Introduce a study of satire with a presentation of laugh-out-loud funny slides that define the various characteristics of satiric writing and provide examples of each.

Language arts learners don't need a lecture about poetry; they listen to poetry every day on the radio! Apply skills from literary analysis to famous songs and beautiful lyrics with a lesson about literary devices. As class...

If your language arts learners have a hard time determining the universal theme of a written work, use a straightforward instructional activity to help them find it. After reviewing a list of common themes, kids note the title,...

Introduce your freshmen to reading comprehension strategies and key literary elements with a year's worth of lessons and exercises. Each lesson focuses on a specific literary device and includes a definition of the term, a passage that...

The metaphor of a pot of soup and a series of colorful templates remind young writers of the elements that make for a rich story. Pepper the plot with carrot/character, potato/point of view, corn/conflict, tomato/theme, and season with...

Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God presents three strong central themes: a woman's voice, race, and religion. After finishing the novel for homework the night before, kids address these themes in a discussion and writing...

Grow an understanding of short story with a well-sequenced plan built around an Academy Award-winning short film. Class members explore the elements of an effective short story, and practice writing their own. They also watch the short...

Discuss two possible themes from Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club in the ninth of ten lessons in a novel unit. Having finished the book, readers engage in a discussion about the themes of fate, memory, and transformation, and answer questions...

Explore San Francisco's Chinatown in a lesson about the first few chapters of The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan. Kids research Chinatown on the Internet and create a virtual tour of the neighborhood, including the foods, cultural events, and...

"It seemed the more I knew about people the more I knew about the strange magic hidden in their hearts." Ultima's strange magic and the hidden hearts of Narciso, Tenorior, and the other foils in Bless Me, Ultima, are examined in the...

What does Scout learn about herself from the other characters in Harper Lee's tale? Groups are assigned two different secondary characters, compile a list of the character's traits, and, using evidence from the text, consider what Scout...

Readers learn about sharecropping in the South in a unit about Ernest J. Gaines's A Lesson Before Dying. Focusing on the period after Civil War Reconstruction but before the Civil Rights Movement, a set of handouts help to establish the...

"In his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars." The figurative language found in the first four chapters of The Great Gatsby comes under scrutiny in an activity that...

The children's book Officer Buckle and Gloria by Peggy Rathmann is a great story for teaching young learners about teamwork and the importance of following rules. In a detailed, read-aloud instructional activity, children learn to use...

While music lyrics are often used to teach literary elements, the richness of this resource comes from the wealth of exercises, activities, and support materials provided in the packet.  Although designed for gifted learners, the...

Use all of these exercises, assignments, and assessments or pick and choose your favorites for your study of "The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost. In this resource you will find: an informational text to examine, vocabulary lists and...