Students will have a whale of a good time in this lesson in which they use fiction and nonfiction texts to write a letter to an online scientist.
The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe is one of those books that we all know even if we have never read it. With his first work of fiction, Daniel Defoe–a businessman turned poet, journalist, and political propagandist–created a character who very quickly went on to have a life that went well beyond the pages of the book that first appeared, without build-up, fanfare, or even the author’s name on the title page, in April 1719. Robinson Crusoe was an immediate bestseller; the bookseller went through several editions in the first year alone. By August, Defoe had produced a sequel, The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, a work that he wrote quickly in part to head off the possibility that someone else might beat him to it. Over the last three hundred years, the story of a person isolated on a deserted island or something like it, has been used by dozens, maybe hundreds of writers, who have made it a genre of its own, the “Robinsoniad,” a genre that includes satirical parodies like Gulliver’s Travels, children’s books like The Swiss Family Robinson, Bugs Bunny cartoons, television situation comedies like Gilligan’s Island, and science fiction works like The Martian. Robinson Crusoe, the man and the book in which he first appeared, has become one of the foundational myths of the modern world.The story of one man’s survival has become so well known in all of these instances that it can be difficult to see through the mythology to analyze Defoe’s original book and to imagine what its first readers might have noticed and found so striking. It is important to recognize, for example, that the book is told in the first person, by a narrator who never lets on that this is a work of fiction. Defoe’s name, as noted above, did not appear on the title page of the first edition (although it quickly became clear to those in the know that he was the author), or even in any of the many editions issued in his lifetime. Although the book is famous for the many years that Crusoe spends on the island, it takes a while for him to get there, and his experiences both before and after his time there are worth paying attention to for the way that they frame the central experience. Defoe’s prose is sometimes clunky-he has a tendency to shape sentences and paragraphs that would never pass muster with a modern copyeditor–but it is also capable of great beauty and insight, and rewards careful attention.
This collection uses primary sources to explore The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. 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.
Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment, is a CCSS exemplar for grades 11 "“ CCR taught at the upper high school level and in AP English. This three lesson unit looks at a variety of schisms and divisions in the novel. It provides a close reading of the novel by considering Dostoevsky's view of human nature, through his characters; the theoretical division Man v Superman; the societal setting in the novel.
This is a guide to science fiction stories and novels which are based on reasonably good science (and can thus be recommended in introductory astronomy courses.) The stories are organized by astronomical topic. While most of the stories are available only in print, a number are now published electronically free of charge, and links to those are included.
This article highlights science lessons about mammals, mammal diversity and adaptations, and polar mammals. Literacy integrations and alignment to national standards are included.
This subject is designed to give 21H majors and minors an introduction to the methods that historians use to interpret the past. We will focus on two areas: archives and interpretation. In our work on archives, we will ask what constitutes an archive. We will visit one or two local archives, speak with archivists, and assemble our own archive related to life at MIT in 2003. Once we have a better understanding of the possibilities and limitations of historical archives, we will turn to the task of interpreting archival findings. We will discuss a series of readings organized around the theme of history and national identity in various parts of the world since the end of the eighteenth century.
This short fiction unit provides lectures regarding specific texts, discussion assignments, a short writing assignment, and resources for writing a character analysis essay. Unless otherwise noted on the individual pages, the materials in this resource are licensed under CC BY-NC-SA.
Students will describe the plot and study traits, motivations and feelings using Tops and Bottoms by Janet Stevens.
Some of the most the most essential works of literature in the world are examples of epic poetry, such as The Odyssey and Paradise Lost. This lesson introduces students to the epic poem form and to its roots in oral tradition.
Unlike film, theater in America does not have a ratings board that censors content. So plays have had more freedom to explore and to transgress normative culture. Yet censorship of the theater has been part of American culture from the beginning, and continues today. How and why does this happen, and who decides whether a play is too dangerous to see or to teach? Are plays dangerous? Sinful? Even demonic? In our seminar, we will study plays that have been censored, either legally or extra-legally (i.e. refused production, closed down during production, denied funding, or taken off school reading lists). We’ll look at laws, both national and local, relating to the “obscene”, as well as unofficial practices, and think about the way censorship operates in American life now. And of course we will study the offending texts, themselves, to find what is really dangerous about them, for ourselves.
Identify the plot elements of a fiction story and create your very own comic strip!
The superhero Super Flip is flipping out of comic books and flying to your rescue. This time, she’s helping you name the plot elements of a fiction story: character, setting, conflict, and resolution. She’ll even reveal her super power of turning the plot elements of a story into a comic!
Learning Objective: analyze plot elements, including the sequence of events, the conflict, and the resolution.
¡Identifica los elementos de la trama de una historia de ficción y crea tu propia tira cómica!
El superhéroe Super Flip está saliendo de los cómics y volando a tu rescate. Esta vez, ella le ayuda a nombrar los elementos de la trama de una historia de ficción: personaje, escenario, conflicto y resolución.
¡Incluso revelará su gran poder de convertir los elementos de la trama de una historia en un tira cómica!Objetivo de Aprendizaje: analizar los elementos de la trama, incluida la secuencia de eventos, el conflicto y la resolución.
Through close readings of Zora Neale Hurston'sTheir Eyes Were Watching God, students will analyzehow Hurston creates a unique literary voice by combining folklore, folk language, and traditional literary techniques. Students will examine the role that folk groups play in both their own lives and in the novel.
This collection uses primary sources to explore Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God. 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.
This collection uses primary sources to explore Tim O'Brien's novel, The Things They Carried. 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.
In this lesson, students study issues related to independence and notions of manliness in Ernest Hemingway’s “Three Shots” as they conduct in-depth literary character analysis, consider the significance of environment to growing up and investigate Hemingway’s Nobel Prize-winning, unique prose style. In addition, they will have the opportunity to write and revise a short story based on their own childhood experiences and together create a short story collection.
Students study select court transcripts and other primary source materials from the second Scottsboro Boys Trial of 1933, a continuation of the first trial in which two young white women wrongfully accused nine African American teenagers of rape.
One of the most compelling novels of the twentieth century, Beloved by Toni Morrison has been read in classrooms across the country since its publication in 1987. The novel follows Sethe's escape to freedom, the murder of her child, and her difficult psychological journey as she copes with her past as a slave. As both an historical account of the experiences of slavery and an insightful novel about a supernatural ghost, this text is ideal for upper level high school students and students in AP programs.
The corrupting influence of slavery on marriage and the family is a predominant theme in Solomon Northup's narrative Twelve Years a Slave. In this lesson, students are asked to identify and analyze narrative passages that provide evidence for how slavery undermined and perverted these social institutions. Northup collaborated with a white ghostwriter, David Wilson. Students will read the preface and identify and analyze statements Wilson makes to prove the narrative is true.