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This .zip folder contains over 9 megs of handouts, assignments, quizzes, activities, literary criticism, et al. for George Orwell's 1984. As an added bonus, the file contains the list of great essay ideas for the novel that I'm currently selling separately--it's like getting it for free! Please note that this product, like many of my others, is a compendium of resources, not a road map; there are no explicit directions on how to use the materials--there's just lots of materials for you to use,

Here's an original synthesis-style essay prompt that's perfect for AP Lang & Comp or a college Comp/Rhetoric class (where I use it). Can be used as a formal assessment tool, or as an informal introduction to synthesis thinking and writing--I generally have students do some freewriting with it, and then do a Lincoln-Douglas-style debate to talk it through.

Here are my Great Gatsby files--almost all of them. In this zip containing 50+ documents, you'll find discussion and quiz questions for every chapter, activity plans, paper assignments, literary criticism, even artwork (for the El Greco reference in Chapter 9)! I've got everything you need to produce a deep, meaningful unit for your students. As with all of my unit plans, I do not lay out for you specifically how to teach the unit step-by-step, though in this case a few of the documents do have

Resources--activities, quizzes, essay options, discussion questions, etc.--for Raisin in the Sun. As with all of my unit plans, I do not lay out for you specifically how to teach the unit step-by-step, though in this case a few of the documents do have schedules. Instead, I give you all of my resources--and they are extensive here--and you pick and choose what works for you, in the manner that suits your style and your students best. Having said that, you'll find everything you could possibly n

80+ files, almost 2 megs of material! Inside this zip you'll find quizzes, discussion questions, activities, student-lead discussion assignments, a reader response/literary criticism essay assignment, tons of literary criticism, and weeks--and I mean weeks!--of pre-reading activities to get you ready for this text. As with all of my unit plans, I do not lay out for you specifically how to teach the unit step-by-step, though in this case a few of the documents do have schedules. Instead, I give y

11 pages of parallelism handouts, practice problems, sentence creating, quizzes and tests. There's a nice mix of multiple choice questions and interpretive questions, including a rhetorical analysis quiz that is a great reading strategies activity.

Resources--activities, quizzes, essay options, discussion questions, etc.--for Their Eyes Were Watching God. As with all of my unit plans, I do not lay out for you specifically how to teach the unit step-by-step, though in this case a few of the documents do have schedules. Instead, I give you all of my resources--and they are extensive here--and you pick and choose what works for you, in the manner that suits your style and your students best. Having said that, you'll find everything you could

This zip file contains over two dozen Word files with various resources for teaching Herman Hesse's Siddhartha. Inside you'll find the following: pre-reading activities, reciprocal teaching plans (i.e., student-led discussion), quizzes, assignments, questions for discussion and more! FYI: As a rule, my zip files for teaching a novel do not lay out step-by-step plans how to teach the book--that's up to you. Instead, what I give you is all of my resources to use at your disposition; some of the

If you're teaching argumentation or expository composition, this is a great assignment that will yield complex thinking and writing. I ask my students, in pairs, to investigate a problem in the school or community; they then research it (causes, effects, patterns, etc.) and hypothesize a solution. The documents here follow a process, including producing a research document prior to composing, and features rubrics, pre-writing and editing tasks, etc. A great project for your high school or colleg

Where to begin? There's 174 files in this zip! Everything you need is here. I use a persuasion unit to teaching various rhetorical and stylistic techniques, as well as more research practice, as I think working with nonfiction is often much more helpful to students than literature. In any event, I give you most of my resources--the rest are in other downloads (an editorial assignment and debates--and I'll let you decide how long you want to spend on the issue; you can focus on the basics and ju

To help my college students construct arguable, specific, and representative thesis statements, I use a series of templates to have them work through their ideas. Included in this word document are a template warm-up exercise, which helps students articulate their core position on the essay topic; and two thesis structures, one for position essays, where they would evaluate the worth or meaning of something, and a proposal structure for when they are making recommendations or providing solutions

This document contains dozens of ideas to develop lesson plans: bellringers/sponges, direct instruction techniques, group activity descriptions, closure exercises. Will inspire you during unit/lesson planning and save you lots of time! This is the one document I consistently return to, both for secondary and postsecondary teaching situations.

As part of an American Dream unit with my junior Am lit students, I have my classes investigate their own dreams and pursuits by researching a possible career they'd like to pursue as adults. It's a fun and informative project for them, and it pushes research and synthesis skills, particularly early on in the year when I schedule it. Students write not only narrative work but do a literature review that requires them to look at multiple sources of information to get a sense of things. You'll nee

Julie Otsuka's riveting novel is just starting to make its way into secondary english curriculum. If you're consdering teaching it, I highly recommend it: students are deeply moved by it, and it provides many opportunities to discuss style and rhetorical techniques used by authors to create meaning. There are very few resources available for this novel, so I'm pleased to offer mine, which I think match the complexity of the work appropriately. I should note that, in a rush because I had barely

Resources--activities, quizzes, essay options, discussion questions, etc.--for Frankenstein. As with all of my unit plans, I do not lay out for you specifically how to teach the unit step-by-step, though in this case a few of the documents do have schedules. Instead, I give you all of my resources--and they are extensive here--and you pick and choose what works for you, in the manner that suits your style and your students best. Having said that, you'll find everything you could possibly need h

Resources--activities, quizzes, essay options, discussion questions, etc.--The Great Gatsby As with all of my unit plans, I do not lay out for you specifically how to teach the unit step-by-step, though in this case a few of the documents do have schedules. Instead, I give you all of my resources--and they are extensive here--and you pick and choose what works for you, in the manner that suits your style and your students best. Having said that, you'll find everything you could possibly need he

Included in this doc are 7 fantastic prompts for use with 1984--try them out as essays, in-class quickwrites, summative assessments, etc. Six are literary analysis-oriented; the other is a great exercise in reader response.

I spend about 3-5 days on Dickinson, much to my students' chagrin. But one of the ways we make it interesting is by dropping the veil, so to speak, and trying several different approaches to 'seeing' her, including formalist methods, gender analysis, new historical, etc. There's several really good thinking and writing assignments included, and I always get great results from the parody project.

Save yourself the time and trouble of developing a participation assessment device with this handy tool! I usually give the students a copy so they know what I'm looking for; when I factor in the grade, I just circle the criteria and give them back a copy of this rubric.

Quizzes, assignments, activities and essay response options to Dr. King's famous argument. A great teaching resource for showing argumentation or how to write persuasively!