Lesson: Characterization in Literature and Theater
In this lesson, students explore various methods authors use to create effective characters.
Literature

Lesson: It's All in the Translation
In this lesson students will examine the important role translation plays in interpreting the dramatic literature and theater of the ancient Greeks.
Literature

Arts Quotes: Aldous Huxley
"After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible, is music."
Literature

Arts Quotes: Charles Dickens
"This is a world of action, and not for moping and droning in."
Literature

Arts Days: August 30, 1904: You Can Go Home Again
Henry James followed the advice of every good writing teacher—just write what you know. So it makes sense that some of his novels, including Daisy Miller and The Portrait of a Lady, were based loosely on a life he himself had lived, as a young, naïve American interacting with sophisticated Europeans.

James, a native New Yorker born to wealthy parents, lived and traveled abroad for much of his life, coming back to the U.S. only occasionally. James used interior monologue and various points of view to observe relationships among people, sometimes across social classes, and often shaped by the social conventions of life in cities around the globe during the second half of the 19th century.
Literature

Arts Days: July 25, 1897: Call of the Wild
Adventure seeker Jack London dropped out of the University of California at Berkeley partly because he ran out of money to pay for school, partly to participate in the Klondike Gold Rush—along with hundreds of thousands of others hoping to strike gold.

London’s time in Canada would go on to form the basis for many of his great literary works. But the traveling and the time spent looking for minuscule amounts of gold led to health problems for the writer. London recovered when he returned to California the following year, and began to sell enough stories to magazines and newspapers to support himself.

Novels like White Fang and Call of the Wild, both inspired by his time in the Klondike, would cement London’s reputation as a uniquely American voice of the early 20th century.
Literature

Arts Days: January 11, 1978: Singing Her Praises
Toni Morrison's novels are known for their epic themes, vivid dialogue, and richly-developed African American characters. Her third novel, Song of Solomon, won the National Book Critics Circle Award, a prestigious honor given annually to the finest books published in the English language.

This award propelled Morrison into the national spotlight. Since then, she has continued to write novels, as well as short stories, plays, children's books, and non-fiction. Ms. Morrison won the Pulitzer Prize in 1988 and the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993, becoming the first African American to win the award, as well as the first American woman to win in more than 50 years.
Literature

Arts Days: May 22, 1859: Scotland Yard’s Storyteller
The man who would dream up the most famous detective in all literature remembers well his mother’s gift for entertaining her children with tales. But as was the custom of the day, Arthur Conan Doyle was sent to boarding school at a young age. There, he followed in his mother’s footsteps by telling classmates stories.

Following medical school, Doyle wrote for fun, and in 1887, he conceived of the characters Sherlock Holmes and his sidekick, and sometimes narrator, Dr. Watson, who solved crimes together.

Four years later, he happily left his medical practice to write full time, writing more Sherlock Holmes stories and novels, and the creepy novel The Hound of the Baskervilles. Yet it was Doyle’s pipe-smoking, deeply analytical detective Holmes who captured readers’ hearts most, then and now—in books, on stage, and in movies.
Literature

Article: The Skeleton of a Scary Story
Have you ever wanted to scare your friends around the campfire? This article will tell you how!
Science Fiction & Fantasy, Literature

Tipsheet: Reading Into Action
Make reading part of your physical education class and exercise students' bodies and brains!
Physical Activity, Literature

Lesson: Writing Myths
Students will explore how myths provide explanations for nature and science. They will read and analyze the Native American myth "Giants and Mosquitoes."
Greece, Literature

Lesson: Elements of Myth
How can myths help to explain nature and science? Students will explore these themes in this lesson. Students will read and explore several myths, identifying the elements of this literary form.
Literature, Greece

Lesson: Utopian Visions
Students are introduced to the idea of a "utopia"—an idealized society. Students read Sir Thomas More's Utopia and examine the concepts behind his vision of an ideal society.
America, Literature

Lesson: Broken Worlds
This lesson provides a variety of options for conducting comparative analysis between Eugene O’Neill’s The Hairy Ape and Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire.
Literature, America

Lesson: Creating Characters
Students examine character as a significant element of fiction, learning methods of characterization, identify and critique.
Literature, Language

Lesson: Plotting the Story
Students examine plot as a significant element of fiction. They distinguish plot from narrative to gain a firm understanding of a plot’s function within a story.
Language, Literature

Lesson: What a Character
In this lesson, students analyze how a character's personality traits, actions and motives influence the plot of a story.
Folklore, Literature

Arts Quotes: Thomas Merton
"Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time."
America, Literature

Arts Quotes: Elbert Hubbard
"Art is not a thing; it is a way."
America, Literature

Arts Quotes: Susan Sontag
"Interpretation is the revenge of the intellectual upon art."
America, Literature

Arts Quotes: Stuart Wilde
"All mankind's inner feelings eventually manifest themselves as an outer reality."
Literature, Science

Arts Quotes: Émile Zola
"The artist is nothing without the gift, but the gift is nothing without work."
Europe, Literature

Arts Quotes: Dame Rebecca West
"Any authentic work of art must start an argument between the artist and his audience."
Europe, Literature

Arts Quotes: Simone Weil
"Art is the symbol of the two noblest human efforts: to construct and to refrain from destruction."
Europe, Literature

Arts Quotes: Marcel Proust
"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes."
Europe, Literature