Close Reading Unit Plans

Transform your classroom into a winter adventure with this Winter Wonderland Vacation PBL! This engaging, print-and-go project-based learning unit is perfect for the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas or any time during the winter months. Students will plan their dream winter vacation while developing critical skills in research, budgeting, creativity, and presentation. With minimal prep for teachers and maximum excitement for students, this resource is a must-have for your seasonal curriculum!

What’s Included:

✅ 8 Comprehensive Lesson Plans – Covering daily tasks with clear pacing and objectives.
✅ Task Rubrics – Detailed rubrics for all 8 tasks, ensuring easy grading and clear student expectations.
✅ Printable PDFs – Research guides, worksheets, and templates to guide every step of the project.
✅ Editable Slideshow Template – Students create a final presentation showcasing their vacation plans.
✅ Total Budget Sheet Template – A fun and practical way for students to manage costs within a $5,000 limit.
✅ Pacing Plan – Simplified day-by-day instructions for a stress-free implementation.

Skills Covered:

This interdisciplinary project incorporates:
Research Skills: Students investigate destinations, transportation, lodging, activities, and meals.
Math and Budgeting: From calculating costs to managing a $5,000 budget.
Creativity and Design: Crafting a visually appealing slideshow and planning unique trips.
Critical Thinking: Balancing priorities to stay within budget and justifying decisions.
Presentation Skills: Sharing their vacation plans with confidence and clarity.

Why Teachers Love It:

Low Prep: Simply print and go! All materials are ready to use or easily editable.
Flexible Use: Perfect for grades 5+, with extensions for higher or lower ability levels.
Seasonal Fun: Keeps students engaged during the weeks leading up to winter break.
Real-World Learning: Combines academic rigor with practical life skills in a fun, meaningful way.
Time-Saving: Includes ready-to-use rubrics and templates for smooth implementation.

Perfect for:

❄️ The weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas.
❄️ A winter-themed project in January or February.
❄️ Enrichment activities for early finishers or gifted students.
❄️ Cross-curricular lessons with ELA, math, and social studies connections.

Valentine's Day Close Reading text structure description will be the perfect way to enhance your students' reading comprehension, vocabulary, and critical thinking abilities**,** all while celebrating Valentine's Day. This comprehensive close reading packet has everything you need. Pre-reading strategies, vocabulary activities, writing prompts, and differentiated lesson plans were intentionally created to help students create meaningful discussions and enhance their critical thinking. Answer keys and rubrics are provided to help you save time and connect the lessons to the standards.

Celebrate Valentine's Day while practicing their reading skills. Think about all the benefits of using this resource: Learning the History of Valentine's Day and enhancing and drilling your students' reading skills while responding to reading.

Included in this NO Prep Chinese Lunar Year Packet:

• Test Your Knowledge and True & False Pre-Assessment 
• 2- Do Now Cards 
• 1- Close Reading Passages and Worksheet Skill: Text Structure Description
• 1- Writing Worksheets with 3 prompts (Narrative, Informational, & Persuasive)
• 8- Vocabulary Cards and Match It Activity 
• Secret Code for early finishers
• Lesson Plans for Reading
• Rubrics
• Answer Keys

Suggestions for Use:

• Sub plans
• Fun assessment
• Whole class or group activities
• Thematic connections
• Morning work

Don't delay – unlock the potential of your classroom with our No Prep Reading, Writing, and Vocabulary packet today!

You can find other helpful activities :
⭐ Muslim Heritage Month

⭐ Winter Close Reading Packet

⭐ November Holidays ELA Packet

⭐ Self-Checking Google Sheet Bundle 3rd-5th Grade

⭐ The Girl & The Bicycle Read Aloud Unit Lesson Plans, Slides & Activities

⭐ Valentine's Day Writing Activity Digital & Printable

⭐ Valentine's Day Math Activities Digital & Printable

⭐ Behavior Management | The Diamond Trail Challenge

⭐ Take photos of your student's work, and I will feature them and share your account on my Instagram

⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏

Thank you so much for your support and honest feedback!

Click Here to be the first to know about my store-wide sales, freebies, and new products.

Follow me on social media:

Instagram

Facebook Group

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Thank you so much for all you do for students as educators!

M. Tehfe

Literacy Tales

Where Stories Come Alive✎

This is a complete unit for ecosystems for kids! It was designed with the third-grade NGSS in mind. Each component of this comprehensive, interactive unit has been researched and tried! You will save yourself hours and hours of time and students will be actively engaged throughout the unit! Besides step by step suggestions and tips this

Includes the following:

1. Ecosystems

-video suggestions/link for basic introduction

-vocabulary cards for: habitat, ecosystem, and biome

-an introductory sheet for each of the following biomes: arctic

tundra, deserts, oceans, temperate forests, and wetlands

Each sheet has a short description, acolorful photo, and

suggested student friendly site for students to read more about

the habitat

-3 graphic organizers for students to record their findings on

-at least 12 photographs of plants and animals from each habitat

with labels

-headers for each ecosystem that can be cut out and colored for

presentation boards

2. Food Chains/Energy Flow Within Each Ecosystem

-video suggestion/link about food chains

-vocabulary cards for food chain, sun, decomposer, producer,

consumer, herbivore, carnivore, omnivore, predator, and prey

-poster of sample human food chain

-2 graphic organizers for students including explicit models for

teachers to use to guide students

3. Plant and Animal Interactions Within Ecosystems

-suggestion videos/links for animal and plant adaptations

-graphic organizers to guide follow-up video discussions

-vocabulary cards for adaptations, camouflage, hibernation, and

mimicry

-worksheets for students to show what they know by creating

their own plant or animal that can survive in their ecosystem

4. Suggestions for a final STEAM project

5. Engineering and Design Process Recording Sheet

6. Rubric for self-assessment, group-assessment, and teacher

comments

❤️**Click Here to Follow Us!**

YOU MIGHT LIKE THESE TO GO ALONG WITH THIS UNIT:

⭐Plant and Animal Adaptations Bundle

⭐Plant Adaptations Reading Passages

⭐Plant Adaptations Posters

⭐Animal Adaptations Reading Passages

⭐Land Biomes of the United States - Colored

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This 60-page EDITABLE unit has everything you'll need for profoundly stimulating lessons on Octavia Butler's Kindred!! Invite your class to engage in student-driven discussions without compromising on intellectual rigor. The daily quizzes, discussion prompts, and writing assignment will challenge your students to dig beneath the surface of the text and unlock profound interpretive insights!

Hold your students accountable for completing the nightly homework by beginning every class with a quick vocabulary and reading quiz. Challenge students to explicate textual details using a wide range of interpretive lenses: formalist, historicist, feminist, psychoanalytic, etc. Facilitate dynamic discussions that inspire students to arrive at a whole new depth of insight!!

Everything you’ll need to teach the novel is included in this bundle:

• Unit & Pacing Guide: Suggestions for how to pace the reading homework and organize the classwork for Octavia Butler's Kindred. (2 pages)

• Author Introduction: A brief summary of the life of Octavia Butler and the research that she conducted before writing Kindred. (1 page)

• Discussion Questions: Sixteen pages of higher-order discussion questions guaranteed to inspire profoundly thoughtful class discussions! This unit features double-sided handouts with 8-10 questions for each of the novel's 8 sections. The discussion questions are the beating heart of this curriculum. They challenge students to build interpretive arguments that require the support of carefully selected textual evidence — leading to keen interpretive insights! Guaranteed to build skills in close reading and critical reasoning! (16 pages)

• Quick Writes: A "quick write" can be used at any time in a class to get students to pause and reflect on the text in writing. Introduce a quick write before you begin a discussion to allow your more reticent students to collect their thoughts. Or roll one out toward the end of a discussion to let students capture and refine their best ideas. (8 pages)

• Vocabulary Lists: Lists of 10-12 vocabulary words to accompany every nightly reading assignment. Every vocabulary word comes with a definition and a sample sentence with the word as used in Kindred. A total of over 100 words. (8 pages)

• Vocabulary & Reading Quizzes: Build students’ vocabularies while holding them accountable for the nightly reading homework. Each quiz contains 7 questions on vocabulary words plus another 3 questions on reading comprehension. Grading these quizzes is simple and quick. They’re an easy way to log up to 8 grades in your gradebook. Answer key provided. (16 pages)

• Writing Assignment: Challenge students to take their interpretations one step further by writing an analytical paper on Butler’s wonderfully complex novel. Let students choose amongst 5 profoundly thought-provoking sample topics — or invite them to develop an original topic of their own. (2 pages)

• Poetry Pairings: Seven thematically relevant poems by two exceptionally talented black women poets, Lucille Clifton and Natasha Trethewey. (7 pages)

This unit is filled with dozens of visual images that shed light on important scenes from Octavia Butler's novel: documentary photographs of antebellum plantations, excerpts from Butler's handwritten drafts and journals, paintings of biblical figures referenced in the novel, etc. But what really distinguishes this curriculum is how the discussion starters and writing prompts deepen students' thinking and help them arrive at profound interpretive insights!

This resource packet will come to you in two separate formats: Word docs *and* PDFs. Because the Word docs are fully editable, you'll be able to customize the materials to suit your teaching style and/or the skill levels of your students — year after year! If you don't have Microsoft Word, you'll still be able to access the entire unit as PDFs, which are easy to navigate and quick to print!

Because I believe that teachers should be able to see what they'd be getting before they purchase, the preview for this resource provides direct access to dozens of actual pages from the unit. Click on the green “preview” button to see exactly what you’ll get....

Thank you for choosing “Rigorous Resources”!!

Happy teaching!

Adam Jernigan, Ph.D.

adamjernigan@gmail.com

P.S. Don't forget to click “follow” for email updates on new products by Rigorous Resources. New products will be 50% OFF for the first 24 hours!

