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 plan about literary devices. As...

Augment your eighth grade language arts curriculum with a thorough set of reading comprehension activities and assessments. Focusing on a variety of skills, including vocabulary in context, text structure, main idea, and author's style,...

Ready to integrate technology into your ELL instruction? Check out this reading lesson that has language learners using the Internet and apps, joining online book clubs, and creating blogs. A fine model of what can be done.

Show what you know. Learners demonstrate mastery of English grammar and usage by completing a pen-and-paper assessment of verbals and verb shifts. In addition, they begin composing a book review based on an independent reading book. The...

Middle schoolers practice evaluating art by creating a research project and presentation. They use the Internet and library to discover a piece of art or artist whom they feel has an impact on the world of art. Next, they create a...

Pupils read speeches and identify the main idea as well as the literary techniques employed, paying careful attention to the persuasion and repetition elements that each speech possesses. Using a graphic organizer, they analyze,...

Middle schoolers look closely at Martin Luther King Jr's "I Have a Dream" speech and use a language analysis sheet to determine if King's sentences use active or passive voice. They then move their attention back to A Mighty Long Way to...

Create a language mosaic to reveal the linguistic diversity in your community. Pupils interview a person with a home language other than English and contribute to a bulletin board display representing the variety of languages spoken. The...

Whether you are viewing a landscape painting of a farm, examining a still-life portrait of a bowl of fruit, or reading a descriptive poem about cultivating food, you can't deny that agriculture plays a major role in visual and language...

Similes and metaphors make writing more beautiful and detailed, but can be a little harder to decipher during a first reading. Use a passage from The Man Who Loved Words to show young readers how to think through passages that...

Focus English language learners' attention on word stress and phrase stress with a pronunciation chart that breaks the sounds into moving and non-moving vowel sounds. The chart tool uses colors and key words to indicate...

As the saying goes, art often imitates life ... and literature! A series of activities designed to accompany a visit to the Ogden Museum of Southern Art encourage writers to find inspiration in various landscapes. The activity includes a...

Explore objective and subjective writing in this interdisciplinary lesson, which brings language arts and visual art together. Middle and high school students examine the sculpture Head with Horns by Paul Gauguin. They then analyze the...

Middle schoolers aren't too young to feel strongly about politics, social issues, consumer rights, or environmental problems. Demonstrate the first steps toward social change with a project about action-oriented writing. Eighth...

High school artists observe and research the illustrations and techniques of N.C. Wyeth. They read (and reread) stories and illustrate the texts using methods inspired by Wyeth's practice. Includes detailed instructional plan and useful...

Here's a resource that deserves a place in your curriculum library, whether or not your school has adopted the Common Core. Designed for middle and high school language arts classes, the packet is packed with teaching tips, materials,...

Based on a New York Times article, "The College Drop-Out Boom," participants in a fishbowl discussion formulate and express opinions about the correlation between level of education, career options, and economic mobility. Ample...

The Pledge of Allegiance, the Gettysburg Address, the National Anthem, and the Preamble to the Constitution all get close attention in an exercise that asks learners to rewrite these formally-worded documents into informal language....

Engage in an activity that focuses on the concepts of formal and informal language use. Middle and high schoolers compare and contrast each style by using a Venn diagram that includes some examples. They read and hear a passage of lyrics...

Get the scoop with a fun, engaging newspaper project. After analyzing the parts of a newspaper, including the headline, subtitles, and pictures or images, young journalists get to work by writing their own stories in a newspaper article...

Research, art history, and web page creation! Sounds too good to be true. With tons of links and resources, the instructional activity provides you with everything needed to engage the class in an amazing art and research activity. They...

When is a staple remover a fanged monster? In your ELA classroom when you're teaching this fun figurative language lesson, of course! Get your young writers using figurative language by making a game of it. Give groups a paper bag full...

Explore the elements of science fiction. Students investigate the literary elements present in science fiction and write their own science fiction stories.

To prepare for a field trip to a local art museum, art class members journal their initial reactions to a reproduction of the work they will focus on during their visit. The whole class then considers the artistic elements in the piece...