A Separate Peace

Grade Levels

Excerpt

Each of the following lessons is geared to a specific skill category and Common Core standard. It includes a step-by-step guide to teaching the lesson as well as handouts, assessments, modification, and enrichment activities. The lessons follow the chronology of the story A Separate Peace by John Knowles.

Table of Contents

Lesson 1: Setting the stage

Lesson 2: A moment in history

Lesson 3: Action is character

Lesson 4: Memories of the heart

Lesson 5: Creating variety in sentence structure

Lesson 6: Looking through a different window

Lesson 7: A complicated friendship

Lesson 8: Inference and interpretation

Lesson 9: Opposing forces

Lesson 10: Parallelism in plot development

Lesson 11: Punctuating dialog in narrative writing

Lesson 12: Creating atmosphere in descriptive writing

Lesson 13: “One picture is worth a thousand words!”

Lesson 14: Seasons change

Lesson 15: A casualty of war

Lesson 16: Reading between the lines

Lesson 17: Finny’s last words

Lesson 18: “All the lonely people”

Lesson 19: Loss of innocence

Lesson 20: The enemy within

About

This is a full six-week unit to teach A Separate Peace by John Knowles. All of the lesson are aligned to Common Core Standards for 9th-10th grade.

This eNotes Curriculum Plan has been developed to teach students key reading skills. Whereas many lesson plans focus on the comprehension of a single text, eNotes Curriculum Plans build the expertise that enables students to understand a variety of texts. Using an exemplar text as a guide, the plan teaches students to perform textual analysis, develop an argument, and connect style, structure, and theme.

Our Curriculum Plans have been developed by experienced teachers who shared their best ideas for how to engage students, optimize their lesson time, and instill fundamental reading skills. These are tried and tested practices that have successfully advanced students’ comprehension of complex literary works and prepared them for the reading they will do as college students and adults.

Each lesson begins with an introduction that highlights the skill category and objectives of the lesson. The skills are designed to deepen understanding of the work currently being studied as well as other texts that the student encounters in his or her future reading. All of our lessons are aligned to Common Core standards, and we list the specific standards that are met by each lesson.

Each lesson also includes an instructional guide that provides step-by-step directions on how to present the material, engage students in an activity, and conclude the class. We have included suggestions on how to modify and enhance the material, as well as an assessment for student work. Many of the lessons also include handouts that can be photocopied and implemented in the classroom.

We hope you and your students enjoy these lessons. Our goal is to provide an effective, engaging experience in the classroom and develop the skills that will enable students to be lifelong readers.