Rigorous Resources is your one-stop shop for resources on American literature. Feel free to check out these complete units on canonical texts by diverse American authors:

Complete Unit on Tommy Orange's There There

Complete Unit on Arthur Miller's The Crucible

Complete Unit on Frederick Douglass's Narrative

Complete Unit on F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby

Complete Unit on Nella Larsen's Passing

Complete Unit on Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God

Complete Unit on Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun

Complete Unit on Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye

Complete Unit on Gene Luen Yang's American Born Chinese

• 10 Winter Holiday Narrative Essay Picture Prompts & Planner: Engage students in narrative writing with holiday-themed picture prompts and a structured planner to develop plot, character, and setting in alignment with creative writing standards.
• Christmas Hip Hop Lyrics Analysis: Teach figurative language, rhyme schemes, and tone through an engaging analysis of hip hop lyrics, blending music and ELA standards for Grades 6-8.
• St. Nick: Informational Text Structures: Explore main ideas, text structures, and author’s purpose with this winter-themed set of informational texts designed to strengthen critical reading skills.
• Unraveling Krampus: Text Structures and Critical Analysis: Develop students’ ability to identify text structures and analyze information critically with this high-interest resource focused on the Krampus folklore.
• Informational Text Structure Coloring Sort: Combine creativity and learning as students sort and color-code winter-themed informational texts to practice identifying text structures.
• Winter Wonders: Exploring Text Features Through Snow-Themed Articles: Strengthen comprehension and analysis skills by examining text features in engaging snow-themed articles, perfect for enhancing nonfiction literacy.
• Christmas Winter Holiday Characters from Around the World Research PBL: Dive into global holiday traditions with this project-based learning activity that encourages research, critical thinking, and presentation skills.
• Holiday Figurative Language & Movie Clip Standard-Based Learning Activities: Analyze figurative language through fun, holiday-themed movie clips that align with ELA figurative language standards for middle schoolers.
• Virtual Winter Sports Exploration: Engage students in a digital exploration of winter sports, focusing on informational text comprehension and analysis for Grades 4-6.
• Analyzing Narrative Point of View Winter-Themed: Develop higher-order thinking with winter-themed narrative texts that challenge students to analyze and compare points of view using Bloom’s Taxonomy.
• Winter Vacation PBL: Inspire creativity and practical application with this low-prep, project-based learning activity where stude

The Year of the Snake is the perfect way to enhance your students' reading comprehension skills (Summary and making Connections), Text-Independent Questions, Writing, and vocabulary while celebrating the Chinese New Year.

Note: Updated to cover the Year of the Snake (2025)

This comprehensive close reading packet has everything you need. Pre-reading strategies, vocabulary activities, writing prompts, and differentiated lesson plans were intentionally created to help students create meaningful discussions and enhance their critical thinking. Answer keys and rubrics are provided to help you save time and connect the lessons to the standards.

Celebrate the Year of the Snake while your students practice their reading skills. Think about all the benefits of using this resource: celebrating the Chinese New Year while your students practice, enhance, and drill their reading skills while responding to reading.

Included in this NO Prep Chinese Lunar Year Packet:

• Test Your Knowledge and True & False Pre-Assessment 
• 2- Do Now Cards 
• 1- Close Reading Passages and Worksheet Skill: Summary & Making Connections
• 1- Writing Worksheets with 3 prompts (Narrative, Informational, & Persuasive)
• 8- Vocabulary Cards and Match It Activity 
• Secret Code for early finishers
• Lesson Plans for Reading
• Chinese Calendar & Snake Coloring Pages.
• Rubrics
• Answer Keys

Perfect For:

⭐ Morning Work

⭐ Early Finishers

⭐ Substitute Plans

⭐ Test Prep

⭐Quizzes

⭐Assessments

More Than Worksheets:

This reading passage packet is designed to be:

⭐ Fun and engaging: Captivating activities maintain student interest.

⭐ Comprehensive: A variety of activities ensure a well-rounded learning experience.

⭐ Easy-to-implement: Clear instructions and ready-to-use materials save valuable teacher time.

Unlock the potential of your classroom today!

You can find other helpful activities here:

⭐ May Creative Writing

⭐ April Creative Writing

⭐ The Girl & The Bicycle Read Aloud Unit Lesson Plans, Slides & Activities

⭐ Behavior Management | The Diamond Trail Challenge

⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏

Thank you so much for your support and honest feedback!

Click here to learn about my store-wide sales, freebies, and new products.

Follow me on social media:

Instagram

Facebook Group

Pinterest

Email

Newsletter

Thank you so much for all you do for students as educators!

M. Tehfe

Literacy Tales

NEW IN 2020: Rigorous! Thought-provoking! Discussion-based! This 80-page EDITABLE unit promises to elicit dynamic engagement from all students without compromising on intellectual rigor. Invite your students to engage in student-driven discussions that promise to be profoundly stimulating! The discussion prompts, daily quizzes, short writing prompts, and final paper will challenge your students to dig beneath the surface of the text and generate profound interpretive insights!

Hold your students accountable for completing the nightly homework by beginning every class with a quick vocabulary and reading quiz. Facilitate dynamic discussions that motivate students to become attached to the thrill generating shared knowledge. Challenge students to explicate textual details using a wide range of interpretive lenses: formalist, historicist, psychoanalytic, feminist, etc. Inspire students to arrive at a whole new depth of insight!!

Everything you’ll need to teach the novel is included in this bundle. Here are a few of the highlights:

• Unit & Pacing Guide: Suggestions for how to approach the complex themes and deceptively simple language in Kincaid's Annie John.

• Discussion Questions: Sixteen pages of deeply thought-provoking discussion questions! One 2-page handout containing 6-10 questions for each of 8 chapters. The discussion questions are the beating heart of this curriculum. Every discussion question is grounded in concrete textual details and challenges students to arrive at lucid interpretive insights! The questions could be used to focus students’ thinking prior to beginning a discussion, to foster in-class writing such as stop-and-jots, or to assign written reflections for homework. Guaranteed to elicit student engagement and foster profound discussions!! (16 pages)

• Vocabulary Lists: Lists of 10-12 vocabulary words for every chapter, complete with definitions and sample sentences with the words as used in Annie John. A total of close to 100 words. (8 pages)

• Vocabulary & Reading Quizzes: Quizzes with 10 questions per chapter. Build students’ vocabularies while holding them accountable for the nightly reading homework. Each quiz contains 7 questions on vocabulary words plus another 3 questions on reading comprehension. Grading these quizzes is simple and quick. They’re an easy way to log 8 grades in your gradebook. Answer key included. (16 pages)

• Narrative Writing Assignment: A narrative writing assignment that could be given after students finish reading Chapter 3. This assignment is inspired by the "autobiographical essay" that Annie shares with her classmates. (1 page)

• Analytical Writing Assignment: Challenge students to find connections between quotations excerpted from different parts of Annie John. Then invite students to use those quotations as the basis for building an interpretive argument that is supported by textual evidence. Builds skills in close reading and analytical writing! Student writing sample included. (3 pages)

• Creative Writing Assignment: Invite students to think about the messages they have received about what it means to be a "man" or a "woman." Then, following the example in Kincaid's short story "Girl," have students write a short story about how they have navigated the normative pressures associated with gender. Student writing sample included. (2 pages)

• Short Story Pairings: Read and discuss two short stories that examine how and why young children are socialized into normative gender roles: Kincaid's "Girl" & Bret Anthony Johnston's "Boy." This bundle includes transcriptions of both stories as well as a page of thought-provoking discussion questions on Kincaid's "Girl." (3 pages)

• Poetry Pairing: Wrap things up with the poem that Jamaica Kincaid says "taught me how to write." This poem by Elizabeth Bishop engages with many of the same coming-of-age themes explored in Kincaid's Annie John. The poetry pairing includes discussion questions, answer keys, and a quiz on poetic devices. (10 pages)

My store is called “Rigorous Resources” because all of the materials prioritize rigorous content over decorative graphics. Yes, these lessons are filled with dozens of captivating images — maps and photographs of Antigua, paintings of historical events alluded to in the novel, portraits of the author — that shed light on various scenes from Kincaid's novel. But what really distinguishes this curriculum is how the discussion starters, close-reading exercises, and writing prompts are all designed to help student arrive at an abundance of interpretive insights!! . .

These materials will come to you in a single 80-page EDITABLE Word document. Feel free to modify the lessons to suit your teaching style and/or the needs of particular students. The previews for my resources provide direct access to over a dozen pages of actual materials. Click on the green “preview” button to see what you’ll get. .

Thank you for choosing “Rigorous Resources”!!

Happy teaching!

Adam Jernigan, Ph.D.

adamjernigan@gmail.com

P.S. Don't forget to click “follow” for email updates on new products by Rigorous Resources. New products will be 50% OFF for the first 24 hours!

Introduce students to Summer & Winter Solstice celebrations while building essential reading comprehension skills. With structured vocabulary activities, lesson plans, & comprehension questions to support critical thinking & ELA test prep in a meaningful, culturally rich way.

This Winter & Summer Solstice Unit includes 4 close-reading passages focused on key traditions, from Winter Solstice to Yalda Night.

From the mysteries of the Winter Solstice to the festivities of Dongzhi and Yalda Night, students will uncover global traditions while mastering reading skills such as sequence, cause and effect, and compare and contrast.

Incorporate this unit to enrich your curriculum with meaningful, solstice-themed reading comprehension lessons that promote deep learning and understanding.

These activities are perfect for close reading, test prep, or any time!

What’s Included?

⭐ Teacher Resources

⭐ Lesson Sequence 1. (Introduction to Background Knowledge and Vocabulary, Essential Question)

⭐ Passage 1: Winter Solstice, Passage

⭐ Passage 2 Dongzhi Festival (Cause and Effect), Passage

⭐ Passage 3: Yalda Night (Sequence),

⭐ Passage 4: Summer Solstice (Compare and Contrast),

⭐ Review, Reflection, and Interactive Activities.

⭐ Teacher Guide

⭐ Lesson Purpose

⭐ Lesson Plans & Standards

⭐ Essential Question

⭐ Vocabulary Cards & Activities

⭐ Writing Activities

⭐ 4 Close Reading Passages Text Dependent, Text Marking, & Open-Ended Questions (Winter Solstice, Dongzhi Festival, YALDA NIGHT, & Summer Solstice)

⭐ Unit Assessment

⭐ Answer Keys

Additional Ways to Use This Resource

⭐ Reading Comprehension Prep: Ready-made for preparing students for reading comprehension exams.

⭐ Test Prep: Focused passages help students practice ELA test skills with structured support.

