An introductory unit on Shakespeare suitable for grades 8-10 is described. (The unit is intended for use with "A Visual Guide to Shakespeare's Life and Times" (Washington Square Press) and "Kings, Lovers, and Fools" (Scholastic). Activities include a 3-page study guide on Shakespeare's life and times; a chart for recording the…

Designed to make the study of Dickens'"Great Expectations" an appealing and worthwhile experience, this paper presents a unit of study intended to help students gain (1) an appreciation of Dickens' skill at creating realistic human characters; (2) an insight into the problems of a young man confused by false values and unreal ambitions…

In this paper, I argue for a response to the needs of linguistically and culturally diverse students that is both high challenge and high support. In elaborating this argument I draw on an English literature programme that was designed for a year 7 boys' class (the first year of high school) in an Australian public school. The students in the…

This teacher's guide for public television's 6-part adaptation of George Eliot's "Middlemarch" provides information that will enrich students' viewing of the series. The guide includes a wide range of activities to help students further explore the novel's universal themes. The guide suggests that students read the informational…

This lesson seeks to sensitize students to the complex nature of revenge as it is portrayed in William Shakespeare's "The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark." In the lesson, students learn how Shakespeare's play interprets Elizabethan attitudes toward revenge, as reflected in the structure of the Elizabethan revenge tragedy, one of the…

This lesson seeks to sensitize students to the similarities and difference between cultures by comparing the Shakespearean and the Bunraki/Kabuki dramas of Japan. In the lesson, the focus of this comparison is the complex nature of revenge explored in "The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark" and "Chusingura," or "The…

Providing help to teachers and schools attempting to achieve the vision of the Kentucky Educational Reform Act (KERA) which shifts the focus of instruction to student use and application of knowledge, this paper presents a sample course outline as a starting point for course development. The paper begins with one example of a course description…

This sourcebook presents reading guides for 22 literary works frequently used by secondary school English teachers. The guides contain an overview of the work, a pool of instructional objectives for each work, a variety of activities, a series of discussion options, suggestions for evaluation, and annotated lists of related works. Included are:…