Irony in Literature Made Easy: 8 Strategies + 5 Texts for ELA Teachers
Rain on your wedding day is a lot of things, but without context, it’s not ironic. Alanis Morrisette’s “Ironic” describes…
Literary Devices
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Why Literary Allusions in AP Lit Aren’t Optional (And How to Fill the Knowledge Gap)
“When Ah-HAWKS strives some rock’s vast weight to throw . . .” We, of course, do our best to avoid…
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Short Stories for High School: Focus on Characterization
Characterization is one of the most important literary devices you can focus on when you read short stories with your students. Really, at its heart, characterization is the point of literature. Whether we’re reading to escape, to learn, to feel, or to experience, well-developed characters are essential.
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Short Stories for High School: Focus on Irony
Irony can be a lot of fun to teach, but it can also be really challenging for students to wrap their minds around. It’s important for all students to understand, though, because it forms the basis for large swaths of our popular culture, and unlike other literary devices, when we misunderstand (or miss altogether) an author’s use of irony, we run the risk of taking away the opposite meaning than the one the author intended.
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Teaching Setting? 12 High School Short Stories to Use
If we’re honest, we rarely prioritized setting when looking for high school short stories to use in our classrooms. This…
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Recommendations for Teaching Symbolism in Poetry or Short Stories
“Communism! The red means communism!” As we guided our AP Lit students through our Norman Rockwell interpretation activity one year,…
