Modern readers apply classic themes to Victor Hugo's masterpiece, Les Miserables. After they discuss tricky vocabulary and plot elements from the novel, class members compare Hugo's written work to a stage or film adaptation of the...

Take a trip down Pearblossom Highway with this lesson about comparing and contrasting. Using David Hockney's Pearblossom Hwy and another image of the same highway (photograph or other image), students compare and contrast the two...

Engage young learners in expanding their vocabulary with a fun game. Scholars learn how compound words provide clues about the meaning of unfamiliar vocabulary. Pairs take turns reading a definition, locating its corresponding compound...

Young readers get to the root of unfamiliar vocabulary with a collaborative learning activity. Given a deck of root word cards and copies of a graphic organizer, pairs of students take turns flipping over cards and brainstorming...

Imagine a project that informs and entertains. Replace book reports with a bulletin board that highlights all the important elements of a novel. Readers research the author, create a timeline of events in the story, write a...

Play a quick game of memory, but with a grammatical twist! Learners match the affixes to their meanings.

Make a game out of word parts. Pupils work in pairs to advance along the board. One partner reads a sentence from a card, and the other identifies the correct affix that fits with a word in that sentence.

An affix plus a base word equals what? A new word! Invite your class members to discover words using affixes and base words. Learners then write sentences using the real words that they put together.

Ask your class to concentrate their energy on affixes! Pupils match various affixes to their meanings in a memory-style game until all the cards have been gathered.

Ask your class to puzzle out the meaning of various affixes. Learners read sentences and develop a new word with an affix to replace the underlined words. They write down the words and help to categorize them by affix.

Invite learners to determine which affix and base word combinations create new words. This activity allows pupils to play around and create words that match specific meanings.

Assist pupils as they learn to separate base words and affixes and combine them to determine the meaning of words. Partners practice with cards that include words with affixes.

Young writers get a jump start on story telling by selecting a plot, a setting, and multiple character cards and then use these basic elements to create a tale.

Focus on the literary elements of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's The Little Prince with a concept analysis sheet. With suggestions and explanations for many of the book's concepts, vocabulary, and other issues that may arise in...

Design your unit on The View From Saturday by E.L. Konigsburg with a concept and vocabulary analysis resource. It outlines the plot, literary elements, vocabulary issues, and any possible considerations for planning a differentiated...

Scholars select a novel or play and craft an essay to discuss what the symbol reveals about the characters or theme. Writers also analyze a passage and a poem to determine how the authors use literary elements to relay their messages.

Scholars work with root and meaning cards to build vocabulary skills. Playing with a partner, learners read a root, locate its meaning, and cover it with a counter. The first player to cover their board wins.

Scholars complete a Venn diagram to compare and contrast Cronus and Shrouded in Myth. Learners work in their triads to write similarities and differences on sticky notes. They then take a look at the text The Key Elements of...

Students create metallic Bas-relief scultures using basic art supplies and the technique of "tooling" in this Art lesson with croos-curricular connections in Social Studies and Math. A scoring rubric is included for assessment and...

Students use video and the Internet to research the life of Nellie Bly, a famous female reporter from the 19th century. They research a writer and present their information to the class in the style of a news reporter.

Art can mimic life, and animals are always interesting subjects. Learners create large soft sculptures (stuffed) birds using paper, paint, and other basic collage materials. They view images of birds, and discuss bird traits and shapes....

The second module in a series for high school seniors focuses on tracking the central idea of a text across genres and from multiple author and character perspectives. Twelfth graders read a speech by Benazir Bhutto entitled "Ideas Live...

Keen observation skills are an essential trait for good artists. Discuss the elements of a portrait with your class using terminology such as, full-face, profile, quarter-length, full-length. After that, they can use the included...

What's the difference between a simile and a metaphor? Show language arts learners a presentation that identifies different types of figurative language used in poetry.