⭐ Independent Assignments: Perfect for homework, sub plans, or enrichment activities.

⭐ Winter Learning Stations: Engage students in learning centers with culturally rich solstice-themed passages.

You can find other helpful activities :

⭐ Unit 1 Week 5

⭐ Winter Close Reading Packet

⭐ Self-Checking Google Sheet Bundle 3rd-5th Grade

⭐ The Girl & The Bicycle Read Aloud Unit Lesson Plans, Slides & Activities

⭐ Behavior Management | The Diamond Trail Challenge

⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏

Thank you so much for your support and honest feedback!

Click here to learn about my store-wide sales, freebies, and new products.

Follow me on social media:

Instagram

Facebook Group

Pinterest

Email

Newsletter

Thank you so much for all you do for students as educators!

M. Tehfe

Literacy Tales

Where Stories Come Alive✎

This 150-page EDITABLE curriculum has everything you'll need to deliver profoundly stimulating lessons on Nella Larsen's Passing. Invite your class to engage in student-driven discussions without compromising on intellectual rigor. The discussion questions, daily quizzes, literary device exercises, and analytical writing assignment will challenge your students to dig beneath the surface of the text and generate profound interpretive insights!!

Hold your students accountable for completing the nightly homework by beginning every class with a quick vocabulary and reading quiz. Facilitate dynamic discussions that motivate students to become attached to the thrill generating shared knowledge. Challenge students to explicate textual details using a wide range of interpretive lenses: formalist, psychoanalytic, etc. Inspire students to arrive at a whole new depth of insight!!

Here are some highlights from the 150-page editable curriculum:

• Discussion Question Handouts: Twenty pages of deeply thought-provoking discussion questions! One 2-page handout containing 8-10 questions for each of 6 sections of the novel. The discussion questions are the beating heart of these lesson plans. Every discussion question is grounded in concrete textual details and challenges students to arrive at lucid interpretive insights! The questions could be used to focus students’ thinking prior to beginning a discussion, to foster in-class writing such as stop-and-jots, or to assign written reflections for homework. Guaranteed to elicit student engagement and foster profound discussions! (18 pages)

• Discussion Question Answer Keys: The answer keys to the discussion questions are informed by the best academic articles written by scholars who specialize in African-American women writers of the Harlem Renaissance: Deborah McDowell, Cheryl Wall, Bell Hooks, Judith Butler, and others. Of course, there is rarely a single "correct" answer for any question; rather, the discussions questions are made up of higher-order questions designed to foster lively exchanges and interpretive debates among students. They challenge students to build interpretive arguments that require the support of carefully selected textual evidence. (50 pages)

• Quick Writes: A "quick write" can be used at any time in a class to get students to pause and reflect on the text in writing. Introduce a quick write before you begin a discussion to allow students to collect their thoughts. Or roll one out toward the end of a discussion to let students capture and refine their best ideas. (6 pages)

• Vocabulary Lists: Lists of 10 vocabulary words for each of the novel's 6 sections , complete with definitions and sample sentences with the words as used in Passing. A total of 60 SAT-worthy words. (6 pages)

• Reading & Vocabulary Quizzes: Daily quizzes with 10 questions on the nightly reading homework plus another 10 questions on the vocabulary words. If you choose not to have your students study vocabulary, you can still use the portion of the quiz devoted to reading comprehension. Grading these quizzes is simple and quick. They’re an easy way to log 6 to 12 grades into your gradebook. Answer keys included. (24 pages)

• Figurative Language Worksheets (x3): Three worksheets challenge students to identify the type of figurative used in fifty quotations from Passing. The types of figurative language include metaphor, simile, personification, hyperbole, paradox, and oxymoron. This bundle also features a glossary with definitions as well as examples of how each type of figurative language is used in Passing — so you can review them with students before they tackle the worksheets. Each worksheet can be used either as a quiz or as a fun refresher. Answer keys included. (12 pages)

• Quotation Race: Students work in pairs to identify the speakers of 50 key quotations from Passing. Introduce this fun activity when you need to mix things up, or to refresh students' memories in preparation for the AP exam. Answer key included. (6 pages)

• Q3 Practice Essay: Designed for teachers of AP Literature, this in-class practice essay will allow students to rehearse the "Q3" essay from the AP Literature and Composition Exam. The assignment asks students to write a 40-minute in-class essay in response to one amongst three recent Q3 prompts that featured Passing as one of the recommended works of literary merit. (5 pages)

• Analytical Writing Assignment: Challenge students to take their interpretations one step further by writing an analytical paper on Larsen's Passing. Let students choose from one of 5 thought-provoking sample topics — or invite them to develop a similar topic of their own. Rubric included. (4 pages)

The entire resource packet will come to you in two separate formats: Word docs *and* PDFs. Because the Word docs are fully editable, you'll be able to customize the materials to suit your teaching style and/or your students' skill levels — year after year! If you don't have Microsoft Word, you'll still be able to access the entire unit in PDF format, which is easy to navigate and quick to print.

Finally, I believe that teachers should be able to see what they'll be getting before they purchase. So the preview for this resource provides direct access to over 25 pages from the bundle. Click on the green “preview” button to see exactly what you’ll get....

Thank you for choosing “Rigorous Resources”!!

Happy teaching!

Adam Jernigan, Ph.D.

adamjernigan@gmail.com

P.S. The current school year is an especially good time to teach this novel because a cinematic adaptation of Passing was just released on Netflix in 2022. The film is directed by Rebecca Hall and features talented actors like Tessa Thompson and Ruth Negga. If you're considering teaching this thematically powerful and aesthetically beautiful novel, my enthusiastic advice is to do it!

P.P.S. Don't forget to click “follow” for email updates on new products by Rigorous Resources. New products will be 50% OFF for the first 24 hours!

Rigorous Resources is your one-stop shop for resources on American literature. Every unit was designed by a Ph.D. with a research specialization in American literature. Feel free to check out these complete units on canonical texts by diverse American authors:

Complete Unit on Tommy Orange's There There

Complete Unit on Arthur Miller's The Crucible

Complete Unit on Frederick Douglass's Narrative

Complete Unit on F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby

Complete Unit on Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God

Complete Unit on Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun

Complete Unit on Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye

Complete Unit on Gene Luen Yang's American Born Chinese

Close Reading Toolbox! Give your students the tools to analyze, summarize, and comprehend a text. Everything is included to guide you through building a lesson and your routine. Students will learn to summarize, identify the main idea, author's purpose, genre, and key details, define new vocabulary words, and make connections. Step by step, create your lessons and purpose, choose a text and an objective, align the objective with the standards, & list the key points.

✔️PERFECT FOR :

2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, & 6th -grade teachers want to create a routine that will increase with close reading to elevate students' reading skills and growth.

✔️WHAT’S INCLUDED :

❤️ Why Do You Need A Close Reading Toolbox?

❤️ What Is Close Reading?

❤️ What Are You Looking For ( Standards Included).

❤️ Teacher's & Students' Roles

❤️ All About Annotation

❤️ Close Reading Anchor Charts & Bookmarks

❤️ All About Monitoring (Reading Strategies).

❤️ A Roadmap of A Close Reading Lesson

❤️ Close Reading 1st , 2nd & 3rd Read Anchor Chart

❤️ How to Set up your Lesson Plans ( Template Included)

❤️ Teacher's Lesson Schedule

❤️ Teacher's & Students Close Reading Schedules

❤️ Teacher's & Students Checklists

❤️ Student Activities (12 Pages)

NOTE: This pack DOES NOT include passages.

⭐ Muslim Heritage Month

⭐ Winter Close Reading Packet

You can find other helpful activities :

⭐ November Holidays ELA Packet

⭐ Self-Checking Google Sheet Bundle 3rd-5th Grade

⭐ The Girl & The Bicycle Read Aloud Unit Lesson Plans, Slides & Activities

⭐ Behavior Management | The Diamond Trail Challenge

⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏⤏

Thank you so much for your support and wonderful feedback!

Click Here to be the first to know about my store-wide sales, freebies, and new products.

Follow me on social media:

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M. Tehfe

Literacy Tales

Where Stories Come Alive✎

This 135-page EDITABLE unit has everything you'll need for profoundly stimulating lessons on Willa Cather's My Ántonia!! Invite your class to engage in student-driven discussions without compromising on intellectual rigor. The pre-reading handouts, discussion questions, daily quizzes, and analytical writing assignment will challenge your students to dig beneath the surface of the text and generate profound interpretive insights!!

Hold your students accountable for completing the nightly homework by beginning every class with a quick vocabulary and reading quiz. Facilitate dynamic discussions that motivate students to become attached to the thrill generating shared knowledge. Challenge students to explicate textual details using a wide range of interpretive lenses: historicist, psychoanalytic, feminist, etc. Inspire students to arrive at a whole new depth of insight!!

