Teaching Materials: Archive

What you see below is an archive of teaching materials, organized by the name and number of the course for which they were designed. Simply find a course you're teaching and start browsing handouts and lesson plans. Alternately, if you're looking for stuff you can use in any English course, check out the "General Materials" section.

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General Materials

• Argumentation
• Handout - Creating an Argument
• Presentation - Composing a Thesis
• Close Reading
• Handout - Close Reading
• Handout - Reading Poetry Technically
• Composition
• Activity - Paper Revision Exercise
• Activity - Sentence Revision Exercise
• Handout - Notes Toward Writing a Good English Paper
• Handout - Postmortem Checklist and Self-Assessment

ENG 101: Freshman Seminar

• Syllabi
• Syllabus - The Many Wests of the United States
• Paper Assignments
• Paper Assignment - Argumentative Article Review
• Paper Assignment - Critical Essay
• Paper Assignment - Keyword Essay

ENG 105: Expository Writing

• Syllabi
• Syllabus - Composition and Coming of Age
• Syllabus - Higher Education and the Human Body

ENG 211: Introduction to Poetry

• Diction (Gwendolyn Brooks, C.K. Williams, Robert Frost)
• Lesson Plan - Gwendolyn Brooks, C.K. Williams, Robert Frost, and Diction
• Meter (Limericks)
• Lesson Plan - Limericks and Meter

ENG 234: Introduction to Shakespeare

• William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
• Lesson Plan - Romeo and Juliet and Making an Argument

ENG 270-2: American Literary Traditions, Part II

• Herman Melville, Bartleby, the Scrivener
• Lesson Plan - Introductions and Herman Melville
• Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
• Lesson Plan - Harriet Jacobs and Literariness
• Mark Twain, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
• Lesson Plan - Huck Finn and Making an Argument

ENG 273: Introduction to 20th-Century American Literature

• Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises
• Lesson Plan and Handout - Hemingway and Close Reading
• Langston Hughes, "The Negro Speaks of Rivers"
• Handout - Introductions and Langston Hughes
• Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49
• Lesson Plan and Handout - Pynchon and Song Lyrics

Frequently Asked Questions: Archive

What you see below is an archive of teaching-related questions frequently asked by Northwestern English TAs and instructors. Simply find a question that interests you, click on the link, and enjoy a written answer from an actual, experienced graduate student-teacher.

Handout - Close Reading

Click here: "Handout - Close Reading"

A handout that introduces close reading and that identifies and describes the basic formal elements of literature.

Adapted by Garrett Morrison from NU English Department tradition.

Handout - Postmortem Checklist and Self-Assessment

Click here: "Handout - Postmortem Checklist and Self-Assessment"

A handout, to be completed by students and submitted along with their papers, that guides students through the final stages of editing, formatting, and reflecting on their writing.

Designed by Garrett Morrison

Activity - Sentence Revision Exercise

Click here: "Activity - Sentence Revision Exercise"

An activity that guides students through the process of revising sentences. Applying the precepts of Booth, Colomb, and Williams's The Craft of Research, students replace baggy nominalizations and "to be" constructions with simple nouns and active verbs.

Designed by Garrett Morrison

Activity - Paper Revision Exercise

Click here: "Activity - Paper Revision Exercise"

An activity that guides students through the process of revising a draft of an essay. Students tighten their writing at all levels, from argument to analysis, paragraph to sentence.

Designed by Garrett Morrison.

ENG 101 Paper Assignment - Keyword Essay

Click here: "ENG 101 Paper Assignment - Keyword Essay"

A paper assignment that asks students to write a short essay (and give a five-minute presentation) on a keyword, à la Raymond Williams.

Designed by Garrett Morrison