What makes you want to buy that new car? Or vote for that popular politician? Study the persuasive techniques commonly found in advertisements or argumentative writing, including repetition, exaggeration, and fact vs. opinion.

Maya Angelou's first autobiography,  I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, demonstrates both the author's exemplary writing and the themes of gender and racial injustice that perpetuate beyond the limits of the 20th century. Use a...

What a great activity. Kids create humorous ceramic character (heads) spikes to enliven a planter. Modern art is full of expressive and exaggerated forms and your class gets to create them out of clay. This would be a lovely activity to...

Examine popular language and slang and how they have changed over the course of American history. Conduct Internet research, use an online interactive Colonial House website to translate 17th century language into 21st century language,...

Researchers say that we need to hear and see new language 12 times before we remember it! Here's a plan that details a series of games that can be used as memory exercises. Bingo, Noughts and Crosses, Pelmanism, and repetitive speaking...

Explore the newspaper as a unique entity with a detailed and extended unit. The unit requires learners to consider the newspaper's role in democracy, think about ethics, practice writing and interviewing, and examine advertising and news...

Violence and human suffering, as represented in art and film, are the focus of an investigation of the power of visual images and the moral implications of such representations. Class members examine “Guernica,” Pablo Picasso’s massive...

“The Lord’s Prayer” provides the text for a study of how language changes. Using the provided link, young linguists examine the prayer in Old and Middle English and compare how the diction, syntax, and phonology have evolved over the...

“C u l8r @ skool.” As part of a study of formal and informal language, class members examine excerpts from Lil’ Boosie lyrics, the Emancipation Proclamation, a speech by Martin Luther King. Links to the resources not provided; however,...

Begin teaching your learners—and yourself—some basics about the Latin language with the inquiries available in this resource. Although the questions are linked to a textbook of unknown origin, they offer a good beginning on where to...

Tackling gender issues in your class? This online quiz about gender neutral language might be for you! Learners re-write 10 sentences using gender neutral language. When they have finished re-writing each sentence, they can check their...

Foreign language learners decipher the meanings of classified ads in the target language. They investigate a large collage created by the teacher of foreign language advertisements and discuss the content with classmates.  Then...

Help your class brush up on their spelling words and review lots of other English skills in the process. They are given 10 activities to complete to review parts of speech, compound words, synonyms, and alliteration. Creative writing is...

To practice English skills using spelling words, learners answer 10 questions, some of which ask them to use a spelling list, though none is included. The questions cover the following topics: spelling, parts of speech, alliteration,...

Initiate an international pen pal program! After establishing communication with an art class in another country, groups share pod casts and video streams of their work. The scripted resource details how to prepare for the pod casts, but...

Characterized by the five I's (imagination, intuition, idealism, inspiration, and individuality), the Romantic period saw quite a shift in the music and art production at its time. Review this PowerPoint with your class to discuss some...

Learners contribute to a classroom art show. In this art appreciation lesson, students research the lives and works of artists from different ages. Learners write reports, recreate artwork of their researched artists, and participate in...

Students study the significance of flowers in art from two periods. In this Medieval and Renaissance art lesson, students research the presence and meaning of botanical illustrations in twelfth, thirtieth, and fourteenth century...

In this New York State Testing Program English Language Arts worksheet, students read several passages and two poems and answer reading comprehension questions.  Students then write an essay response to one of the passages. 

Using their keen eyes and ears, learners build story observation skills which they will use to create sensory detail in their art. They note all of the things they observed on a walk, categorize them by sense, and then use the same skill...

Language learners create and label the rooms in a house and then add and label images of objects that may be found in each room.

Students use video and the Internet to research the life of Nellie Bly, a famous female reporter from the 19th century. They research a writer and present their information to the class in the style of a news reporter.

Shake it up! Shake your tablet to bring up a unique writing prompt for journaling or blogging with your class. Shake again and a new one appears. Prompts can come from different categories (sketches, scenes, texts, words, news) to help...

Get your kids thinking about climate change with a series of activities that include creating a ditty box poem for the planet, a poem that identifies concepts or objects they would want to preserve.