Making Classic Literature Fun for High School Students

Hester Prynne on a Maury-eske 'Who's Your Baby Daddy?' paternity results show? Jay Gatsy on The Dating Game to try to forget Daisy? A witch trial with modern lawyers and a jury? This guide is a fun, fresh, informative way to teach classic literature such as The Scarlet Letter, The Crucible, and The Great Gatsby to high school students. Each of the activities presented in the book have been used in the classroom with overwhelmingly positive results. After reading the once dreaded classic of required reading and showing off their creativity with the enrichment activities, teens from all backgrounds say: “I would have never picked this book myself, but I'm glad you made us read it. It's cool.” Using hands-on activities and games that relate the classics back to modern times, teens understand and appreciate the hero or heroine's situations and realize that their problems are not that different from what we go through today. The key to engaging teens is to make the material easy to relate to. They can relate to the consequences of an unplanned pregnancy (The Scarlet Letter), still being in love with an ex (The Great Gatsby), or being afraid of going against the in crowd (The Crucible). Each literature based chapter includes tests, quizzes, and examples of the creative activity.