McGraw Hill
Vocabulary Power
Augment your language arts units with a set of vocabulary worksheets. The packet is an excellent support to your vocabulary instruction that covers a variety of skills, including context clues, Greek and Latin roots, reference materials,...
Scholastic
What’s the Good Word? Etymology Project Guidelines
Who named the shapes, or the days of the week? Should words be removed from the dictionary if they're no longer commonly used? Are there too many words in the English language? Language arts students explore these and additional...
National Clearinghouse for English Language Acquisition
Building Vocabulary: Prefixes, Roots, and Suffixes
Word roots, prefixes, and suffixes can hold the key to determining the meaning of a host of different words. Included here are five pages of prefixes, roots, and suffixes paired with their meanings and example words.
Curated OER
Using Prefixes, Suffixes and Root Words to Improve College Level Vocabulary
Grow vocabulary skills with an understanding of affixes and word roots. Included here are a few activities and plenty of materials you can use to support your learners as the focus on building vocabulary.
Curated OER
Learning Vocabulary by Using Reference Materials
Finding engaging ways to help your middle schoolers build their vocabulary is not easy to do. The lesson presented here offers a great way to motivate them to build vocabulary by making it into a game. Teams of pupils use a dictionary...
Curated OER
Using Word Referents
Students edit an existing piece of writing focusing of improving word choice. They create lists of words that can be used in place of the main topic and rewrite the piece using the new vocabulary.
Curated OER
A Positive Spin
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...
Curated OER
Phineas Gage: Notecard Vocabulary Strategy
Understanding the vocabulary in a text, especially a text like Phineas Gage: A Gruesome but True Story About Brain Science that includes quite a few technical terms, can be the key to understanding the text as a whole. Learners focus on...
Curated OER
Using Context
Teams practice decoding and using context strategies to determine the meanings of unfamiliar words. After verifying the meanings of words through the use of dictionaries, the Internet, thesauruses, and other sources, learners write the...
Curated OER
Take the Prefix Challenge
Students form words using prefixes. In this prefix lesson, students compete in a "prefix challenge" to see which team can combine a set of twelve prefixes with a set of twelve words fastest. Students enter their words in a word log and...
Curated OER
Etymology
Learners dissect and build words from parts like prefixes, base words, suffixes, and inflectional endings. Etymology skills help us find the meanings of words by identifying the different parts that constitute them. Class members use...
California Federation of Chaparral Poets, Inc
Poetic Devices
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...
Polk Bros Foundation
I Can Infer the Meaning of a Word in Context
Work on developing strategies for determining the meaning of unknown words and phrases with a quick context clues exercise. Class members choose two words from their reading and write down what they think they mean and why. See the...
Curated OER
Georgia CRCT Online: 8th Language Arts Quiz
Review word choice and grammar skills with this practice test for the Georgia Criterion-Referenced Competency Test (CRCT). Fifteen multiple-choice questions prompt eighth graders to recall writing strategies, grammar skills, and...
Curated OER
Informative Speech Assignment
Allow your pupils to take on the role of the instructor with an informative speech that covers a new topic related to your unit of study or new information on a subject your class has already studied. Pupils fill out the provided outline...
Road to Grammar
Understanding the -ED Ending
English is a complex language, so take some time to clarify one aspect that is often confusing for English language learners: the -ed ending. This resource includes information about the different ways the -ed ending is used and provides...
Curated OER
The Last Word: Using Critical Thinking and Analysis to Reach a Decision
Want to explore the process of writing a persuasive essay and tie it in with the upcoming elections? Class members use Venn diagrams and the hamburger model of persuasive writing to write a five-paragraph essay on elections and...
Oakland Writes
Exploring Thematic Motifs in The House on Mango Street
Explore identity and community through an expository essay based on The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros. This two-week unit on writing an essay provides a brief description of each day and all of the worksheets and materials you...
Curated OER
Research project
Eighth graders explore reference materials and then complete a research project. In this research project lesson plan, 8th graders choose the best reference source to use. Students learn to correctly site sources for their project....
jc-schools
The Expository Essay
Did you ever create an awesome graphic organizer only to find that your class was completely baffled by how to use it? This resource not only provides you with a great graphic organizer for a standard five-paragraph essay, but also...
MENSA Education & Research Foundation
The Writer’s Toolbox: What You Need to Master the Craft
Strengthen your high schoolers' writing with a series of steps for writing successfully. With sections on organizing an essay, choosing a topic, crafting a thesis statement, and revising a draft, the lesson encourages your class to...
Road to Grammar
Mastering the Present Perfect Tense
You have found a solid resource for covering the present perfect tense. Starting with explanation and examples, this resource moves quickly into a series of exercises that target specific elements of the present perfect tense. Scroll to...
We are Teachers
Phrases to Outlaw in Students' Writing
If your writing classroom was the Wild West, what phrases would be "outlawed"? Here is one poster that every writing instructor, and really, any teacher of communication, should have in their classroom!
Curated OER
APA Format and Citation
What is APA format, and how is it different from MLA format? Dive into the world of APA, investigate how to properly cite resources in-text, and look at a reference list of sources. Intended for higher education, not all of the...