This video segment, adapted from NOVA, chronicles the education of leading chemist Percy Julian. Although Julian began his elementary school years in the Deep South under Jim Crow laws, he became one of the few African Americans of his time to earn a Ph.D.

The various genres and subgenres are presented to the students using a video and presentation, and use of examples of several fiction, non-fiction, and poetry books. Then, using a mixed-genre set of books, and the notes they took during the presentation, students will identify the genres represented in each set.

Students climb into the mind of a spider in this lesson that asks them to compose a spider diary using spider facts, fiction, and "faction" fiction that sounds like fact.