The LitComp Lab

Help your students grow their writing from elementary "chunks" to secondary & postsecondary heights! This ready-to-teach overview of how to improve academic tone in scholarly writing includes a review of tone, the pros and cons of signposting language in essays, "cheat codes" to level up boring phrases, and examples of common grammar errors and how to avoid them. With a "teacher script" included on each slide to provide detailed context, this lesson is prep-free and ready to rock.

A great resource for a virtual or flipped classroom! This PowerPoint presentation is a short but interesting way to grab your students' interest while giving them some background knowledge of theatre during the Elizabethan era. This presentation is narrated so that students don't have to simply read all of the information - great for auditory learners! Very flexible, this can be used to introduce any Shakespeare unit and is not tied to any specific play. This presentation could also be used to t

This short PowerPoint presentation addresses three of the main topics in Henrik Ibsen's play "A Doll's House." There are many different possible themes that relate to each topic, along with meaningful relevant quotes from the play. This is a great short lesson that can prepare students for any type of theme analysis activities.

"Describe an event in which you were judged unfairly. What did you learn from this experience?" This is the prompt that anchors this detailed lesson about how to piece together a narrative essay. Appropriate for both middle and high schools, this PowerPoint presentation walks students through plot structure, dialogue formatting, imagery, transitions, and point-of-view. It also encourages students to center their narrative responses around something constructive: a lesson they learned from an unp

Help your students dig into the nuts and bolts of argumentative or persuasive writing! This in-depth, ready-to-teach lesson unpacks the pieces of a successful argument: a strong claim, organizational structure, credible support, and citing sources. With a "teacher script" included on each slide to provide detailed context, this lesson is prep-free and ready to rock! The essay prompt unpacked in this lesson is suitable for high school students as well as post-secondary learners: "At what age is

This is a great mini-lesson for your students for when they ask, "But when am I EVER going to use this?!" A short but mighty PowerPoint presentation, it goes over the connection between professional emails and the persuasive essay format. This lesson also includes a special guest star appearance from Luke Skywalker, whose polite and persuasive message to Jabba the Hutt is a perfect example of how persuasive emails or messages of inquiry should be organized! Lecture notes are included on each sli

A great ready-to-teach resource for Poetry Month! This short PowerPoint presentation includes some of the history of haiku as well as the cultural context of the form. There are lecture notes on each slide that you can use as a "script" with which to teach this lesson. On the last slide, students are invited to try writing their own haiku poetry. This lesson is self-contained and should be able to fit into a single class period. I encourage you to take your students outside after this presentati

This is almost a full lesson plan in itself! This argumentative essay project includes clear instructions, a detailed rubric, and a selection of interesting claims that the students may choose to either support or deny when writing their piece.

A great lesson for a virtual or flipped classroom! Aimed at a high school ELA class of mixed abilities, this lesson offers three different tiered activities for learners who are struggling, on-level, and advanced to dig deeper into Shakespeare's famous (infamous?) Sonnet 130. It is written to utilize an online Discussion Post forum (like those available in Blackboard or Canvas) but these can easily be translated into either small-group discussions within a live classroom or individual journal-ty

If you're as sick of grading essays as I am, try assigning your students a R.A.F.T writing piece! Each student can choose a different Role, Audience, Format, and Topic, which makes for some truly dynamic writing! This is a great activity to help your students break out of the five-paragraph mold and get into the meat of Hamlet's story. While the options in this activity are more creative than is typical, the rigor is still there and analysis is still necessary for a successful piece of writing.

Fun and engaging! This is a great tool to help your students recognize the elements of the Epic Hero Cycle in both literary canon and in modern media. While reading Homer's "Odyssey," the students can watch the initial "Star Wars" film ("Episode IV: A New Hope") in order to see how the pieces of the Epic Hero Cycle can be used in vastly different ways while still supporting the archetypal journey.

April is Poetry Month! Host a Poetry Gallery Walk in your classroom! These poems range from ancient to modern and include a wide range of cultures and peoples! This PowerPoint presentation is ready to print (for some reason the graphics look bizarre in the thumbnails - don't worry, they're perfectly readable when printed). Post these around your classroom and invite your students to wander and explore the many different styles and subjects represented. This can be an activity on its own, or you