Here are some highlights from the 135-page editable curriculum:

• Portrait of the Author: Willa Cather: This pre-reading handout will provoke students to make connections between Cather's life and central themes in My Ántonia — without spoiling any of the plot details. Includes a follow-up quiz with answer key. (4 pages)

• Discussion Question Handouts: Thirty-five of higher-order discussion questions guaranteed to inspire profoundly thoughtful class discussions! This unit features double-sided handouts with with 8-10 discussion for each of the novel's 12 sections. The discussion questions are the beating heart of these lesson plans. They challenge students to build interpretive arguments that require the support of carefully selected textual evidence — leading to keen interpretive insights! (35 pages)

• Vocabulary Lists: Lists of 10-12 vocabulary words for every section of the novel, complete with definitions and sample sentences with the words as used in My Ántonia. A total of over 120 SAT-worthy words. (12 pages)

• Vocabulary & Reading Quizzes: Quizzes with 10 questions per reading assignment. Build students’ vocabularies while holding them accountable for the nightly reading homework. Each quiz contains 7 questions on vocabulary words plus another 3 questions on reading comprehension. Grading these quizzes is simple and quick. They’re an easy way to log 12 grades into your gradebook. Answer keys included. (24 pages)

• Literary Devices Quiz: This quiz challenges students to identify the literary devices used in fifteen quotations from My Ántonia. The literary devices include metaphor, simile, personification, hyperbole, allusion, onomatopoeia, and more. This bundle also features a glossary with definitions of the literary devices as well as examples of how each device is used in Cather's novel — so you can review the devices with students before they tackle the worksheet. The worksheet can be used either as a quiz or as a fun refresher. Answer key included. (3 pages)

• Quotation Race: Students work in pairs to identify the speakers of 50 key quotations from My Ántonia. Introduce this fun activity when you need to mix things up, or to refresh students' memories in preparation for the AP exam. Answer key included. (6 pages)

• FRQ3 Practice Essay: Designed for AP Lit teachers, this in-class practice essay will allow students to rehearse the "FRQ3" essay from the AP Literature and Composition Exam. The assignment asks students to write a 40-minute in-class essay in response to one amongst three recent Q3 prompts that featured My Antonia as one of the recommended works of literary merit. (5 pages)

• Analytical Writing Assignment: Challenge students to take their interpretations one step further by writing an analytical paper on Willa Cather's wonderfully complex novel. Let students choose from one of eight profoundly thought-provoking sample topics — or invite them to develop a similar topic of their own. Rubric included. (4 pages)

My store is called “Rigorous Resources” because the units feature content-rich lessons guaranteed to boost your students' close-reading and critical-thinking skills. This unit filled with dozens of historically relevant visual images: documentary photographs of dugouts and sod houses from the 1870s and 1880s, portraits of Red Cloud and other historical figures, paintings by the prairie-born painter Harvey Dunn, and much more. But what really distinguishes this unit is how the pre-reading handouts, discussion questions, exercises on literary devices, and writing assignment are all designed to help student arrive at an abundance of interpretive insights!

The entire 135-page unit will come to you in two separate formats: Word Doc *and* PDF. Because the Word doc is fully editable, you'll be able to CUSTOMIZE the materials to suit your teaching style and/or the skill levels of your students — year after year! If you don't have Microsoft Word, you'll still be able to access the entire unit as a PDF — which is easy to navigate and quick to print!

As someone who great up in the midwest, I love teaching Cather's masterpiece about life on the Nebraska prairie. And I also love hearing from teachers who share a passion for great literature. If you have any questions while teaching this novel, please don't hesitate to reach out via email. Wishing you an amazing experience with My Ántonia!

Happy teaching!

Adam Jernigan, Ph.D.

adamjernigan@gmail.com

P.S. Don't forget to click “follow” for email updates on new products by Rigorous Resources. New products will be 50% OFF for the first 24 hours!

Rigorous Resources is your one-stop shop for resources on American literature. Every unit was designed by a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago with a research specialization in American literature. Feel free to check out these complete units on canonical texts by diverse American authors:

Complete Unit on Tommy Orange's There There

Complete Unit on Arthur Miller's The Crucible

Complete Unit on Frederick Douglass's Narrative

Complete Unit on F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby

Complete Unit on Nella Larsen's Passing

Complete Unit on Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God

Complete Unit on J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye

Complete Unit on Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun

Complete Unit on Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye

Complete Unit on Gene Luen Yang's American Born Chinese

This 180-page EDITABLE unit has everything you'll need to deliver profoundly engaging lessons on William Shakespeare’s Hamlet. The colorful workbooks will enable you to capture and hold the attention of modern-day students. The higher-order questions will help you pivot from reading comprehension to interpretive analysis and critical thinking. Deliver top-quality lessons while inspiring students to fall in love with Shakespeare's Hamlet!!

Every page in this teacher-friendly unit is fully editable! So you'll be able to customize the materials to suit the skill levels of your students — year after year! The unit also includes an answer key filled with insights from Shakespeare scholars at universities like Harvard and Cambridge. Your students will be reading like a professor!

Here's what you'll find in this editable 180-page complete unit:

• Introduction to Shakespeare's World: The 30-page introduction includes five handouts covering topics like Shakespeare's biography, the language of Renaissance England, the construction of the Globe Theater, how to recognize iambic pentameter, and more. Every handout is followed by a comprehension check, practice exercise, or quiz. You could spend up to a week with the introductory handouts — or skip them altogether. Answer keys included. (30 pages)

• STUDENT WORKBOOKS on Hamlet: The 50-page workbook features rigorous & highly engaging worksheets on every scene in Hamlet. Each worksheet is divided into sections which invite students to engage with the text in a variety of different ways:

• The Passage Analysis section invite students to analyze one or two key passages from each scene.
• The Evidence Hunt challenges students to answer an interpretive question by finding the best textual evidence to support their answer.
• The Comparing Quotations section invites students to make connections between quotations from different scenes in the play.
• The Discussion Question section features three higher-order questions designed to foster lively discussions and interpretive debates among students.
• The Quick Writes challenge students to compose short arguments that require the support of carefully selected textual evidence — leading to keen interpretive insights!

The worksheets are guaranteed to foster skills in close reading, thoughtful analysis, and lively discussion. They will have your students feeling genuinely excited to study Shakespeare every day! (50 pages)

• Workbook ANSWER KEYS: The 50-page answer key to the workbook provides detailed answers to the passage analysis, evidence hunt, and comparing quotations sections. The answer key is informed by the best books and articles written by leading Shakespeare scholars: Stephen Greenblatt (Harvard), Marjorie Garber (Harvard), Philip Fisher (Harvard), Coppélia Kahn (Brown), Dympna Callaghan (Syracuse), A. C. Bradley (Oxford), Frank Kermode (Cambridge), Michael Neill (Auckland), and many others. (50 pages)

• Figurative Language Quiz: The quiz challenges students to identify 8 types of figurative language — metaphor, simile, metonymy, paradox, oxymoron, personification, apostrophe, and hyperbole — used across 25 quotations from Hamlet. Also included is a glossary with definitions of the types of figurative language as well as examples of how they're used in the early scenes of Shakespeare's play — so you can begin reviewing the types of figurative language with students before they tackle the quiz. Answer key included. (5 pages)

• Analytical Writing Assignment: Challenge students to take their interpretations one step further by writing an analytical paper on Shakespeare's Hamlet. Let students choose from one of 5 thought-provoking sample topics — or invite them to develop a topic of their own. Writing schedule, outline template, and rubric included. (8 pages)

• Pacing Guide: The pacing guide provides suggestions about which scenes to assign for homework to make sure the nightly workload is manageable while each class session is maximally productive. (2 pages)

This unit is hot off the presses! It was created in 2024 and is informed by the most recent academic scholarship on Hamlet. While the colorful worksheets will make it highly engaging for all students, the unit was also designed to have more than enough rigor for Honors, IB, and AP Literature courses. What a great time to revitalize your approach to this complex play!

The entire 180-page unit will come to you in two separate formats: Microsoft Word *and* PDF. Because the Word docs are fully editable, you'll be able to customize them to the skill levels of your students — year after year. If you don't have Microsoft Word, you'll still be able to access the entire unit in PDF format — which is easy to navigate and quick to print.

Rigorous Resources is your one-stop shop for top-quality units on canonical literary texts by diverse authors. Inspire students to arrive at a whole new depth of insight while falling in love with Shakespeare!

Happy teaching!

Adam Jernigan, Ph.D.

adamjernigan@gmail.com

P.S. Remember to “follow” my store to receive email updates on new products by Rigorous Resources. New products will be 50% OFF for the first 24 hours!

Feel free to check out these complete units on Shakespeare's masterpieces:

COMPLETE UNIT with Workbooks on Romeo and Juliet

COMPLETE UNIT with Workbooks on Julius Caesar

COMPLETE UNIT with Workbooks on Macbeth

COMPLETE UNIT with Workbooks on Othello

COMPLETE UNIT with Workbooks on Hamlet

COMPLETE UNIT with Workbooks on Much Ado About Nothing

INTRO TO SHAKESPEARE: Biography, Globe Theater, Language, & Meter

This 175-page EDITABLE curriculum has everything you'll need for profoundly stimulating lessons on Art Spiegelman's The Complete Maus!! Invite your class to engage in student-driven discussions without compromising on intellectual rigor. The pre-reading handouts, discussion questions, vocabulary lists, and analytical writing assignment will challenge your students to dig beneath the surface of the text and generate profound interpretive insights!!

The graphic novel is an aesthetically innovative genre in which meaning is created through the interplay of image and text. How do we read a novel in which two narrative channels — one verbal, the other visual — interact? And how do graphic novels challenge readers to expand the set of interpretive techniques that make up “close reading”? This bundle will help students understand complex questions about literary genres, aesthetic form, social and political history, and the responsibilities that come with representing historical atrocities like the Holocaust.

Here are some highlights from the 175-page curriculum:

• Pre-Reading Activity: Open this unit by reading and discussing Art Spiegelman's early 3-page comic, "Maus" (which was published in an underground comics magazine called Funny Animals in 1972). In addition to the 3-page comic itself, this unit features a double-sided Image Analysis Worksheet in which students encounter questions that will deepen their engagement with Maus. Answer key included. (10 pages)

• Discussion Question Handouts: Thirty-five pages of deeply thought-provoking discussion questions! One double-sided handout containing 8-10 questions for each of the book's 10 sections. The discussion questions are the beating heart of these lesson plans. Every discussion question is grounded in concrete textual details and challenges students to arrive at lucid interpretive insights! The questions could be used to focus students’ thinking prior to beginning a discussion, to foster in-class writing such as stop-and-jots, or to assign written reflections for homework. Guaranteed to elicit student engagement and foster profound discussions! (25 pages)

• Discussion Question Answer Keys: The answer keys to the discussion questions are informed by cutting-edge scholarship by historians and literature professors who specialize on topics like the Holocaust and Spiegelman's Maus. Of course, there is rarely a single "correct" answer for any question; rather, the discussions questions are made up of higher-order questions designed to foster lively exchanges and interpretive debates among students. They challenge students to build interpretive arguments that require the support of carefully selected textual evidence. (50 pages)

• Quick Writes: A "quick write" can be used at any time in a class to get students to pause and reflect on the text in writing. Introduce a quick write before you begin a discussion to allow students to collect their thoughts. Or roll one out toward the end of a discussion to let students capture and refine their best ideas. (10 pages)

• Image Analysis Worksheets: Three double-sided worksheets challenge students to analyze 10 visually complex panels from Maus. Students will reflect on how Spiegelman builds meaning by through the use of aesthetic strategies such as visual parallels, visual puns, symbolism, strategic ambiguity, the interweaving of past and present, etc. Help students figure out what it means to "close read" a graphic novel. Answer keys included. (10 pages)

• Quotation Race Worksheet: Students work in pairs to identify the speakers of 30 key quotations from Maus. Introduce this fun activity when you need to mix things up, or to refresh students' memories in preparation for the AP exam. Answer key included. (4 pages)

• Vocabulary Lists: Lists of 8 vocabulary words for every chapter, complete with definitions and sample sentences with the words as they are used in Maus. A total of 80 words. (10 pages)

• Reading & Vocabulary Quizzes: Daily quizzes with 10 questions on the nightly reading homework plus another 5 questions on the vocabulary words. If you choose not to have your students study vocabulary, you can still use the portion of the quiz devoted to reading comprehension. Grading these quizzes is simple and quick. They’re an easy way to log 10 grades into your gradebook. Answer keys included. (40 pages)

• Analytical Writing Assignment: Challenge students to take their interpretations one step further by writing an analytical paper on Art Spiegelman's complex graphic novel. Let students choose from one of four thought-provoking sample topics — or invite them to develop a similar topic of their own. Writing schedule and rubric included. (4 pages)

The resource packet will come to you in two separate formats: Word docs *and* PDFs. Because the Word doc is editable, you'll be able to customize the materials to suit your teaching style and/or the needs of particular students — year after year. If you don't have Microsoft Word, you'll still be able to access the PDF version, which is easy to navigate and quick to print!

