Digital Paired Texts - Barbara Kingsolver & Sandra Cisneros - Essay Writing

Here is a digital writing task lesson for Google Drive. This activity guides students through close readings of the poem, "Naming Myself" by Barbara Kingsolver, and the excerpt, "My Name" (The House on Mango Street) by Sandra Cisneros. Then the lesson facilitates students' understanding of themes as they construct connections between the texts.

Activity handouts focus on close reading and provide before-, during-, and post-reading strategies. Furthermore, a slide with model annotations helps to scaffold instruction. After reading, students write a literary analysis essay which requires them to include text evidence.

This resource includes a 15-page PDF file with the following:

-instructions for implementing with Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive

-explicit lesson plan with identified Common Core ELA Anchor Standards

-answer key with detailed responses for all activities and a sample essay (making this a valuable substitute lesson plan)

This lesson includes the following:

• pre-reading guide and sample annotation passage
• poem and excerpt texts
• rereading strategy handout
• literature web and poetry graphic organizer
• Venn diagram
• literary analysis prompt
• short literary analysis essay rubric
• instructional video on YouTube which includes a think-aloud as the teacher models her annotation process.

This activity can be used with a variety of online learning platforms including Google Classroom™, MS Teams™, Schoology™, and more!

If preferred, you can find the print-only lesson here:

Print Only Writing Task "Naming Myself" & "My Name"

Want other digital resources? You may be interested in these:

Digital Task Cards for To Kill a Mockingbird

Digital Task Cards for Reading Standards

Back to School Problem Solving Writing Prompts

Meaningful and Memorable English Language Arts by © OCBeachTeacher

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