The intricate craft of narrative writing can make a happy story feel exuberant or a sad story feel devastating. With 42 extensive lessons that include poignant discussion questions, standards-aligned self-reflections, engaging writing...

Study some of the most prominent poets and works of poetry in history with a language arts poetry unit. From Virgil to Shakespeare to Dickinson to Angelou, the resources present biographies and examples of poetic elements to...

The non-fiction book Art Around the World by Heather Leonard serves as inspiration for learning how art reflects cultures and values. New vocabulary and background knowledge are fleshed out before reading the story. Afterward, the class...

Just because a story is on the news doesn't mean it's being presented fairly. Analyze news broadcasts with a lesson focused on evaluating television journalism. At home, kids watch a news show and note the stories presented, including...

Get your class thinking about advertising with this lesson plan. Over the course of 15 days, your class will discuss advertising techniques, study the concepts of pathos, logos, and ethos, and analyze the persuasive techniques of...

Where the Read Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls is rich with themes relating to love and family. Help your class to understand these themes with the series of reading activities included in this unit outline. Readers can keep a journal to...

"You are pigs." With those three simple words, the lives of the Piggott family were changed forever. Read aloud the children's story Piggybook by Anthony Browne and teach your class the importance of personal responsibility,...

Introduce language learners to class behavior expectations, and each other, with activities that include greeting and name games, conducting a class survey, and creating a classroom rules poster.

Get ready for the big storm with a vocabulary activity! Using a word bank and context clues, young learners fill in the blanks in a passage about a day at the park that leads to stormy weather.

Do reporters write about what they see, or what they think? Examine the differences between investigative writing and opinion writing with a lesson from PBS. Learners look over different examples of each kind of reporting, and convince...

Here is a great little reading and vocabulary development lesson created just for learners with special needs. The lesson is constructed with both core content and necessary adaptations in mind. The group will use PECS, pointing/gesture,...

Sometimes a picture reflects a thousand descriptive words. To illustrate the importance of sensory words in descriptive writing, scholars listen to a song and craft a painting in response. After sharing their work with the class,...

Students view the film "Nell" and analyze it for presentation of language pathologies and dialects. They consider the definition of dialect, research phonetic representation of dialects and observe their own communities for speech patterns.

Create musical myths in this West African tales lesson. Middle schoolers read myths from African Myths and Legends as well as West African Trickster Tales. They note when music could be used to enhance the tales, and then write their own...

The power to convince others of your argument lies in your knowledge of rhetoric! A thorough packet covers the basics of persuasion, including logical appeals and fallacies, and applies strategies to letters to the editor,...

How much do your students know about Hanukkah? Teach them about the sights, sounds, and traditions of the Jewish holiday with a language arts instructional activity about Hanukkah.

No, not literally. Scholars read Hugo, the Lord’s Nephew to compare figurative and literal language. Readers learn about simile, metaphor, personification, and idioms with a graphic organizer. Pupils then answer text-dependent...

Students enter and experience the world of Sherlock Holmes and hard-boiled detectives in this unit on mysteries. They review and analyze the ""Whodunit Requirements" and the "Mystery Contract" that accompany this instructional activity....

Illuminate your playground with chaulk images. Young aratists use the web to research the work of Keith Haring. Groups then design their own piece of visual art and recreate their images on the school sidewalks of blacktop.

A large part of analyzing or understanding art is knowing how to read about it. The New York Times has put together these who, what, where, when, and how questions to aid learners in comprehending informational pieces related to art and...

After several short 15-minute mini-lessons, your learners will gain an understanding of the characteristics of a non-fiction text. Using the book Map It by Elspeth Leacock, your class will become acquainted with non-fiction terms...

Stress the importance of authenticating online resources and understanding the sources of websites' information with this activity. Using a Web-based activity, the instructional activity prompts young learners to think critically about...

Make your classroom into a place of kindness and compassion with E.B White's Charlotte's Web. The first four pages of the lesson plan guide you through several steps and projects, including discussions on Charlotte and Wilbur's...

Individually, words have power, but when added together, they can take on a whole other level of meaning. Readers learn about compound words in the 10th of 17 lessons of the Word Recognition and Fluency series. A script provides guidance...