Less can often be more—especially as students explore the theme of a work of literature through analytical writing. Writing haiku offers a student in the final draft stages of a paper an innovative way to determine if the paper says what he/she means it to say. Students can “lose their way” when writing analytical papers, resulting in wordy, tangled papers with the thesis obscured. To alleviate this problem, students create haiku that, in seventeen syllables, encapsulate the heart of the paper. Because of its brevity, haiku promotes clarity of thought. It further challenges students to work on focused revision.

Students explore the ballads genre by reading medieval ballads to deduce their characteristics, acting out the ballads, comparing medieval and modern ballads using Venn diagrams, and composing their own ballads.

What's that sound? Students participate in a Directed Listening-Thinking Activity (DLTA) using "The Tell-Tale Heart," make predictions, and respond in the form of an acrostic poem or comic strip.

Students will engage with primary source documents to explore the reasons behind memorializing people in public art. Students will craft written or oral statements to support an argument in favor of installing a statue of Dr. Martha Hughes Cannon, Philo T. Farnsworth, or Brigham Young in National Statuary Hall.

This episode of This American Life that discusses mob mentality and how easily we can all fall victim to it. English Language Arts teachers can use It with many different texts to explore the concept of mob mentaility. For example, it can be used when teaching Lord of the Flies.