Combine the study of poetry and non-fiction texts with this complete and ready-to-use six-week unit. After reading numerous poems from local writers and compiling a personal anthology, high schoolers find and read a memoir or biography...

Over the course of a 12-lesson language arts unit, young scholars analyze a variety of poems taking a close look at figurative language and tone. They learn to compare and contrast, improve comprehension, and identify settings. To...

Now that your class has read all of Esperanza Rising, take the time to tackle big metaphors and themes. Pupils will participate in an activity called Chalk Talk, in which they circulate around the room in small groups and add...

Make learning the definitions of literary terms memorable with a fun and engaging activity. Teams of scholars are given several terms and create an acrostic poem with simplified definitions and examples.

Mermaids will sing to your class members as they engage in an activity related to T.S. Eliot's famous dramatic interior monologue. After engaging in a socratic seminar about literary devices in the poem, individuals choose one...

Down on the Farm is the theme of this series of challenge activities. Extend your scholars' learning experience with engaging activities such as designing a farm, creating collages, writing poems and to-do lists, and playing dominoes.

Riddle me this! What do kennings, caesura, and alliteration have to do with the Nowell Codex? Introduce class members to Anglo-Saxon poetry and prepare readers for a study of Beowulf with a series of activities that...

Begin class with a short comprehension quiz and review and then move into a new genre: two-voice poems. The activity provides information about this type of poetry as well as a video example made by eighth graders that you can show your...

Double click that mouse because you just found an amazing lesson! This cross-curricular Ornithology lesson incorporates literature, writing, reading informational text, data collection, scientific inquiry, Internet research, art, and...

Engage your class in the elements of poetry with a series of lessons and activities. The plans cover simile, metaphor, personification, onomatopoeia, alliteration, and imagery. Learners come up their their own metaphors, identify poetic...

Robert Hayden's poem "Those Winter Sundays" serves as the anchor text in a five-part instructional activity that takes the mystery out of poetry analysis by modeling explicit strategies for pupils to employ to conduct a close reading of...

After a review of poetic terms, groups are given an object and they create a poem using a simile, a metaphor, internal rhyme, end rhyme, alliteration, and personification. Groups then exchange objects and repeat the process. Consider...

Teach your English learners about theme through this found poem project. Class members read two versions of O. Henry's "The Gift of the Magi": the original version and a synopsis. After learning about themes and connecting theme to their...

The Bard, Nikki Giovanni, Mos Def? “Sonnet 18,” Ego Tripping,” and “Black on Both Sides”? Sure! It’s the poetics. Class members compare the lyrics, rhythm, and rhyme in classic poetry to hip-hop in a richly detailed resource that...

Let music and poetry collide in this well-orchestrated language arts lesson plan. After studying program music and C. Debussy's Prelude to an Afternoon Faun, view the attached SMART board lesson plan to read through "Fog" by Carl...

After reading "The Bullet," a particularly intense chapter in Victor Martinez's Parrot in the Oven: Mi Vida, class members listen to the Spanish and the English versions of "Dimelo" by Enrique Iglesias. They then discuss how the...

Thor, Loki, Iron Man, and Captain America. As part of their study of Greek and Roman gods and heroes, middle schoolers compare the characters in The Avengers to Greek counterparts. Individuals then create their own superhero,...

A speaker, a message, an audience. After analyzing these elements in Queen Elizabeth's speech to the troops at Tilbury, groups analyze how other speakers use an awareness of events, and their audience to craft their arguments....

Art, music, poetry, and the beauty of the seasons is what you'll find in this very nice unit idea. You can use any of the suggested books and activities to engage your second graders in an exploration of the changes that take place...

After learning the main ideas of the Decadent movement, students work in small groups to read and translate poems by the French poet Charles Baudelaire using basic etymology skills. They then read the accurate English translations to see...

The Catcher in the Rye is the focus of a sampler that models some of activities included in a for-purchase packet based on J. D. Salinger's novel.