Assign this text to deeply engage your students!

Actively Learn provides free ELA, science, and social studies digital content—short stories, primary sources, textbook sections, science articles, novels, videos, and more—and embeds them with assignments aligned to standards for all 50 states that you can assign immediately or customize for your students.

Whether you’re looking for “The Tell-Tale Heart,” The Hate U Give, “The Gettysburg Address,” or current science articles and simulations, Actively Learn is the free go-to source to help you guide your students' growth in critical thinking all year.

Teaching “If I Could Change the World” from Tears of a Tiger

“If I Could Change the World” from Tears of a Tiger

This excerpt is from the novel Tears of a Tiger. It focuses on Gerald, a high school student whose friends were recently involved in a drunk driving accident. One of his friends died in this accident. In his English class, he writes a personal essay about the topic "If I Could Change the World." This excerpt is that personal essay.

Sharon M. Draper
From TEARS OF A TIGER by Sharon M. Draper. Copyright © 1994 by Sharon M. Draper. Reprinted with the permission of Atheneum Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division. All rights reserved.

ESSENTIAL QUESTION:

How can rhetorical appeals make a claim more persuasive?
STANDARDS:

DEPTH OF KNOWLEDGE (DOK) LEVELS:

2,3
Assign this text to your students for free!