If you need a lesson for your poetry unit, use two poems by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow ("Rain in Summer" and "The Slave in the Dismal Swamp") and a resource on Elements of Poetry. The lesson plan guides you through activities...

Class members will be as confident as prize-winning thoroughbreds after completing a worksheet on figurative language. Young writers jot down metaphors and similes for three categories: they way they look, they way...

Poetic language is abundant in Natalie Babbitt's beautiful novel, Tuck Everlasting. Learners note the examples of similes, metaphors, and personification they find as they read, and illustrate how the language creates a sensory...

What makes a good monarch? Elementary and middle schoolers examine popular symbols of the British monarchy before designing a television advertisement about the qualities needed in a monarch. Next, they write poems using metaphors and...

Poetry or prose? That is the question facing middle schoolers as they begin a month-long poetry unit by examining the characteristics that differentiate poetry and prose writing. Pupils learn about poetic devices and different types of...

Have you ever watched a political speech and felt your heart beat a little faster, and your opinion either solidify or begin to slightly change? Rhetorical devices can be a strong tool in an effective and powerful speech. A short lesson...

Young balladeers analyze examples of ballads and generate a list of common traits (story, quatrains, rhyme schemes, refrains, etc.), then identify these traits in Robert W. Service's "The Cremation of Sam McGee" and a ballad written by...