Literature Lesson Plans

There are so many fantastic qualities and offerings--wonders of the worldwide web—for teachers.  One of these phenomenal kinds of offerings is for teachers looking for literature lesson plans, for example.  For the devoted teacher seeking any level (k-12, college, graduate, post-grad, home-schooling, etc.) literature lesson plans that take on a new approach or those that suggest a different style, or even literature lesson plans that appeal to the new or student teacher, the web and site masters and mistresses (often, in our case, teachers themselves) offer an abundance of brilliant options.

As an instructor and freelance writer, I have had the delightful opportunity to develop online courses.  These included a Creative Writing course and two Advanced Placement (AP) English Composition and Literature courses.  So in my research time—during which I did 1000s of hours’ worth (the net being such a labyrinth of tangential goodies one cannot resist exploring)—I found numerous sites for lesson plans, ideas, and programs, among them some seemingly fine literature lesson plans and programs, some including, even, pedagogical rationale.

Here are a few of the many sites and pages offering free literature lesson plans:

The Educator’s Reference Desk (http://www.eduref.org/Virtual/ Lessons/index.shtml) – contains literature and many other discipline and English lesson plans…over 2,000.

EDSITEment (http://edsitement.neh.gov/subject_categories_all.asp) – is a site for humanities subjects, including listings for the general categories—Art & Culture; Literature & Arts; Foreign Language[s]; and History & Social Studies and for specific subcategories including but not limited to the history of the alphabet, Anne Frank’s diaries, Beatrix Potter books, and the works of Shakespeare.

Teachers.net Lesson Exchange (http://teachers.net/lessons/) – This is as its title admits—a site where 1000s of lesson plans are free for the downloading.  And you could show appreciation by uploading one or more of your own to the ample database (The Lesson Bank) of hundreds of plans for teachers at all levels and many disciplines.

Awesome Library Lesson Plans (http://www.awesomelibrary.org/ lesson.html) – features a stout collection of lessons across the curriculum, including literature lesson plans and a language arts series and targeting multicultural and multi-leveled student groups.

McRel (Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning: http://www.mcrel.org/lesson-plans/index.asp) – provides a curriculum compendium that focuses on specific benchmark learning plans.


Of course, there are pay-to-view-or-use kinds of sites offering literature lesson plans for a not-so-small fee.  These sites, such as Teachit.co.uk, do include some free plans, quizzes, and activities (if you dig deeply enough); there are also, however, the charitable efforts of teachers and teaching collectives who have developed sites where one offers his or her own literature lesson plans and or where he or she can access the archives of mat lesson plans donated by generous, creative, and experienced instructors.  Have fun!