Finally, because I believe that teachers on TeachShare should be able to see what they'd be getting before they make a purchase, the preview for this resource provides access to 50 pages from this 170-page bundle. Click on the green “preview” button to see exactly what you’ll get....

Thank you for choosing “Rigorous Resources”!!

Happy teaching!

Adam Jernigan, Ph.D.

adamjernigan@gmail.com

P.S. Don't forget to click “follow” for email updates on new products by Rigorous Resources. New products will be 50% OFF for the first 24 hours!

This 150-page EDITABLE unit on Arthur Miller's The Crucible promises to elicit dynamic engagement from all students without compromising on intellectual rigor. The daily discussion questions, vocabulary lists, literary devices quiz, and analytical writing assignment will challenge your students to dig beneath the surface of the text and generate profound interpretive insights! This unit was designed to have more than enough rigor for honors, IB, and AP courses!

Hold your students accountable for completing the nightly homework by beginning every class with a quick vocabulary and reading quiz. Challenge students to analyze how Arthur Miller constructs each of the main characters by engaging in short in-class writing exercises focused on pivotal passages. Invite students to explicate textual details using a wide range of interpretive lenses: historicist, psychoanalytic, feminist, etc. Facilitate dynamic discussions that inspire students to arrive at a whole new depth of insight!!

Everything you’ll need to teach Arthur Miller's masterpiece is included in this bundle. The abundance of materials will give you lots of options to play with, and will make the experience of teaching The Crucible not just easy but invigorating!

Here are some highlights from this 150-page editable curriculum:

• Pacing Guide: Suggestions for how to pace the reading homework and organize the classwork for Arthur Miller's The Crucible. (2 pages)

• Pre-Reading Handouts: Two pre-reading handouts provide students with crucial background information about the Salem Witch Trials of 1692 as well as the HUAC Hearings of the 1950s. (4 pages)

• Discussion Question Handouts: Twenty pages of higher-order discussion questions guaranteed to inspire profoundly thoughtful class discussions! This unit features double-sided handouts with 8-10 discussion questions for each section of The Crucible. The discussion questions are the beating heart of these lesson plans. They challenge students to build interpretive arguments that require the support of carefully selected textual evidence — leading to keen interpretive insights! (30 pages)

• Discussion Question ANSWER KEYS: The answer keys to the discussion questions are informed by the best scholarly articles on The Crucible. Of course, there is rarely a single "correct" answer for any question; rather, the discussions questions are made up of higher-order questions designed to foster lively exchanges and interpretive debates among students. They challenge students to build interpretive arguments that require the support of carefully selected textual evidence. (50 pages)

• Vocabulary Lists: Lists of 10 vocabulary words to accompany every nightly reading assignment, complete with a definition and a sample sentence with the word as used in The Crucible. A total of over 80 SAT-caliber words. (8 pages)

• Vocabulary & Reading Quizzes: Daily quizzes with 10 questions on the nightly reading homework plus another 10 questions on the vocabulary words. Even if you choose not to have your students study vocabulary, you can still use the portion of the quiz devoted to reading comprehension. Grading these quizzes is easy and quick! They’re a great way to log 8 to 16 grades into your gradebook. Answer keys included. (32 pages)

• Literary Devices Quiz: This quiz challenges students to identify the types of literary devices — metaphor, simile, metonymy, symbolism, personification, hyperbole, etc. — used in 33 quotations from The Crucible. The curriculum also includes a glossary with definitions of the literary devices as well as examples of how they're used in Miller's play — so you can review the devices with students before they tackle the worksheet. The worksheet can be used either as a quiz or as a fun exercise. Answer key included. (5 pages)

• Quotation Race: Students work in pairs to identify the speakers of 25 quotes. Introduce this fun activity when you need to mix things up — or to review for the AP Exam. Answer key included. (4 pages)

• FRQ3 Practice Essay: Designed for AP Lit teachers, this in-class practice essay will allow students to rehearse the "FRQ3" essay from the AP Literature and Composition Exam. The assignment asks students to choose from among three recent FRQ3 prompts that featured The Crucible as one of the recommended works of literary merit. (5 pages)

• Analytical Writing Assignment: Challenge students to take their interpretations one step further by writing an analytical paper on Miller's wonderfully complex play. Let students choose from one of three profoundly thought-provoking sample topics — or invite them to develop an original topic of their own. Rubric included. (7 pages)

This unit is filled with dozens of visual images that shed light on important scenes from Miller's play: lithographs representing the Salem Witch Trials, transcriptions of suspects being interrogated by John Hathorne, photographs of Arthur Miller testifying before HUAC, etc. But what really distinguishes this unit is how the discussion questions, close-reading exercises, and writing assignment are all designed to deepen students' thinking and help them arrive at profound interpretive insights!

The entire resource packet will come to you in two separate formats: Word docs *and* PDFs. Because the Word docs are editable, you'll be able to customize them to suit your teaching style and/or the needs of particular students — year after year! If you don't have Microsoft Word, you'll still be able to access the entire unit in PDF format — which is easy to navigate and quick to print!

Thank you for choosing “Rigorous Resources”!!

Happy teaching!

Adam Jernigan, Ph.D.

adamjernigan@gmail.com

P.S. Don't forget to click “follow” for email updates on new products by Rigorous Resources. New products will be 50% OFF for the first 24 hours!

Rigorous Resources is your one-stop shop for resources on American literature.

Every unit was designed by a Ph.D. with a research specialization in American literature. Feel free to check out these complete units on canonical texts by diverse American authors:

Complete Unit on Tommy Orange's There There

Complete Unit on Frederick Douglass's Narrative

Complete Unit on F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby

Complete Unit on Nella Larsen's Passing

Complete Unit on Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God

Complete Unit on J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye

Complete Unit on Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun

Complete Unit on Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye

Complete Unit on Gene Luen Yang's American Born Chinese

This 75-page EDITABLE unit has everything you'll need for profoundly stimulating lessons on Marjane Satrapi's The Complete Persepolis. Invite your class to engage in student-driven discussions without compromising on intellectual rigor. The discussion questions, quick writes, daily quizzes, and final writing assignment will challenge your students to dig beneath the surface of the text and generate profound interpretive insights!

The graphic novel is an aesthetically innovative genre in which meaning is created through the interplay of image and text. How do we read a novel in which two narrative channels — one verbal, the other visual — interact? How do graphic novels challenge readers to expand the set of interpretive techniques that make up “close reading”? This bundle will help students understand complex questions about literary genres, aesthetic form, coming-of-age novels, cross-cultural encounters, and the social and political history of Iran!

Hold your students accountable for completing the nightly homework by beginning every class with a quick vocabulary and reading quiz. Facilitate dynamic discussions that motivate students to become attached to the thrill generating shared knowledge. Challenge students to explicate textual details using a wide range of interpretive lenses: formalist, historicist, psychoanalytic, feminist, etc. Inspire students to arrive at a whole new depth of insight!

Everything you’ll need to teach The Complete Persepolis is included in this bundle:

• Unit & Pacing Guide: Suggestions for how to pace the reading homework and organize the classwork for Satrapi's graphic novel. (2 pages)

• Graphic Novel Glossary: A glossary of literary elements that are unique to the genre of the graphic novel: panel, tier, gutter, etc. Help your students learn to use the correct terminology when referring to the different features on any given page. (1 page)

• Discussion Questions: Eighteen of higher-order discussion questions guaranteed to inspire profoundly thoughtful class discussions! This unit features double-sided handouts containing 8-10 questions for each of the novel's 9 sections. The discussion questions are the beating heart of these lesson plans! They challenge students to build interpretive arguments that require the support of carefully selected textual evidence — leading to keen interpretive insights! The questions could be used to focus students’ thinking prior to beginning a discussion, to foster in-class quick writes, or to assign written reflections for homework. Guaranteed to elicit student engagement and foster profound discussions! (18 pages)

• Quick Writes: A "quick write" can be used at any time in a class to get students to pause and reflect on the text in writing. Introduce a quick write before you begin a discussion to allow your more reticent students to collect their thoughts. Or roll one out toward the end of a discussion to let students capture and refine their best ideas. (9 pages)

• Image Analysis Worksheet: A two-page worksheet inviting students to analyze 10 visually complex panels from Persepolis. Students will reflect on how Satrapi builds meaning by drawing on a distinctive palette of literary and artistic techniques: symbolic imagery, dramatic irony, high contrast, patterning, juxtaposition, etc. Students are challenged to analyze how the visual aesthetics of different panels contributes to the book's meaning. Answer key included. (4 pages)

• Quotation Race Worksheets: Students work in pairs to identify the speakers of 25 quotations. One worksheet features 15 memorable quotes from the main characters. A second worksheet features 10 challenging quotations from secondary characters. Introduce this fun activity when you need to mix things up. Answer key included. (4 pages)

• Vocabulary Lists: Lists of 10-12 vocabulary words accompany each nightly reading assignment. Every word comes with a definition as well as a sample sentence with the word as used in Persepolis. A total of over 100 words. (9 pages)

• Vocabulary & Reading Quizzes: Daily quizzes with 10 questions to follow each nightly reading assignment. Each quiz contains 7 questions on vocabulary words plus another 3 questions on reading comprehension. Grading these quizzes is simple and quick — an easy way to log 9 grades into your gradebook. Answer key included. (18 pages)

• Analytical Writing Assignment: Challenge students to take their interpretations one step further by writing an analytical paper on Satrapi's wonderfully complex graphic novel. Let students choose from one of five profoundly thought-provoking sample topics — or invite them to develop a topic of their own. Rubric included. (3 pages)

• Writing Schedule & Rubric: A writing schedule with instructions for completing each stage of the writing process. Rubric included. (2 pages)

Yes, this complete teaching unit covers both volumes of Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis. In fact, the pagination in this unit corresponds to the page numbers in Satrapi's compilation, The Complete Persepolis. While I would highly recommend that you teach both volumes of Persepolis — as the two volumes complement one another in important ways — you can still utilize this top-quality unit if you're only teaching one volume of Persepolis.

