English Language Arts Grade 8
Educational Links

Reading: Literature Standard 2

Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze its development over the course of the text, including its relationship to the characters, setting, and plot; provide an objective summary of the text.

• Childhood Through the Looking Glass
  The goals of this lesson plan are: (1) To learn about Lewis Carroll and the vision of childhood he created in Alice in Wonderland (2) To compare Carroll's Victorian world of childhood with the world of 'Innocence and Experience' portrayed by the Romantic poet William Blake; (3) To explore the relationship between picture and text in children's literature; (4) To consider the relationship between childhood fictions and the real experience of growing up.
• Choose Your Own Adventure: Hypertext Writing Exp.
  This lesson, from ReadWriteThink, combines reading and writing in a collaborative, small-group learning experience. It utilizes technology, specifically Web page design, group and individual work, and student self-assessment. After reading several examples, students will plan their own adventure story. They will be divided into smaller groups for each split in the story until finally the students are writing their own endings. Using Web-authoring software, groups will create their own Web sites with the parts of the story hyperlinked to each other.
• Literature Circles: Getting Started
  This lesson from ReadWriteThink explores Literature Circles, a great way to supplement a reading program in a literature-based classroom. Students create and answer comprehension questions, discover new vocabulary, and examine elements of literature.
• Teaching Theme Analysis in Layers
  This video lesson is about how to understand theme and how it develops throughout a text. (9 minutes)
• The Big Bad Wolf: Analyzing Point of View in Texts
  Many students read without questioning a text or analyzing the author's viewpoint. In this lesson from ReadWriteThink, students learn to look at texts from different viewpoints. Was the "big bad wolf" really bad? Throughout the lesson, students are encouraged to view texts from different angles.
• The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
  Washington Irving's tale of the Headless Horseman has become a Halloween classic, although few Americans celebrated that holiday when the story was new. In this unit from EDSITEment, students explore the artistry that helped make Irving our nation's first literary master and ponder the mystery that now haunts every Halloween--What happened to Ichabod Crane?

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