Identifying the tone of a piece of writing or the author's attitude toward the subject matter can be difficult for learners. Simplify the process with a instructional activity that begins with skits, moves to songs and their lyrics, and...

Good discussion questions, quizzes, and tests teach as well as assess. Readers of The Great Gatsby will learn much from the materials in a 36-page packet designed to help students prepare for the AP Literature exam. Included in the...

One of the reasons presidential inaugural speeches are so inspiring is the way word choice reflects the historical context of the time. An interactive timeline invites learners to click on their president of choice and view the most...

How can word choice affect a political speech? Middle and high schoolers examine the text of the 1999 State of the Union Address, and then determine how newspaper articles and television reports describe and analyze the event. Use this...

Help your class find their writing voices with this lesson which uses the work of Ralph Fletcher to guide a "Prompt in Reverse" activity. Using the chapter "First Pen" from Fletcher's Marshfield Dreams, learners decipher what they...

Study the importance of word choice in informational text. Middle and high schoolers locate unfamiliar words and phrases in newspaper articles of their choosing, and use online word sites to explore the definitions and histories of each....

Can word choice affect a candidate's likeability? Use a New York Times lesson to explore how a presidential candidate's likeability factor can fluctuate in public opinion polls. Young readers choose a presidential election from their...

Study word choice and connotation in advertising. Readers examine campaign ads, both negative and positive, from the 2006 mid-term election before discussing an article and analyze a campaign of any candidate they choose. Finally, they...

Knock, knock, knock...Creep out your class with a critical thinking lesson focused on word relationships in Edgar Allen Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart." They investigate  the relationship between word choice, mood, and interpretation of a...

A Six-Trait Writing instructional activity helps your middle schoolers liven up their word choice and shows them how to evaluate their own writing. Class members take a close look at the language used in poems by Shakespeare, Kipling,...

Engage critical and social thinking by exploring the value of language and word choice. The class considers the article "The Silence of the Historic Present" and analyzes several presidential speeches. They engage in class discussion,...

What a fantastic resource to guide youngsters in persuasive letter writing. They read a brief letter to the editor and answer question about the author's purpose, word choice, and structure. Next, scholars draft their own letter by...

A comprehensive and immersive series of lessons that examines various aspects of story development leads learners into writing a narrative of their own. Writers develop an understanding of the writing process as they use the learning...

Support your writers! Clear procedures and appropriate support make this a superb resource for elementary writing instruction. Ready your class to compose original descriptive paragraphs inspired by the episode in Roald Dahl's James and...

New ReviewHere's a lesson that adds some zip to a study of parts of speech. Class members read two versions of the same article, one loaded with evocative nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs, while the other is missing this sensory language....

New ReviewRemember when everything was Fantastic! Fabulous! Awesome! Iconic! A series of activities encourages young writers to move beyond these overused descriptors and instead choose a more precise language.

Words matter! That's the big idea behind an activity that asks scholars to replace words in FDR's "Day of Infamy" speech with synonyms. They then listen to a recording of President Roosevelt's address and compare his version to their own.

Five lessons make up a curriculum guide to The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Readers find examples of Twain's use of irony, closely examine Huck's colloquial language, as well as his sense of morality, and identify themes in the novel....

Kon-Tiki, the record of Thor Heyerdahl's 1947 raft journey across the Pacific Ocean, is the focus of three classroom activities. In a lesson on connotation and bias language, class members record instances of Heyerdahl's word choice....

Are you contemplating a poetry study featuring Emily Dickinson? Finding good primary sources to accompany the study can be a challenge—never fear, help is here! Check out this primary source set that includes manuscripts of several of...

Beware political rhetoric! Connotation is everything! Groups select a presidential candidate and investigate how the candidate's position has changed on a specific issue. After analyzing the situation, the group determines whether they...

Beyonce's "Halo" and Bruno Mars' "Grenade" provide eighth graders with an opportunity to consider how a writer's choice of words can create a very different tone even when the subject is the same. After a close reading of both lyrics,...

James Hurst's short story "The Scarlet Ibis" provides eighth graders with an opportunity to sharpen their literary analysis skills. After a close reading of the text, class members highlight and annotate parts of the dialogue and...