The complete fifth unit of Reading Workshop for the Secondary Classroom. Lessons, handouts, and activities provide you with everything you need to teach the unit. All lessons apply to any book your students may choose to read. All lessons are CCSS-aligned.

Unit 5: Hidden Gems—Looking at Literary Techniques

Unit 5 provides a detailed overview of literary techniques used by authors. Building on the previous units, “Hidden Gems” allows students the space and time to explore things like language and point of view in a way that activates critical thinking skills and generates authentic application. Unlike previous units, Unit 5 concludes with a culminating project. This creative application of skills also incorporates information from prior units and necessitates that students “bring it all together.”

Lesson Sequence

1. Laser Focus—Developing Strong Visualization with Imagery
2. Ink Slinger—How Authors Use Language to Craft Tone
3. Know Your Narrator—Evaluating the Reliability of a Narrator
4. The Way I See It—How Point of View Affects Characterization
5. Isn’t It Ironic?—Deciphering Irony in Literature
6. Back to the Past—Understanding the Role of Flashback in Literature
7. Forward to the Future—How Understanding Foreshadowing Helps Predictions
8. Fusing It Together—How Literacy Techniques Contribute to the Tone and Mood, Part I
9. Fusing It Together—How Literacy Techniques Contribute to the Tone and Mood, Part II

©2019. Middle school, high school. Reproducible. PDF download, 92 pages. Adobe® Reader® required to view.

About the Author

Leslie Spurrier holds a bachelor's degree in English from Wake Forest University and a master's degree in Reading and Language Arts from Millersville University. She taught middle school English and reading for over seven years and lived to tell the tale. Her favorite literary character of all time is Anne Shirley, which made giving birth to a red-headed little girl all the more glorious. Leslie currently resides in Lititz, PA, with her husband and two children. When she's not voraciously devouring books of all sorts, she creates educational materials for her online business, Story Trekker, and desperately tries to keep her cat Shadow from scratching up her favorite chair.