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...

Working in small groups, scholars look closely at a children's book to evaluate narrative techniques. Next, they complete a Children's Book Scavenger Hunt worksheet to analyze the literary elements of their selected stories. 

Somebody. Wanted. But. Then. Introduce your classes to the structure that supports stories with a lesson that teaches readers how to identify the four basic components writers use to craft their tales. After identifying these elements in...

Mean girls and bully packs are favorite topic for films and TV shows that focus on the destructive power of cliques. High school freshmen are asked to reflect on both the positive and negative aspects of cliques by reading a short...

The firsthand accounts of what it was like to be an enslaved person in the mid-1800s riveted a nation and the issue ultimately led to civil war. Using excerpts from Frederick Douglass's autobiography, budding historians examine what it...

Narrative essay writing is the focus of a series of exercises that model for learners how to not only read a narrative, but how to also examine the techniques fiction writers use to create a setting, develop their characters, represent...

A language arts instructional activity helps young writers identify elements that make up historical fiction. First, it guides them through elements of fictional pieces with vocabulary cards. Then, pupils work collaboratively to...

Two versions of movie trailers for the film Mary Poppins launch a supercalifragilisticexpialidocious lesson about how mood and tone impact a reader's experience of work. Using the provided list, readers identify the words that create the...

In this, the third in a series of four resources that use Robert Wise's 1951 version of The Day The Earth Stood Still as the core text, young film makers examine the language of film including shot composition, camera angle, lighting,...

Watching is not the same as seeing. Transform viewers from passive watchers to active students of film with this 34-page packet, filled with lessons and activities that use Mr. Smith Goes to Washington to examine the technology, the...

Entrance essays are the ultimate sales pitch! Show your seniors how to market themselves in the first of six college and career readiness lesson plans. Pupils discover the do's and don'ts of writing personal statements through research,...

Whether it's an election year or not, a unit on voting patterns and political campaigns will awaken the civic pride in your high school citizens. Divided into six parts, the curriculum covers various facets of an election, including...

Sixth graders listen to a story titled "Thin Ice!" then partake in a whole-class discussion asking and answering questions about what was read. Scholars brainstorm risky behaviors in preparation for a game of RISKO—a game similar to...

The lesson plan provides a richly detailed narrative and sample problems for teaching or reinforcing how to work with percentages. In particular, your audience will compute the costs per serving of food and simulate setting menu prices...

"Rikki-Tikki-Tavi," from The Jungle Book, offers young readers a chance to examine how Rudyard Kipling uses setting and personification to bring to life the brave mongoose who battles cobras to protect his family. Class members...

How do Poe's choices of imagery, rhythm and rhyme scheme, and structure help build the desired single effect of "The Raven"? After listening to a dramatic reading of the poem, class members consider whether Poe's choices do...

"What is the theme of this story?" The very question can spark fear in the minds of readers and incinerate confidence. Here you will discover an exercise that shows how writers use the tools of setting, plot, conflict, and...

As part of their exploration of the American dream, class members examine primary source materials to compare immigrant experiences of those arriving early in our country's history to those arriving in the US after World War...

Should primary graders have their own computers? Should animals be kept in captivity? Young writers learn how to develop and support a claim in this short unit on persuasive writing.