Though this worksheet on colloquialisms in English songs might be fun, it's hard to see an application for it in the classroom. The best way to use this worksheet, which provides a list of words like "gimme" and "gotta" to be paired up...

Young readers can be exposed to the literary works of Mark Twain as they interact with challenging text and gain experience by reading the complex passages of chapter two "The Glorious Whitewasher" from his famous book, The Adventures of...

Foster community in your classroom and encourage learners to get up and get to know each other. Individuals each receive the classmate inventory handout included and use it to fill in information about their fellow scholars. Once they...

Here's the perfect resource for anyone using Edgar Allan Poe's famous short story the "Tell-Tale Heart." The packet includes five worksheets that provide skills practice exercises focusing on spelling with consonant blends,...

Once the class learns about the hero's journey, they'll find it in every story and movie they see! Take characters from their humble beginnings to their atonement and apotheosis with a set of lessons about the hero's journey...

For this language arts worksheet, students match abbreviations that are used in the English language but come from Latin derivatives. They draw a line from 19 abbreviations to their definitions.

Students examine storytelling in a cross curricular unit. Language arts, social studies, science and math are all incorporated in this project as well as technology through the use of Hyperstudio.

Eighth graders review sound and rhythm devices and apply them to their own writing exercises. Next, they interpret the poem, "Where I'm From," as an example of a personal narrative. Using their understanding of poetic devices, they...

The death of a parent can turn a child's world upside down. A curriculum guide for The Secret Hum of a Daisy explores defining moments in the main character's life, including the loss of her mother. Chapter-by-chapter discussion...

Spice up your writing! Your amateur writers will benefit from concentrating on understanding and improving verb use in writing. An introductory activity addresses weak verbs. A second exercise helps them see the importance of strong...

Helpful for an American literature or history unit, this lesson prompts middle schoolers to examine slavery in the United States. They read slave narratives that were part of the Federal Writers' Project and then conduct their own...

Have everything you need to know about the elements of poetry with a nine-page handout. Split into four categories—word sounds, meanings, arrangement, and imagery—budding poets may reference terms, read definitions, descriptions, and...

Middle schoolers write a personification poem and identify its use. They make a pattern worksheet and then use Photoshop Elements skills to illustrate their poem. Students use layer styles with the text to highlight the poetry.

Run quickly. Walk slowly. Jump high. As part of their study of English parts of speech, language learners engage in a series of activities designed to introduce them to the descriptive power of adverbs.

Explore how the informality of electronic correspondence has affected communications in the workplace. Writers develop pages for a basic writing guide that contains rules and examples to help correct common writing errors. A great way to...

Targeting some commonly misused verbs, this worksheet could help learners avoid language-related errors. While just a short review of verbs, it could be a way to introduce the importance of proper word usage.

A four-lesson series on Canadian culture. Learners explore a variety of Canadian communities and study art forms which depict life in those communities. Pupils create works of art depicting their community and present them to the class....

The rich language of O. Henry's "The Gift of the Magi" is only appreciable if you understand the words. A short lesson reviews 13 words from the story and prompts class members to apply each word and its definition to other situations.

Help your middle schoolers identify personal experience narratives in their own lives through telling stories themselves and from family members or other adults. They study personal experience narratives in Swapping Stories and compare...

Investigate the significance of adjectives with a newspaper activity that addresses effective language. Readers probe teacher-provided articles in search of the mighty modifiers, and practice by replacing them with a different word, and...

Learners correct errors in spelling and usage in a quick, six-line proofreading exercise. Makes a nice warm-up and reinforces editing skills. I've seen work like this called Daily Oral Language (D.O.L) practice; the class reviews the...

Practice language convention usage with this brief proofreading exercise. Together your class can verbally correct grammatical mistakes in a short paragraph about Ida B. Wells. Then individual learners can rewrite it or mark the hard...

Des'ree's song "You Gotta Be" is used to model for language learners the forms that can be used to express necessity (must, have to, have got to). After examining the grammar in the song, the attention switches to a discussion of the...

Here's a clever way to introduce language learners to noun clauses. After a brief exercise that provides examples of different types of noun clauses, class members listen to the Association's "Never, My Love" and identify the clauses in...