Let's eat kids. Let's eat, kids. Commas make a difference! Conventions 101: A Functional Approach to Teaching (and Assessing!) Grammar and Punctuation explains ways to teach the importance and use of conventions. Learners take part in...

Reinforce usage and proper grammar with this presentation, which addresses common grammatical mistakes. It covers instances of bad usage in literature, cliches to avoid, and the increase of errors in the computer generation. The final...

Prepare class members for the SAT Writing and Language exam with a practice test that prepares students for the types of questions and the kind of language used in the exam. Test takers must select the best way to fix poorly...

Using methods adopted by Public Policy Analysts (PPA) class groups define a social problem, gather evidence to document the existence of the problem, identify causes, evaluate existing policies designed to deal with the problem, develop...

Readers of Tuesdays with Morrie are directed to use a K-W-H-L chart to record what they know, what they want to learn, how they will find information, and what they learned about a particular topic related to Mitch Albom's book.

This comprehensive assessment tool covers parts of speech, transitivity, punctuation, common usage errors, and verb tense. Your budding grammarians demonstrate knowledge of an array of discrete points of correct usage in English. I'd use...

Help your future college graduates prepare for higher education with this series of lessons. High schoolers complete research projects about the colleges they would like to attend, and create PowerPoint presentations about their careers...

Pupils can write down all of the major plot elements of My Antonia by Willa Cather on this straightforward worksheet. Learners note down themes, characters, the chain of events, and more.

To culminate a study of Markus Zusak's The Book Thief, individuals craft a persuasive essay in which they assume the voice of a member of one of the political parties during the early 1920s, and advocate that their party offers the...

Looking for a resource to introduce homeschoolers and other out-of-class learners to the elements of poetry? Check out this packet that defines and illustrates important poetry terms.

Everyone talks about dotting your i's and crossing your t's, but what about curling your apostrophes? These important punctuation marks are the focus of this presentation. Class members will learn all about contractions, plurals, and...

What would you do? To prepare readers for the death of Mr. Pignati, one of the characters in Paul Zindel's The Pigman, individuals complete a problematic situation worksheet and then compare their responses to others in their group.

Here is an outstanding series of lessons on journalism, writing newspaper articles, and writing editorials. This type of writing has long-been neglected in our schools, so this collection of writing activities is most-valuable. Along...

Use pictures and manipulatives to develop vocabulary with your beginning language learners. This plan can be used with foreign language learners (although you'll have to provide the vocabulary), English language learners, or a young...

An online interactive quiz provides grammarians a chance to check their expertise with adjective clauses and comma usage. Many of the 15 examples deal with correct usage to avoid clauses that end in a preposition. Select the answer you...

Use this analysis of My Antonia to help inform your instruction and prepare your pupils for the project and enrichment ideas listed at the end of the resource. The analysis covers big questions related to the text, themes, plot elements,...

Designed as the final project concluding a study of Mississippi Trial, 1955, readers select a character from Crowe's novel and craft a portfolio of six entries that reveal not only aspects of the character, but similarities between...

This four-page handout explains in detail when and why to use commas. Three extended sentences provide an opportunity for practice splitting long sentences into shorter ones. Multiple examples help to clarify correct usage.

Develop an online newspaper covering the Lewis and Clark Expedition. The class publishes their newspaper on the school's Web site and analyze both primary and secondary sources.

Investigate articles from the daily news and share opinions with classmates. Using current events, learners view a news program without sound and predict what news is being discussed by analyzing the visuals. Then they read news articles...

A passage from Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner is the text for a cloze reading activity designed to determine the comprehension skills of class members. The resource includes the instructional activity, an answer key, and step-by-step...

What does it mean to be alone and isolated? What would you do if you were all alone in a strange place? Kids ponder these questions as they prepare to read Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

After completing Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner, readers research a topic of interest and prepare a five-minute presentation, and share their findings with the class.

For this online interactive English skills worksheet, students respond to 20 multiple choice questions that require them to select the appropriate words to complete the sentences. Answers are scored immediately.