Santa Ana Unified School District
Early American Poets
The poems of Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson are the focus of a unit that asks readers to consider how an artist's life and changes in society influences his or her work. After careful study of Whitman's and Dickinson's perspectives on...
MENSA Education & Research Foundation
Utopia/Dystopia: The American Dream
America was founded by dreamers, and the American dream still resonates in our country today. Track the American dream from its Puritan beginnings to its optimistic descendants with a instructional activity that focuses on speeches by...
Curated OER
Analyzing Persuasion
A reading of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech launches a study of rhetorical devices such as hyperbole, allusion, metaphor, simile, personification, connotative language and parallel structure. Class members then...
Curated OER
Literary Response and Analysis
Students analyze the archetype of 'the fall' in Shakespeare's Macbeth. In this literary analysis lesson, students work in tiered learning groups to analyze the characters of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. Students use the book of Genesis as...
Curated OER
Language Arts, Music, Poetry: Blues Style
This instructional activity focuses on how the blues both operates as poetry and informs the poetry of many prominent African American poets. Students consider the poetic devices and recurring themes in blues lyrics and the significance...
Curated OER
Persuasion and Use of Language
Students discuss connotative language, hyperbole, allusion, and rhetorical question. In small groups, they read one section of the "Speech to the Virginia Convention" and analyze these devices. Groups present their results to the class.
Curated OER
From Ordinary To Extraordinary Writing
Learners investigate the quality of writing while focusing on the use of sensory words to convey meaning and ideas. The power of similes and metaphors is emphasized while they create and edit works of writing. The skill of descriptive...
Curated OER
Poetic Analysis
Students write a poetic analysis on a poem by Carl Sandburg. They take their previous knowledge of poetic devices and apply them to a piece of writing that displays their knowledge on a specific poem. They explain what they know about a...
Curated OER
Creating an Anthology
Student compile a poetry anthology. In this literature lesson, students examine notable poetry anthologies. Students then select a theme to build their anthologies of 10 poems pertaining to their chosen theme.