Secondary Classrooms

8 Inspiring Biographies Featuring Influential Black Americans for Secondary Students

These engaging and diverse biographies on CommonLit’s digital literary platform will inspire your students to dream big and achieve excellence while strengthening their reading comprehension skills. CommonLit’s online...

Powerful Poems by Black Authors for Secondary Students

These engaging and diverse poems on CommonLit’s digital literary platform are all written by Black authors and poets. Each poem will spark reading engagement from secondary students with powerful...

8 Influential and Famous Black Authors with Lessons on CommonLit

CommonLit’s online digital literacy program is full of authentic texts by famous authors and poets. The following texts are a great resource for building meaningful and rigorous lessons for...

10 Texts to Celebrate The Life and Legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Honor the achievements of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in your classroom with historical biographies, primary source documents, speeches, and more. CommonLit’s online digital literacy program provides teachers with...

Explore 7 Engaging Secondary Texts by Famous Authors

Looking for compelling new lessons to add to your ELA curriculum? CommonLit’s digital library has hundreds of short stories by famous authors. Our guiding questions will help prepare students...

7 Texts Teachers Love to Pair With Jacob Have I Loved by Katherine Paterson

Teach key background knowledge and incorporate multi-genre analysis in a unit on Jacob Have I Loved by Katherine Paterson with these engaging supplemental texts. CommonLit’s digital literacy program...

6 Famous Acceptance Speeches to Celebrate Nobel Prize Day with Your Secondary Students

Each year on December 10th, The Norwegian Nobel Committee awards the Nobel Peace Prize to a person or organization for their significant contributions to improving society. At the award ceremony,...

Dig Into Louis Sachar’s Holes with CommonLit Reading Guides

CommonLit’s digital library offers over 3,000 lessons to support your reading curriculum. Our online reading program also offers over 100 Book Pairings, which are sets of texts that...

7 Texts to Pair With The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros

Explore powerful themes of growth, community, and family in The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros with these related texts. CommonLit’s digital literacy program provides Book Pairing resources...

Heat Up Your Class Discussion Surrounding Fahrenheit 451 with these 7 Supplemental Texts

Explore fascinating dystopian themes and bolster student reading comprehension using CommonLit’s novel companion lessons. CommonLit’s online literacy program offers thousands of detailed reading lessons. Additionally, teachers can find...

Rule the School with this Novel Guide for Lord of The Flies

Analyze human psychology and literary themes in Lord of the Flies by William Golding with these supplemental readings. CommonLit’s digital literacy program provides Book Pairing resources for over a...

6 Holiday Stories that Celebrate Cultures from Around the World

Teach students about holidays around the world and build diversity in the classroom with this selection of short stories for grades 6-8! Students celebrate a variety of holidays for...

6 Short Stories About Love to Get Your Heart Beating

Love is a complex emotion, but it can be found everywhere, especially in this list of short stories about love that will pull at your heartstrings! Our capacity to love...

7 Informational Texts About Food That Secondary Students Will Devour!

Reading comprehension instruction should leave students wanting more, and this round-up of informational texts about food is sure to leave your secondary students hungry to continue reading. From the...

6 Short Stories about Courage to Embolden Your Middle School Students

6 Short Stories about Courage to Embolden Your Middle School Students Check out 6 relatable short stories about courage for middle school students in CommonLit’s free digital library! Build...

Widen Students' Scope of Reality with 7 Magical Realism Stories

Build a thematic unit on magical realism with 7 fantastical short stories from CommonLit’s digital library! Interested in diving deeper into the fantasy genre? With CommonLit’s free online...

Empower Students with 7 Short Stories about Perseverance

Enhance your ELA curriculum with short stories about overcoming adversity from CommonLit’s digital library! Lead inspiring classroom discussions with high-quality stories about resilience that will boost students’ reading...

Fly Through To Kill a Mockingbird with CommonLit’s Curated Lesson Plans

Here are 12 informational and literary texts to introduce alongside Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. The CommonLit library has over 3,000 high-quality lessons that engage students...

Fall in Love with these Lesson Plans for Your Romeo and Juliet Unit

Build upon your Shakespeare unit with literary and informational lessons that bewitch your class and ask big questions that are raised in Romeo and Juliet. CommonLit offers thousands of lessons,...

Nine Golden Texts for Teaching The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton

CommonLit’s digital library is home to thousands of rigorous reading lessons. We also offer “Book Pairings,” sets of texts to support high-quality novel instruction, for more than 100...

Don’t Get Lost in the Odyssey: Use Reading Lessons from CommonLit to Boost Students’ Reading Comprehension and Engagement

These high interest informational texts, poems, and short stories are the perfect complement to a unit of ELA instruction focused on The Odyssey. CommonLit’s digital literacy program features over...

7 Fantasy Stories to Transport Students to Magical Worlds

Let your students’ imaginations run wild with these otherworldly texts! Looking to enchant your students with exciting new realities and characters? Take your classroom on a journey to make any...

Decipher Code Talker in Your Classroom with CommonLit’s Book Pairing

Use historic texts and literary resources to engage students and deepen their understanding as they read Code Talker by Joseph Bruchac. The CommonLit digital literacy program offers over one hundred...

7 Memorable Memoirs for High School Studies

Helping high schoolers look up from their feeds and put themselves in the shoes of someone else can seem impossible! A good memoir or autobiography offers students a window into...

5 Gary Soto Short Stories for Middle School (and What to Teach With Each)

Five free CommonLit short stories from Baseball in April and Other Stories, plus a way to teach each one. Victor raises his hand to impress a girl and claims he...