A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry

This collection uses primary sources to explore Lorraine Hansberry's play, A Raisin in the Sun. Digital Public Library of America Primary Source Sets are designed to help students develop their critical thinking skills and draw diverse material from libraries, archives, and museums across the United States. Each set includes an overview, ten to fifteen primary sources, links to related resources, and a teaching guide. These sets were created and reviewed by the teachers on the DPLA's Education Advisory Committee.

Material Type: Primary Source

Author: Franky Abbott

Shakespeare the Player: Illustrating Elizabethan Theatre through A Midsummer Night's Dream

In this activity, you and your students will explore Elizabethan stage practices as the rustic yet enthusiastic amateur actors from Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. While it's not necessary to teach Shakespeare's biography while studying his plays, sometimes opportunities to explore his world through his own eyes present themselves in his text. Students' new insights into the text will provide them with a deeper appreciation for Shakespeare’s world. This activity will take one or two class periods.

Material Type: Lesson Plan

Author: Caitlin S Griffin and Carol Ann Lloyd Stanger

The Poetry of Maya Angelou

This collection uses primary sources to explore the poetry of Maya Angelou. Digital Public Library of America Primary Source Sets are designed to help students develop their critical thinking skills and draw diverse material from libraries, archives, and museums across the United States. Each set includes an overview, ten to fifteen primary sources, links to related resources, and a teaching guide. These sets were created and reviewed by the teachers on the DPLA's Education Advisory Committee.

Material Type: Primary Source

Author: Susan Ketcham

A-Z: Learning About the Alphabet Book Genre

Students increase their understanding of alphabet books by participating in a variety of reading and writing activities.

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan, Unit of Study

Reading and Writing Arguments

In this lesson, students read informational pieces about whether or not schools should teach cursive writing. They will evaluate the arguments presented and then choose a side of the issue. Finally, they will write their own arguments expressing their points of view.

Material Type: Lesson Plan

Analyzing Informational Text

In this lesson students use the Informational Text Analysis Tool to deconstruct the essential elements of informational text. Informational text is more important to teachers than ever before, especially with the rise of the new Core standards. The Library of Congress is an excellent resource for finding and using texts to build students' reading skills.Through a diverse array of classic and contemporary literature as well as challenging informational and primary source texts, students build knowledge, gain insights, explore possibilities, and broaden their perspective.

Material Type: Lesson Plan

Preparing For Close Reading With Students

This 30 minute video features a discussion between NYS Commissioner of Education John B. King Jr., David Coleman (contributing author to the Common Core) and Kate Gerson (a Sr. Fellow with the Regents Research Fund) on the first 20 paragraphs of Martin Luther King Jr.‰'s ‰"Letter from Birmingham Jail.‰" This conversation represents one of the ways a group of educators might prepare for close reading of text with students. This behind-the-scenes discourse represents the kind of dialogue teachers can have as they build their own fluency and familiarity with a text before diving into it with students. After watching this video, educators might ask themselves: Why are conversations like these important? What role can adult discussions of text play in teacher prep? Participants might also continue the conversation King, Coleman, and Gerson are having by picking up where they left off and engaging deeply around paragraphs 21-30. What happens next in the text? What is King ‰"up to‰" for those paragraphs?

Material Type: Teaching/Learning Strategy

Establishing A Purpose For Reading Using Informational Text

In this lesson, before reading, students establish a purpose for reading informational text by turning the title and subtitles into questions.

Material Type: Lesson Plan

Informative Writing

The lesson provides an opportunity for students to not only read and view the importance of choosing career choices now, but gives them an opportunity to write about their future career goals and think about the best way to achieve them starting now.

Material Type: Lesson Plan

Narrative Writing

Students will learn and apply techniques to develop and present a personal narrative/memoir. They will take their writing through all stages of the writing process. Their writing will reflect clear understanding of plot, dialogue, transitions, and descriptive details.

Material Type: Lesson Plan

Acrostic Poems: All About Me and My Favorite Things

Students create acrostic poems using their names and the names of things that are important to them.

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan

Analyzing Famous Speeches as Arguments

Students are often asked to perform speeches, but rarely do we require students to analyze speeches as carefully as we study works of literature. In this unit, students are required to identify the rhetorical strategies in a famous speech and the specific purpose for each chosen device. They will write an essay about its effectiveness and why it is still famous after all these years.

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan

Incorporating Informational Text: Article of the Week

In this lesson students build their knowledge base and learn to read and summarize informational texts. Students will be able to read and summarize informational text, identify key details from surprising details, and recognize the main ideas/concepts presented in articles. They will also be able to listen, take notes, and discuss the issues presented in informational texts with a small group.

Material Type: Lesson Plan

Uncle Tom’s Cabin

This seventh grade annotated inquiry provides students with an opportunity to explore how words affect public opinion through an examination of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Students will investigate historical sources related to the novel and reactions in the North and South in order to address the compelling question, “Can words lead to war?” This query takes advantage of the mixed messages students often receive about the power of words. Students’ understanding about how words can make a difference is often grounded in discussions of words used to bully, instead of the power of words to encourage reform. This is an ANNOTATED inquiry with additional information on the questions, tasks, and sources within.

Material Type: Lesson Plan

Using Student-Centered Comprehension Strategies with Elie Wiesel's "Night"

Working in small groups, students read and discuss Elie Wiesel's memoir "Night" and then take turns assuming the teacher role, as the class works with four different comprehension strategies.

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Unit of Study

GIST Summaries

GIST is a strategy to help students write brief, accurate, and complete summaries of material they read. In this lesson students work together summarizing larger and larger portions of text, but keeping their summaries at 25 words or fewer. Students will be able to summarize portions of informational or literary text. Students will be able to work in small groups to think critically about and discuss text.

Material Type: Lesson Plan