The Reflective Reader

Do these thesis statements look familiar? - This essay will be about.... - Harper Lee does a great job showing that empathy is important... - Have you ever thought about what it takes to be courageous? How to Write a Literary Analysis Thesis Statement will give your students the framework to help them craft powerful, arguable thesis statements. And it will save you from tearing your hair out after reading "In this paper, I will discuss..." thesis statements! This 2-page handout walks st

When my students write about fiction and nonfiction, I strive to get them to move beyond the boundaries of the book -- what is the author telling us about ourselves and the world around us? This document helps students build paragraphs around that idea. They must first identify an author's stylistic and rhetorical choices and then connect them with the author's overall purpose and meaning. Most writing instruction for paragraphs includes the three major ingredients in a well-constructed body

This 19-page unit plan will help you teach your students how to write in-depth, insightful rhetorical analysis essays. You can use all 19 pages as a packet for your unit on Rhetorical Analysis, or you can choose which handouts make the most sense for your students. This complete unit includes How rhetorical analysis differs from literary/style analysisThe three levels of rhetorical analysis. This will help your students understand how to uncover an author's purpose and how to connect it to the

Even some of our brightest kids will inevitably ask us, “Why do we have to read this? It’s so boring!” These reading prompts aren’t the typical study guides that merely ask students to read and answer a series of questions after looking at a list of vocab words. It’s nice if students can tell us what Scout’s full name is in To Kill a Mockingbird, but is that really what we want them to take away from reading such a powerful book about justice, racism, and the power of empathy? Let’s face it. T

This worksheet (appropriate for 11th/12th grade, honors, and AP Language and AP Literature) asks students to apply Aristotle's definition of tragedy and the idea of a tragic hero to characters in William Shakespeare's Othello. This worksheet is part of the unit lesson plan "Othello Reading Prompts," another FREE resource at Mhari Doyle's Store.

A frequent question we writing teachers get is how to write a paragraph. Most writing instruction for paragraphs includes the three major ingredients in a well-constructed body paragraph: the topic sentence, support, and a concluding sentence. What these guides fail to show kids is what "support" looks like and how to go about crafting it. This guide gives them concrete, clear instruction how to write those supportive sentences. I've also included a sample paragraph based on Of Mice and Men.

Reading prompts help students navigate difficult texts by giving them a purpose for reading, questions that guide them through their reading assignments, and questions after reading to help them synthesize their thinking. This student guide (appropriate for 11th and 12th, honors, and AP Language and Ap Literature) for William Shakespeare's Othello covers all five acts and works in tandem with "Who is the Tragic Hero of Othello" worksheet (another FREE resource at Mhari Doyle's Store).

Reading prompts help students navigate difficult texts by giving them a purpose for reading, questions that guide them through their reading assignments, and questions after reading to help them synthesize their thinking. This student guide (appropriate for 11th and 12th, honors, and AP Language and Ap Literature) for George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four/1984 covers all three parts. Perfect stand-alone lesson with no prep needed!

Even some of our brightest kids will inevitably ask us, “Why do we have to read this? It’s so boring!” That’s where reading prompts come in. These guides aren’t the typical study guides that merely ask students to read and answer a series of questions after looking at a list of vocab words. It’s nice if students can tell us what Scout’s full name is in To Kill a Mockingbird, but is that really what we want them to take away from reading such a powerful book about justice, racism, and the power