This resource packet will come to you in two separate formats: Word docs *and* PDFs. Because the Word docs are fully editable, you'll be able to customize the materials to suit your teaching style and/or your students' skill levels — year after year! If you don't have Microsoft Word, you'll still be able to access all of the materials in PDFs, which are easy to navigate and quick to print!

My store is called “Rigorous Resources” because the units feature rigorous content guaranteed to yield an abundance of interpretive insights. The preview for this resources provides direct access to over 30 pages of materials. Click on the green “PREVIEW” button to see what you’ll get. . . .

Thank you for choosing Rigorous Resources!

Happy teaching!

Adam Jernigan, Ph.D.

adamjernigan@gmail.com

P.S. Don't forget to click “follow” for email updates on new products by Rigorous Resources. New products will be 50% OFF for the first 24 hours!

Rigorous Resources is your one-stop shop for top-quality resources on highly engaging texts. Every unit was designed by a Ph.D. in English with over 20 years of teaching experience. Feel free to check out these comprehensive units on literary texts by diverse authors:

Complete Unit on William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet

Complete Unit on William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar

Complete Unit on J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye

Complete Unit on Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner

Complete Unit on F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby

Complete Unit on Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God

Complete Unit on Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun

Complete Unit on Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye

Complete Unit on Art Spiegelman's The Complete Maus

Complete Unit on Gene Luen Yang's American Born Chinese

UPDATED FOR THE 2024-2025 SCHOOL YEAR: Rigorous! Discussion-based! Informed by the latest cutting-edge scholarship!....

This 200-page EDITABLE curriculum has everything you'll need for profoundly stimulating lessons on Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God! Invite your class to engage in student-driven discussions without compromising on intellectual rigor. The discussion questions, daily reading quizzes, literary terms exercises, vocabulary lists, and analytical writing assignments will challenge your students to dig beneath the surface of the text and generate profound interpretive insights!!

Hold your students accountable for completing the nightly homework by beginning every class with a quick vocabulary and reading quiz. Facilitate dynamic discussions that motivate students to become attached to the thrill generating shared knowledge. Challenge students to explicate textual details using a wide range of interpretive lenses: historicist, psychoanalytic, feminist, etc. Inspire students to arrive at a whole new depth of insight!!

Here are some highlights from the 200-page editable curriculum:

• Discussion Question Handouts: Thirty pages of deeply thought-provoking discussion questions! One 2-page handout featuring 8-10 questions for each of the novel's 9 sections. The discussion questions are the beating heart of these lesson plans. Every discussion question is grounded in concrete textual details and challenges students to arrive at lucid interpretive insights! The questions could be used to focus students’ thinking prior to beginning a discussion, to foster in-class writing such as stop-and-jots, or to assign written reflections for homework. Guaranteed to elicit student engagement and foster profound discussions! (30 pages)

• Discussion Question Answer Key: A sixty-page answer key featuring in-depth answers to almost every discussion question. The answer key has been informed by articles and books by Hurston scholars such as Henry Louis Gates Jr., Mary Helen Washington, Hazel Carby, Carla Kaplan, and others. Of course, there is rarely a single "correct" answer for any question. Rather, the discussions questions are designed to foster lively exchanges and interpretive debates among students. They challenge students to build interpretive arguments that require the support of carefully selected textual evidence. Your students are likely to come up with better answers than mine! (60 pages)

• Vocabulary Lists: Lists of 10 vocabulary words for every nightly reading assignment, complete with definitions and sample sentences with the words as used in Their Eyes Were Watching God. A total of 90 SAT-worthy words. (9 pages)

• Reading & Vocabulary Quizzes: Daily quizzes with 10 questions on the nightly reading homework plus another 10 questions on the vocabulary words. If you choose not to have your students study vocabulary, you can still use the portion of the quiz devoted to reading comprehension. Grading these quizzes is simple and quick. They’re an easy way to log 9 grades into your gradebook. Answer keys included. (36 pages)

• Literary Devices Quizzes (x3): These three quizzes challenges students to identify the literary devices used in sixty quotations from Their Eyes Were Watching God. For example, the quiz on figurative language features thirty quotations that contain the following figures of speech: metaphor, simile, personification, symbolism, apostrophe paradox, and more. The quiz on sound devices features fifteen quotations that contain alliteration, assonance, consonance, and onomatopoeia. This bundle also features a glossary with definitions of the literary devices as well as examples of how each device is used in Hurston's novel — so you can review the devices with students before they tackle the quiz. Answer key included. (8 pages)

• Quotation Race: Students work in pairs to identify the speakers of 25 key quotations from Their Eyes Were Watching God. Introduce this fun activity when you need to mix things up, or to refresh students' memories in preparation for the AP exam. Answer key included. (4 pages)

• Poetry Pairing: Deepen your engagement with the themes in Their Eyes Were Watching God by reading and discussing several poems written by friends of Hurston who were involved in the Harlem Renaissance: Langston Hughes, Claude McKay, and Countee Cullen. This poetry mini-unit Includes two homework packets with a total of 10 poems, discussion questions, answer keys, and poetic device quizzes. (30 pages)

• FRQ3 Practice Essay: Designed for AP Lit teachers, this in-class practice essay will allow students to rehearse the "FRQ3" essay from the AP Literature and Composition Exam. The assignment asks students to write a 40-minute in-class essay in response to one of three recent FRQ3 prompts that featured Their Eyes Were Watching God as one of the recommended works of literary merit. (5 pages)

• Analytical Writing Assignment: Challenge students to take their interpretations one step further by writing an analytical paper on Hurston's wonderfully complex novel. Let students choose from one of five thought-provoking sample topics — or invite them to develop a similar topic of their own. Rubric included. (4 pages)

My store is called “Rigorous Resources” because all of the units feature content-rich lessons guaranteed to boost your students' close-reading and critical-thinking skills. At the same time, these lessons are filled with dozens of historically relevant visual images: paintings and photographs by preeminent African-American artists, portraits of Hurston, and much more. But what really distinguishes this unit is how the discussion questions, literary device quizzes, and writing assignments are designed to help student arrive at an abundance of interpretive insights!

The entire resource packet will come to you in two separate formats: Word docs *and* PDFs. Because the Word docs are fully editable, you'll be able to customize every page to suit your teaching style and/or the needs of particular students — year after year! If you don't have Microsoft Word, you'll still be able to access the PDF files, which are easy to navigate and quick to print!

Thank you for choosing “Rigorous Resources”!!

Happy teaching!

Adam Jernigan, Ph.D.

adamjernigan@gmail.com

P.S. Don't forget to click “follow” for email updates on new products by Rigorous Resources. New products will be 50% OFF for the first 24 hours!

Rigorous Resources is your one-stop shop for resources on American literature. Feel free to check out these complete units on canonical texts by diverse American authors:

Complete Unit on Tommy Orange's There There

Complete Unit on Arthur Miller's The Crucible

Complete Unit on Frederick Douglass's Narrative

Complete Unit on F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby

Complete Unit on Nella Larsen's Passing

Complete Unit on Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun

Complete Unit on Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye

Complete Unit on Gene Luen Yang's American Born Chinese

These student workbooks feature everything you'll need to deliver profoundly engaging lessons on William Shakespeare's Macbeth. With their colorful design and rigorous content, the workbooks are guaranteed to amplify student engagement and ensure that every class session is highly productive. Moreover, every page in these workbooks is fully editable! You'll be able to customize the materials to match the skill levels of your students — year after year. Recover weeks of prep time while amplifying student engagement with these rigorous and colorful literature workbooks!

Best of all, every page of this workbook comes with a detailed answer key! The answer keys are brimming with interpretive insights from Shakespeare scholars who teach at universities like Harvard and Cambridge. You'll have every student reading like a professor!

Here's what you'll find in this editable 100+ page teaching resource:

• Pacing Guide: The pacing guide features brief summaries of every scene in the play. It also provides suggestions about which scenes to assign for homework so that students' nightly workload will be manageable while every class session will be maximally productive. The pacing guide also includes a sample homework posting which teachers can copy and paste into their school's learning management system. (2 pages)

• STUDENT WORKBOOKS on Macbeth: The 50-page workbook features highly engaging worksheets on every scene in Shakespeare's Macbeth. Each worksheet is divided into sections which invite students to engage with the text in a variety of different ways:

• The Passage Analysis section invite students to analyze one or two key passages from each scene.
• The Evidence Hunt challenges students to answer an interpretive question by finding the best textual evidence to support their answer.
• The Comparing Quotations section invites students to make connections between quotations from different scenes in the play.
• The Discussion Question section features three higher-order questions designed to foster lively discussions and interpretive debates among students.
• The Quick Writes challenge students to compose short arguments that require the support of carefully selected textual evidence — leading to keen interpretive insights!

