A reading comprehension instructional activity traces the history of musical theatre. It starts with ancient Greece choruses and continues through the ballad and comic operas of the Renaissance, the operettas of Britain, France, and...

While many can identify Ernest Hemingway's famous works, they may be unaware of his service during World War I and how that affected his literary contributions. An video details Hemingway's service in World War I and explains events and...

If you're tired of defining allusion, onomatopoeia, and satire for your language arts students, hand out a complete list of literary devices to keep the terms straight. Each term includes a definition that is easy to understand and...

History inspires fantasy. That idea forms the basis of an informational video about the genre. Through the video, viewers learn about different subgenres of fantasy and discover its key characteristics. The video discusses many popular...

Heroes with six-pack abs, helpless heroines, cliche plot lines —must be a romance novel! An informational video describes the romance novel genre and explains how it differs from a traditional love story. It uses popular texts as...

How is it that science fiction writers have displayed the uncanny ability to predict the future? An informational video discusses the genre of science fiction and explains how it has developed. Discussions of specific texts, such...

Barbie has been an iconic figure in the lives of girls since the 1950s, but her existence has been full of controversy. A lesson plan on style, format, and genre explores that controversy by looking at three texts with different...

What makes a fairy tale a fairy tale? Use a 27-page packet to supplement your next fairy tale unit. With sequencing activities, story map worksheets, character analyses and story elements graphic organizers, and fairy tale highlight...

From A to Z, learners define, draw, and find examples of specific reading focus skills in an alphabetized reading vocabulary packet. Words include dialogue, theme, text structure, genre, paraphrase, and many more.

May the comprehension skills be with you! Focus on context clues, vocabulary words, and analysis questions with an article about Star Wars: The Force Awakens and its record-breaking ticket sales.  

Need an extra challenge for your best readers? Check out a unit that uses Hannah Webster Foster’s epistolary novel, The Coquette, published in 1797, as the anchor text. The resource is packed with project ideas; each with its own...

Ten drama lessons are the perfect addition to your language arts or theater class. With a focus on script elements, plot development, and parts of a dramatic story, the lessons guide young playwrights through the steps of telling a story...

A short story is only as strong as its characters, development, and conflicts. Encourage the young authors in your class to plan their stories based on the elements of narrative writing, all provided in brainstorming graphic organizers.

Ideal for a language arts class, literary unit, or independent reading assignment, a set of reading worksheets address a wide array of skills. From poetic elements to nonfiction text features, you can surely find a valuable resource in...

Kelly Hashway's "The Closet Creature" gives primary graders an opportunity to demonstrate their reading comprehension skills as they respond to the prompts on four different reading worksheets.

As the culminating project for a unit study of The House of the Scorpion, class members craft a multi-genre research paper to demonstrate not only their depth of knowledge of a topic of interest to them, but also their understanding of...

In response to reading Pearl Buck's The Good Earth, individuals are asked to complete a multi-genre writing assignment, crafting eight different pieces including a research paper.

Conclude your unit on Peter and the Starcatchers with an involved final writing project that requires learners to write persuasive pieces, compose short stories, create brochures about the setting of the novel, and choose from a list of...

Get a different response each day of the week with five unique reading log pages. Learners will engage fully in their free reading by filling out a nightly entry on these worksheets. The log requires learners to comment on everything...

Reflect on your reading with a book review form. After finishing a novel or short story, kids choose the correct genre and discuss their favorite part. They also decide which part they would change, and whether or not they would...

Put the tips and tricks in this guide into practice in order to encourage your pupils to blossom into poets. A wonderful reference material for teachers, this packet includes definitions of poetic terms and forms as well as step-by-step...

Address the literary elements in a piece of writing using these materials. The packet includes plenty of resources, and focuses mainly on theme, character, and point of view, with some materials for setting, symbolism, and author's...

Make a study of the Gothic style by taking an in-depth look at Edgar Allan Poe's story "The Fall of the House of Usher." Lead a discussion about the Gothic elements in the story and the effect the story has on readers. Next, ask students...

Pick apart any play with this collection of questions. The 24 questions are grouped into categories by topic (genre, setting, characters, plot, etc.) and are clearly listed on two pages.