Who gave you grammar homework? Or is it whom? Clarify the meanings of several commonly confused words, including affect and effect, among and between, and then and than with a handout and grammar practice learning...

Jewell Parker Rhodes, the author of Ghost Boys, wanted to bring the historical legacy of Emmett Till and the current topic of racial prejudice into today's young readers' mindsets. Use a reading guide and set of discussion questions to...

Call Us By What We Carry, a poetry collection by Nation Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman, is the focus of a 10-page teacher's guide. 

Jack the Ripper terrorized London in the late 1800s. An educator's guide for the novel The Name of the Star places the historical figure in a modern context. Readers complete a pre-reading activity before answering a series of discussion...

Students study the relationship between Cold War politics, the people who were affected by it, and the artists who examined it. They create their own "walls" using a spray paint graffiti procedure.

Robert Frost's "Choose Something Like a Star" and John Keats' "Bright Star" provide the text for a two-part instructional activity in which class members analyze the effects of style on meaning in poetry. Randall Thompson's song cycle...

National Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman's "The Hill We Climb," featured at the 2021 inauguration of President Joseph Biden, is the focus of a six-page guide. The guide includes before reading, during reading, and after reading...

A 16-page packet includes three activities for a unit study of Mark Twain's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Before beginning the novel, class members identify the factors in their lives that helped create their frame of reference,...

Designed to be used with an independent reading book, this activity provides practice with identifying and explaining literary terms. While they read, individuals find instances of literary devices and elements in use in their books....

Considering using James McBride's autobiography/memoir The Color of Water with your class? Check out this seven-page informational packet that includes background information on McBride, the organization pattern of the book, and...

Lovers, madmen, and readers of A Midsummer Night's Dream will need seething brains to complete a crossword puzzle designed for Shakespeare's engaging comedy.

Eighth grades can master the ELA Common Core standards! Show your learners the connection between classroom activities and assignments and the standards with this set of "I Can" statement posters. Each standard has been rewritten as an...

Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Rappaccini's Daughter" provides the text for an activity that asks readers to select specific passages from the story, identify the aspect of American Romanticism the passage exemplifies, and then provide an...

Delve into the mysterious lines of T.S. Eliot's The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. Focusing on simple recall of the poem, this quiz can then spark discussion about the odd comparisons and allusions within the lines. A simple quiz that...

Affect or effect? Ensure, insure or assure? Here’s a presentation that focuses on commonly misused words that sound similar yet have different spelling and meanings. The homonyms are defined and then examples are presented. Consider...

High schoolers play a ball game to reinforce vocabulary words. In this vocabulary lesson plan, 1 student throws a ball to another student and states a vocabulary word. The receiving student has to define the word. If they do, they get to...

After investigating the Black Lives Matter movement, class members do a close read of Roger Reeves' "Black Laws." They write down words and phrases that rhyme, consider the kinds of rhymes used and their function in the poem. Scholars...

Howdy partner! After discussion and teacher model reading of Slaveships, scholars pair up for a partner reading of the poem. They then use equity sticks to discuss their thoughts of the poem with the class. Readers talk about allusion,...

Ninth graders read the story, "The Gift of the Magi" and identify examples of allusion and situational irony. They define and give examples of situational irony. Students plot sequence, structure, define allusion and give examples.

Students discuss connotative language, hyperbole, allusion, and rhetorical question. In small groups, they read one section of the "Speech to the Virginia Convention" and analyze these devices. Groups present their results to the class.

Eighth graders review literary elements such as simile, metaphor, allusion, plot sequence, allusion, situational irony, and theme. As the class begins, 8th graders discuss childhood memories. Students write a story about their...

Students are exposed to two different works of poetry in order to complete a task of comparing and contrasting them. They analyze the poem and identify the juxtaposition. The analysis is compiled by them to make a class report of it.

Students investigate historical context by reading poetry.  In this language arts lesson, students discover the work of Michael Longley and examine his poem "Ceasefire."  Students identify the sonnets used in the piece and...

Learners examine the themes of loneliness and frustrated love in the work of Carson McCullers. In this theme analysis instructional activity, students complete a comparison of patterns in the novels of McCullers as a part of a theme...