The workbook is guaranteed to foster skills in close reading, thoughtful analysis, and lively discussion. It will have your students feeling genuinely excited to study Shakespeare every day! (50 pages)

• WORKBOOK ANSWER KEY: The 50-page answer key to the workbook provides detailed answers to the passage analysis, evidence hunt, and comparing quotations sections. The answer key is informed by the best books and articles written by leading Shakespeare scholars: Marjorie Garber (Harvard), Stephen Greenblatt (Harvard), Emma Smith (Oxford), Coppélia Kahn (Brown), Catherine Belsey (Cambridge), Susan Snyder (Swarthmore), David Bevington (UChicago), Dympna Callaghan (Syracuse), and many others. (50 pages)

These workbooks and answer keys will come to you in two separate formats: Word Docs *and* PDFs. Because the Word docs are fully editable, you'll be able to customize them to match the skill levels of your students — year after year. If you don't have Microsoft Word, you'll still be able to access PDF versions — which are easy to navigate and quick to print.

Rigorous Resources is your one-stop shop for top-quality resources on William Shakespeare. Wishing you an amazing experience with teaching the "Scottish play." If you have any questions along the way, please don't hesitate to get in touch. I love hearing from fellow teachers who share a passion for great literature! 

Happy teaching!

Adam Jernigan, Ph.D.

adamjernigan@gmail.com

P.S. Remember to “follow” my store to receive email updates on new products by Rigorous Resources. New products will be 50% OFF for the first 24 hours!

Feel free to check out these complete units on Shakespeare's masterpieces:

COMPLETE UNIT with Workbooks on Romeo and Juliet

COMPLETE UNIT with Workbooks on Julius Caesar

COMPLETE UNIT with Workbooks on Macbeth

COMPLETE UNIT with Workbooks on Othello

COMPLETE UNIT with Workbooks on Hamlet

COMPLETE UNIT with Workbooks on Much Ado About Nothing

INTRO TO SHAKESPEARE: Biography, Globe Theater, Language, & Meter

These student workbooks feature everything you'll need to deliver profoundly engaging lessons on William Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing. These workbooks, with their colorful design and rigorous content, are guaranteed to have your students falling in love with Shakespeare's tragic tale of star-crossed lovers!

Every page of these teacher-friendly workbooks is fully editable. So you'll be able to customize the materials to match the skill levels of your students — year after year. Recover weeks of prep time while amplifying student engagement with these rigorous and colorful literature workbooks!

Best of all, every page of this workbook comes with a detailed and insightful answer key! The answer keys are brimming with interpretative expertise from leading Shakespeare scholars who teach at universities like Harvard, Yale, and Oxford. You'll have every student reading like a professor!

Here's what you'll find in this editable 100+ page teaching resource:

• Pacing Guide: The pacing guide features brief summaries of every scene in the play. It also provides suggestions about which scenes to assign for homework so that students' nightly workload will be manageable while every class session will be maximally productive. The pacing guide also includes a sample homework posting which teachers can copy and paste into their school's learning management system. (3 pages)

• STUDENT WORKBOOKS on Much Ado About Nothing: The 50-page workbook features highly engaging worksheets on every scene in Shakespeare's Much Ado. Each worksheet is divided into sections which invite students to engage with the text in a variety of different ways:

• The Passage Analysis section invite students to analyze one or two key passages from each scene.
• The Evidence Hunt challenges students to answer an interpretive question by finding the best textual evidence to support their answer.
• The Comparing Quotations section invites students to make connections between quotations from different scenes in the play.
• The Discussion Question section features three higher-order questions designed to foster lively discussions and interpretive debates among students.
• The Quick Writes challenge students to compose short arguments that require the support of carefully selected textual evidence — leading to keen interpretive insights!

The workbook is guaranteed to foster skills in close reading, thoughtful analysis, and lively discussion. It will have your students feeling genuinely excited to study Shakespeare every day! (50 pages)

• WORKBOOK ANSWER KEY: The 50-page answer key to the workbook provides detailed answers to the passage analysis, evidence hunt, and comparing quotations sections. The answer key is informed by the best books and articles written by leading Shakespeare scholars: Marjorie Garber (Harvard), Stephen Greenblatt (Harvard), René Girard (Stanford), Harry Berger (Yale), Carol Cook (Vassar), Dympna Callaghan (Syracuse), Emma Smith (Oxford), Farah Karim-Cooper (King’s College London), Indira Ghose (Fribourg), and others. (50 pages)

These workbooks and answer keys will come to you in two separate formats: Word Docs *and* PDFs. Because the Word docs are fully editable, you'll be able to customize them to match the skill levels of your students — year after year! If you don't have Microsoft Word, you'll still be able to access PDF versions — which are easy to navigate and quick to print.

Rigorous Resources is your one-stop shop for top-quality resources on William Shakespeare. Wishing you an amazing experience with teaching Much Ado. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to get in touch. I love hearing from fellow teachers who share a passion for great literature! 

Happy teaching!

Adam Jernigan, Ph.D.

adamjernigan@gmail.com

P.S. Remember to “follow” my store to receive email updates on new products by Rigorous Resources. New products will be 50% OFF for the first 24 hours!

Feel free to check out these complete units on Shakespeare's masterpieces:

COMPLETE UNIT with Workbooks on Romeo and Juliet

COMPLETE UNIT with Workbooks on Julius Caesar

COMPLETE UNIT with Workbooks on Macbeth

COMPLETE UNIT with Workbooks on Othello

COMPLETE UNIT with Workbooks on Hamlet

COMPLETE UNIT with Workbooks on Much Ado About Nothing

INTRO TO SHAKESPEARE: Biography, Globe Theater, Language, & Meter

This 180-page EDITABLE unit has everything you'll need to deliver profoundly stimulating lessons on Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun!! Invite your class to engage in student-driven discussions without compromising on intellectual rigor. The pre-reading handouts, higher-order discussion questions, daily reading quizzes, and analytical writing assignment will challenge your students to dig beneath the surface of the text and generate profound interpretive insights!!

Hold your students accountable for completing the nightly homework by beginning every class with a quick vocabulary and reading quiz. Facilitate dynamic discussions that motivate students to become attached to the thrill generating shared knowledge. Challenge students to analyze textual details using a wide range of interpretive lenses: historicist, psychoanalytic, feminist, etc. Inspire students to arrive at a whole new depth of insight!!

Because every page in this unit is fully editable, that you'll be able to customize the materials to suit your particular students. Best of all, the detailed answer keys in this teacher-friendly unit will set you up to deliver content-rich lessons ever single day!

Here are some highlights from this editable 180-page curriculum:

• Portrait of the Author: Lorraine Hansberry (Pre-Reading Handout): Like the characters in her play, Lorraine Hansberry grew up on the South Side of Chicago and faced intimidation when her family purchased a house in a predominantly white suburban community. This pre-reading handout will provoke students to make connections between Hansberry's life and central themes in A Raisin in the Sun — without any plot spoilers. Includes a follow-up quiz with answer key. (6 pages)

• Image Analysis Worksheet (Pre-Reading Worksheet): This worksheet challenges students to identify and analyze significant details from a painting in Jacob Lawrence's The Migration Series (1941). What do the details in the painting reveal about the housing conditions that African-American migrants faced when they moved to northern cities like New York and Chicago? Answer key included. (3 pages)

• Discussion Question Handouts: Twenty-five pages of higher-order discussion questions guaranteed to inspire profoundly thoughtful class discussions! The unit includes double-sided handouts with 8-10 questions for each the play's 7 scenes. The discussion questions are the beating heart of these lesson plans. They challenge students to build interpretive arguments that require the support of carefully selected textual evidence — leading to keen interpretive insights! The questions could be used to focus students’ thinking prior to beginning a discussion, to foster in-class writing through quick writes, or to assign written reflections for homework. Guaranteed to elicit student engagement and foster profound discussions! (25 pages)

• Discussion Question Answer Keys: The answer keys to the discussion questions are informed by cutting-edge scholarship by English professors who specialize on topics like American theater and African-American literature: Imani Perry, Steven P. Carter, Margaret B Wilkerson, James Baldwin, bell hooks, and many others. Of course, there is rarely a single "correct" answer for any question; rather, the discussions questions are made up of higher-order questions designed to foster lively exchanges and interpretive debates among students. They challenge students to build interpretive arguments that require the support of carefully selected textual evidence. (45 pages)

• Quick Writes: A "quick write" can be used at any time in a class to get students to pause and reflect on the text in writing. Introduce a quick write before you begin a discussion to allow students to collect their thoughts. Or roll one out toward the end of a discussion to let students capture and refine their best ideas. (7 pages)

• Vocabulary Lists: Lists of 10 vocabulary words for each of the play's seven scenes, complete with definitions and sample sentences with the words as used in A Raisin in the Sun. A total of 70 SAT-worthy words. (7 pages)

• Reading & Vocabulary Quizzes: Daily quizzes with 10 questions on the nightly reading homework plus another 10 questions on the vocabulary words. If you choose not to have your students study vocabulary, you can still use the portion of the quiz devoted to reading comprehension. Grading these quizzes is simple and quick. They’re an easy way to log 7 to 14 grades into your gradebook. Answer keys included. (28 pages)

• Literary Devices Quiz: This quiz challenges students to identify the literary devices used in thirty quotations from A Raisin in the Sun. The literary devices include metaphor, simile, personification, hyperbole, oxymoron, allusion, and more. This bundle also features a glossary with definitions of the literary devices as well as examples of how each device is used in Hansberry's play — so you can review the devices with students before they tackle the worksheet. The worksheet can be used either as a quiz or as a fun refresher. Answer key included. (5 pages)

• Quotation Race: Students work in pairs to identify the speakers of 50 key quotations from A Raisin in the Sun. Introduce this fun activity when you need to mix things up, or to refresh students' memories in preparation for the AP exam. Answer key included. (8 pages)

• Q3 Practice Essay: Designed for teachers of AP Literature, this in-class practice essay will allow students to rehearse the "Q3" essay from the AP Literature and Composition Exam. The assignment asks students to write a 40-minute in-class essay in response to one amongst three recent Q3 prompts that featured A Raisin in the Sun as one of the recommended works of literary merit. (5 pages)

• Analytical Writing Assignment: Challenge students to take their interpretations one step further by writing an analytical paper on Hansberry's play. Let students choose from one of five thought-provoking sample topics — or invite them to develop a similar topic of their own. Rubric included. (4 pages)

My store is called “Rigorous Resources” because every unit features engaging lessons guaranteed to boost your students' close-reading and critical-thinking skills. In addition, the unit is filled with dozens of historically relevant visual images: portraits of Lorraine Hansberry, stills from the original Broadway production, paintings of the Great Migration by Jacob Lawrence, and much more. But what really distinguishes this resource is how the pre-reading handouts, discussion starters, literary device quizzes, and writing assignment are all designed to help student arrive at an abundance of interpretive insights!!

