Nathaniel Hawthorne
Lesson plans for
The Scarlet Letter
and other works
| Biography and Background | | "The Birthmark" | | "Dr. Heidegger's Experiment" | | "The Minister's Black Veil" | | The Scarlet Letter | | "Young Goodman Brown" | | Other short stories |
Biography and Background
A short article about how the two men met.
Criticism from John Erskine.
from EdSitement
Students recognize the difference between a narrator and an author and explore the impact of an author's personal history on his or her creative life, particularly in the context of American society.
A good source of biographical and background information. Don't miss the Scholar's Forum.
Classroom issues and strategies; major themes, historical perspectives, and personal issues; significant form, style, or artistic conventions; suggestions about understanding the original audience of his work; and links to related authors.
Critical essay by Carl Van Doren.
Brief biography and links to several e-texts.
"The Birthmark"
Summary/introduction, close reading questions, and vocabulary.
How might students use storyboards to demonstrate and to extend their learning? Check the resources here. Students work with plot diagram, vocabulary, tone and word choice, more.
Note: Storyboard That helps sponsor this site.
Designed to go with Shelley's
Frankenstein
and Hawthorne's "The Birthmark," could be used with either one alone.
"Dr. Heidegger's Experiment"
42 words presented in context and with definitions. Click on a word for pronunciation, examples of recent use, more.
Students read a humorous story by Nathaniel Hawthorne and, as part of a curriculum unit on American literary humor, compare it to other American literary humorists in order to gain perspective on each writer's brand of humor and its significance within the context of American literary tradition. After debating the merits of "moral" humor like Hawthorne's as compared with the "folk" humor of Harris and Twain, students test the possibilities of blending these traditions by recasting a paragraph of Hawthorne's story in dialect style.
"The Minister's Black Veil"
Click here : these lesson plans are on a separate page.
The Scarlet Letter
Click here : Hester, Pearl, and Arthur have moved to a separate page (on the edge of the village near the woods).
"Young Goodman Brown"
Click here: these lesson plans are on a separate page.
Other short stories
Text of the story in HTML, PDF, and Google docs formats. Includes a link to a nonfiction/informational text about the historical background to the story.
Text of an essay published in
The Atlantic Monthly
in 1862.
This site includes a slide presentation on symbol and allegory. It also has related discussion questions for "Rappacini's Daughter," "The Celestial Railroad," and "My Kinsman, Major Molineux."
Students compare/contrast this story with "Young Goodman Brown."
Introduction and text of the story, available in PDF and Google Docs formats.
Text of the story online, via Google Docs, or in PDF.
Text of the story with guided reading questions in the right margin and at the end. This 29-page document requires Adobe Reader or compatible application for access.