The English language has many irregular verbs. Clear up confusion with a quick exercise. The worksheet focuses on the many forms of three different verbs: Break, shine, and speak. Pupils read each sentence and select the correct form of...

What is a homograph? Develop your students' vocabulary with a word association tool.   Language arts classes discover what a homograph is and how it can be used as a visual thesaurus. They discover the other uses for homographs...

Use this lesson to focus on a compare and contrast writing structure in your middle school language arts class. Here, young writers compare and contrast two texts using graphic organizers. They use a double bubble format for their...

"The Last Song" by Bernie Taupin and Elton John is the inspiration for an analysis assignment. Individuals read the song and answer nine questions about the speaker, figurative language, and significance of the lyrics. Use this as an...

Identify features of a nonfiction article in this language arts lesson. Middle schoolers apply comprehension strategies as they read the parts of the article, and analyze the author's key points. Additionally, they examine information in...

Stump speeches are the focus of this exercise that combines politics and language arts. After learning about this type of speech, the class listens to Obama's 2008 presidential campaign stump speech and answers a series of questions that...

Can your pupils identify these five important civil rights figures? Given five short descriptions, learners must match each person to his or her civil rights achievements. 

Prepare your pupils for a debate or argumentative writing assignment. Students can use the two columns here to take notes on two different arguments about the same topics. They then note down their own positions and briefly explain their...

Stanchion, spar, spinnaker. Right wing, sweeper, hip check. Every subject has specialized vocabulary. Here’s a fun way to introduce your learners to this jargon. Provide class groups with newspapers and have them search pre-selected...

Having a debate doesn't mean you're fighting. Introduce middle schoolers to debate with a resource which distinguishes between an quarrel and a debate, describes the debate process and format, and presents some possible debate topics.

Scholars use a Story Impressions Note-catcher to capture their first impressions of words or phrases from To Kill a Mockingbird. They then listen to a reading of the first six pages of the novel before the teacher asks questions to check...

Positive or negative? Class members take another look at one of the taking-a-stand photographs from lesson plan one. They talk with partners to connect the picture to the text in To Kill A Mockingbird and discuss to determine when taking...

Let's make some sense of those thoughts! Scholars continue thinking about the different perspectives on Pearl Harbor. They analyze quotes from War in the Pacific, Day of Infamy, and Fourteen-Part Message. Readers tape each quote to chart...

Annoyed or bewitched—how does an author's word choice affect a text? Scholars begin the instructional activity by analyzing word choice in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. Next, learners take a closer look at the narrative...

Which came first: the chicken or the egg? As part of the end-of-unit assessment for The Omnivore’s Dilemma, scholars watch a video about organic eggs versus conventional farm eggs. They use graphic organizers to collect evidence as they...

These functional slides first show a list of parts of speech then a few sentences. In each subsequent slide, nouns are first highlighted, then pronouns on the next slide, and articles on the next slide, all using the same basic...

Imagine four pages of writing prompts. Although designed specifically for eighth graders, the topics could be used for upper-elementary and high school writers as well.

Young scholars investigate slavery in America circa the American Revolution. They will examine point- of view and perspective as they research a variety of informational resources. While this is designed to be used with the PBS video...

In this entertaining presentation, middle school students consider a variety of ways to distinguish between appropriate and inappropriate words and expressions by looking at context clues. After going over some strategies, students take...

Demonstrate how to engage in a polite and professional conversation with this banking and interfacing lesson. Focusing on explanatory and informaitonal texts, middle schoolers write sentences using banking and finance terminologies....

Help your young writers produce high-quality topic and thesis statements that go beyond basic wording and really illustrate complex ideas and critical thinking skills. From however and compound sentence statements to using...

Believe it or not, everyone plays a role in Internet advertising. Scholars explore the topic with a podcast about Internet advertising and personal identity. Next, partners plan and produce their own public service announcements to...

Close up your unit of study with an examination of one of the guiding or essential questions as it relates to what your class has studied and other research. Class members first write down the question. Then they note down information...

Learners can respond to each chapter of The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton by composing journal entries. This page lists several prompts for each chapter that pupils can choose from. The prompts are based on the content of the chapter and...