The resource packet will come to you in two separate formats: Word docs *and* PDFs. Because the Word doc is editable, you'll be able to customize the materials to suit your teaching style and/or the needs of particular students — year after year. If you don't have Microsoft Word, you'll still be able to access the PDF version, which is easy to navigate and quick to print!

Thank you for choosing Rigorous Resources.

Happy teaching!

Adam Jernigan, Ph.D.

adamjernigan@gmail.com

P.S. Don't forget to click “follow” for email updates on new products by Rigorous Resources. New products will be 50% OFF for the first 24 hours!

Rigorous Resources is your one-stop shop for resources on American literature. Feel free to check out these complete units on canonical texts by diverse American authors:

Complete Unit on Tommy Orange's There There

Complete Unit on Arthur Miller's The Crucible

Complete Unit on Frederick Douglass's Narrative

Complete Unit on F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby

Complete Unit on Nella Larsen's Passing

Complete Unit on Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God

Complete Unit on Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye

Complete Unit on Gene Luen Yang's American Born Chinese

Looking for the "green light" in a sea of Gatsby resources? Look no further, old sport! This 240-page MEGA-BUNDLE on F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby promises to elicit dynamic engagement from all students without compromising on intellectual rigor. The pre-reading slideshow, symbolic settings exercise, color symbolism activity, higher-order discussion questions, figurative language exercises, creative writing assignment, and analytical writing assignment will challenge your students to dig beneath the surface of the text and generate profound interpretive insights. The unit was designed to have more than enough rigor for Honors, IB, and AP courses!

Everything you’ll need to teach Fitzgerald’s masterpiece is included in this bundle. The abundance of materials will give you tons of options to play with, making the experience of teaching Gatsby not just easy but invigorating! Every page is fully EDITABLE so that you'll be able to customize the materials to suit your teaching style and/or the skill levels of your students — year after year!

Here are some highlights from this editable 240-PAGE curriculum:

• Slideshow on F. Scott Fitzgerald & the “Roaring Twenties”: Introduce the novel with a slideshow about the life of F. Scott Fitzgerald and the cultural climate in which he was writing The Great Gatsby. Students learn about Fitzgerald’s humble upbringing in Minnesota, his exposure to wealthy socialites at Princeton, his courtship of a debutante named Zelda, his codification of the “flapper,” and his experiences at lavish parties in Gatsby-esque mansions on Long Island. What's more, students learn about how American life in the 1920s was radically transformed by the proliferation of automobiles (like the “death car” that kills Myrtle), billboard advertisements (like “the eyes of T. J. Eckleburg”), and electric lights (like the “green light” at the end of Daisy’s dock). And they learn about how modern life in New York City was depicted by artists like Georgia O’Keefe, Alfred Stieglitz, Joseph Stella, and others. Lecture included. (40 slides + 8 page lecture)

• Soundtrack for The Great Gatsby: A playlist on Spotify featuring the “jazz age” songs played at Gatsby's parties. Expose students to the upbeat ambiance of the Roaring Twenties by playing the songs that Fitzgerald embedded into his book. How is the novel’s content enhanced by songs like “Ain’t We Got Fun” and “The Sheik of Araby”?

• Discussion Question Handouts (x9): Over thirty pages of higher-order chapter questions guaranteed to inspire profoundly thoughtful class discussions! This unit features double-sided handouts with 8-10 discussion questions for each of 9 chapters. The discussion questions are the beating heart of these lesson plans. They challenge students to build interpretive arguments that require the support of carefully selected textual evidence — leading to keen interpretive insights! Guaranteed to foster deep thinking and dynamic discussions! (32 pages)

• Discussion Question ANSWER KEYS (x9): While every part of this unit has an answer key, the answer keys for the discussion questions feature an extremely high level of detail. Every answer is grounded in concrete textual evidence that gets submitted to careful analysis. The keys have been informed by the best scholarly articles and books on F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. (90 pages)

• Character Analysis Worksheets (x18): Studying Fitzgerald’s nuanced construction of his characters is crucial for understanding his character-driven novel. This bundle contains 18 worksheets with carefully selected passages that challenge students to explain what textual details reveal about the main characters. Two worksheets per chapter provides choice for teachers and/or students! Builds skills in close reading! (18 pages)

• Social Class Worksheets (x3): These 3 worksheets help students not only to understand the social hierarchy and but to decode the signs of social status in The Great Gatsby. What are the differences between “West Egg” and “East Egg”? Between “New Money” and “Old Money”? These handouts demonstrate how Fitzgerald's depiction of social class was informed by his careful reading of sociologist Thorstein Veblen’s Theory of the Leisure Class (1899). Answer keys included. (5 pages)

• Color Symbolism Worksheets (x4): Each student chooses one of four colors from Fitzgerald's novel — green, yellow, white, and blue — and then explains its symbolic significance by analyzing 6-8 quotations. Students come to appreciate the dual meanings of each color: for example, while green symbolizes hope and wonder, it also represents envy. Answer keys included. (8 pages)

• Figurative Language Quizzes (x3): Each quiz challenges students to identify the types of figurative language — metaphor, simile, personification, hyperbole, paradox, etc. — used in 25 quotations from The Great Gatsby. The quizzes cover the figurative language used in chapters 1-3, chapters 4-6, and chapters 7-9 — so you can roll out each quiz after your class finishes three chapters and see whether they're improving. Also included is a glossary with definitions of the types of figurative language as well as examples of how they're used in the first chapter Fitzgerald's novel — so you can begin reviewing the types of figurative language with students before they tackle the quizzes. Answer keys included. (15 pages)

• Sound Devices Exercise: This exercise invites students to explain how Fitzgerald's use of sound devices — such as alliteration, assonance, consonance, and onomatopoeia — contributes to the novel's meaning. Also included is a glossary with definitions of these sound devices. Answer keys included. (3 pages)

• Quotation Race (x2): Students work in pairs to identify the speakers of 25 quotations. One handout features 15 quotes from the main characters, while a second handout features 10 more challenging quotes from various secondary characters. Introduce this fun activity when you need to mix things up — or to review for the AP Exam! Answer keys included. (4 pages)

• Vocabulary Lists (x9): Lists of 10-12 vocabulary words for every chapter, complete with a definition and a sample sentence with the word as used in The Great Gatsby. A total of over 100 SAT-worthy words. (9 pages)

• Vocabulary & Reading Quizzes (x9): Quizzes with 10 questions per chapter. Build students’ vocabularies while holding them accountable for the nightly reading homework. Each quiz contains 7 questions on vocabulary words plus another 3 questions on reading comprehension. Grading these quizzes is simple and quick. They’re an easy way to log up to 9 grades in your gradebook. Answer keys included. (9 pages)

• Creative Writing Assignment: Invite students to write in Fitzgerald’s virtuosic prose style while filling in a missing scene from the novel. What did Gatsby write in his letter to Daisy? What was said when Gatsby and Daisy finally reunited at Nick’s house? This assignment can be given mid-unit after students finish reading Chapter Six. Answer key included. (2 page)

• Analytical Writing Assignment: Challenge students to take their interpretations one step further by writing an analytical paper on Fitzgerald’s wonderfully complex novel. Let students choose from one of five profoundly thought-provoking sample topics — or invite them to develop an original topic of their own. Rubric included. (4 pages)

• Q3 Practice Essay: Designed for AP Lit teachers, this in-class essay assignment will enable students to practice the "Q3" essay from the AP Literature and Composition Exam. Included are three recent Q3 prompts that feature The Great Gatsby as one of the recommended works of literary merit. The assignment asks students to respond to one prompt by composing a well-written essay in 40 minutes. (5 pages)

• Poetry Pairings (x5): Wrap things up with four poems that tackle many of the themes addressed in Fitzgerald's novel: the dignity of work, the signifiers of class status, etc. A fifth poem about teenage romance features a subtle allusion to the green light from The Great Gatsby. This fifth poem is followed by a page of discussion questions as well as a 3-page teacher’s guide with detailed answers to each of the questions. I use this poem year after year to teach students how to analyze imagery — and students delight in the "a-ha" moment when they catch the allusion to the light at the end of Daisy's dock! (14 pages)

This unit is filled with dozens of visual images that shed light on important scenes from Fitzgerald’s novel: newspaper headlines, documentary photographs, paintings by modernist artists, magazine covers, portraits of Scott and Zelda. But what really distinguishes this curriculum is how the discussion questions, close-reading exercises, and writing assignments are all designed to deepen students' thinking and help them arrive at profound interpretive insights!

This unit includes 240 pages and 40 slides of content-rich lessons. The entire unit will come to you in two separate formats: Word docs *and* PDFs. Because the Word docs are fully editable, you'll be able to customize every page to suit your teaching style and/or the needs of your students — year after year! If you don't have Microsoft Word, you'll still be able to access the entire unit as PDF files, which are easy to navigate and quick to print. The pre-reading slideshow will come to you in both PowerPoint and PDF formats.

Thank you for choosing “Rigorous Resources”!!

Happy teaching!

Adam Jernigan, Ph.D.

adamjernigan@gmail.com

P.S. Don't forget to click “follow” for email updates on new products by Rigorous Resources. New products will be 50% OFF for the first 24 hours!

Rigorous Resources is your one-stop shop for resources on American literature. Every unit was created by a Ph.D. who specializes in American literature. Feel free to check out these units on canonical texts by diverse American authors:

Complete Unit on Tommy Orange's There There

Complete Unit on Arthur Miller's The Crucible

Complete Unit on Frederick Douglass's Narrative

Complete Unit on Nella Larsen's Passing

Complete Unit on Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God

Complete Unit on J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye

Complete Unit on Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun

Complete Unit on Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye