into 6

This standards-based product synthesizes elements of imagery, symbolism, and characterization from the Kate Chopin short story "The Story of an Hour" and the painting "The Awakening Conscience" by William Holman Hunt. You will receive a 9 page document containing a list of standards and resources, a ten-step procedure for implementing the resources, a color copy of "The Awakening Conscience," a link to a video providing historical and social context for the painting, worksheets for note taking

This standards-based product contains 6 multiple choice text dependent questions on an excerpt (provided) of Salman Rushdie's personal essay about his experience viewing The Wizard of Oz as a child living in India.

This standards based product contains a total of 9 multiple choice, text dependent questions. Five questions pertain to an excerpt (provided) of Scott Russell Sander's personal essay "Under the Influence," two questions pertain only to the Theodore Roethke poem (provided) "My Papa's Waltz,' and two questions require synthesis of themes from both texts. The tenth question is a short written response that requires students to use text evidence to discuss a specific aspect of characterization acro

This standards-based products contains a chapter from the Charles Dickens novel Hard Times, lyrics for the Pink Floyd song "Another Brick in the Wall part Two," and a short, mid-century American poem. There are 15 multiple choice, text-dependent questions (8 analyzing Hard times; 4 synthesizing ideas in both Hard Times and Another Brick in the Wall; 3 analyzing the poem). You will need to share the music video (the live action, not the animated version) to make some of the synthesis questions po

This product contains 8 standards-based, text dependent multiple choice questions on the Hernando Tellez short story "Just Lather, That's All" that focus on how suspense is built.

This product includes 15 questions to guide students through a reading of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "Letter from Birmingham Jail." Questions are embedded throughout the text to indicate where students should stop to reflect on their reading and to determine the purpose of the author's use of rhetoric, allusions, and how/why he frames and defines issues in specific ways. This activity is followed with an excerpt from Dr. King's letter that is juxtaposed with an excerpt from the novel Of Mice and

This product contains short, contextualized excerpts from The Great Gatsby and Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography. An accompanying prompt asks students to think about how theme and characterization are developed in each text and to explain how F. Scott Fitzgerald modeled aspects of his novel on Benjamin Franklin's example. This can be used along with a study of The Great Gatsby or as a stand alone exercise to meet the following standard. See my novel study on The Great Gatsby that includes this

This standards-based product contains a text pairing of an excerpt from the J.D. Salinger novel The Catcher in the Rye and a clip from the AMC TV show Mad Men (The clip is not embedded due to copyright. The teacher may share the link with students or upload the file into a google doc and embed the link. It is available on Youtube and is identified in the lesson). Students will practice synthesis by writing an essay that identifies a central idea shared by the the novel excerpt and the show cli