Nadria Tucker

Below are links to and sug­ges­tions for les­son plans about read­ing and respond­ing to nov­els and short sto­ries. These les­son plans can be used with my writ­ing and any other fic­tion you choose. If you are a teacher, please feel free to down­load my work here on my web­site or find even more titles on Ama­zon, Barnes & Noble or iTunes. Thanks for stop­ping by and check back often for updates!

National Novel Writ­ing Month’s Young Writer Workbooks

I use these work­books when I lead teen writ­ing work­shops. The work­books (mid­dle grade or high school level) break down con­cepts like char­ac­ter, plot and dia­logue so that stu­dents can work with them. Fan­tas­tic (and FREE!).

Find­ing the Sci­ence Behind Sci­ence Fic­tion Through Paired Readings

A set of six, 50-minute lessons for grades 6–8, in which stu­dents apply infor­ma­tion from non­fic­tion sci­ence text to their read­ing and analy­sis of sci­ence fic­tion texts. Then stu­dents will iden­tify top­ics for fur­ther research and write a paper on the topic. From the Inter­na­tional Read­ing Asso­ci­a­tion and the National Coun­cil of Teach­ers of English’s Read­Write­Think program.

Reader Response in Hyper­text: Mak­ing Per­sonal Con­nec­tions to Literature

In this set of six, 50-minute lessons, stu­dents in grades 9–12 will read a novel and ana­lyze key lit­er­ary fea­tures like set­ting, char­ac­ter and theme. Stu­dents will keep a jour­nal detail­ing their per­sonal con­nec­tions to the work, and will write short papers expand­ing on those per­sonal con­nec­tions. Finally, stu­dents can pub­lish those works to the school or class website! From the Inter­na­tional Read­ing Asso­ci­a­tion and the National Coun­cil of Teach­ers of English’s Read­Write­Think program.

So What Do You Think? Writ­ing a Review

This group of four, 50-minute les­son plans is for stu­dents in grades 9–12, and in these lessons, stu­dents will read  reviews, fig­ure out what makes a good book review, hone their crit­i­cal think­ing skills while form­ing their own opin­ions on a writer’s work, write their own reviews and com­pare those reviews to pro­fes­sional reviews. From the Inter­na­tional Read­ing Asso­ci­a­tion and the National Coun­cil of Teach­ers of English’s Read­Write­Think program.

Short Story Fair: Respond­ing to Short Sto­ries in Mul­ti­ple Media and Genres

This is a set of seven, 50-minute les­son plans aimed at grades 9–12, in which stu­dents read sto­ries from a col­lec­tion in groups and then respond by writ­ing jour­nal entries, select­ing music, writ­ing poetry, or cre­at­ing col­lages, ads or other media to be shared in a Short Story Fair. From the Inter­na­tional Read­ing Asso­ci­a­tion and the National Coun­cil of Teach­ers of English’s Read­Write­Think program.

Teach­ing Plot Struc­ture Through Short Stories

This is a set of four, 50-minute les­son plans aimed at grades 9 & 10, in which stu­dents learn the basics of plot struc­ture by view­ing a Pow­er­point Pre­sen­ta­tion and ana­lyz­ing the story “Jack and the Beanstalk.” Then, stu­dents read more advanced short sto­ries as a class, in groups and indi­vid­u­ally and ana­lyze and dia­gram three short stories. From the Inter­na­tional Read­ing Asso­ci­a­tion and the National Coun­cil of Teach­ers of English’s Read­Write­Think program.

Cre­ative Outlining–From Freewrit­ing to Formalizing

In this set of five, 50-minute les­son plans aimed at grades 9–12, stu­dents read a short story in class and then start to freewrite a response to the story. Stu­dents go through the process of devel­op­ing a the­sis and an out­line before finally writ­ing a lit­er­ary analy­sis essay. From the Inter­na­tional Read­ing Asso­ci­a­tion and the National Coun­cil of Teach­ers of English’s Read­Write­Think program.