Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address provides the text for a series of close reading exercises that model for instructors how carefully crafted guiding questions can help readers think critically about what they read, thus developing...

The tone is easy to hear but more challenging to detect in written texts. Users of this interactive learn how to closely observe the diction and words writers use to convey their feelings about their subject. They examine passages that...

An excerpt from Michel de Montaigne's essay "On Cruelty" provides advanced readers an opportunity to polish their close reading skills. Scholars read the passage twice and then respond to the provided questions.

Three of Emily Dickinson's poems, "I like to see it," "Because I could not stop for Death," and "We grow accustomed to the Dark," provide instructors with an opportunity to model for class members how to use close reading strategies to...

Close reading is key to the analysis and interpretation of literature. A close reading of the title and the epigraph of “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” offers readers an opportunity to examine how even single words or names can...

"We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union..." These familiar lines begin the Preamble to the Constitution, but do learners know what they mean? A close reading exercise takes a look at the language of the...

Poems by Shel Silverstein, Emily Dickinson, Jean Toomer, Maya Angelou, and others offer users of the final interactive in a ten-part set to demonstrate what they have learned about how writers use imagery, metaphors, allusions, and...

“Be glad that all things sort so well.” To make text-to-self connections to Shakespeare’s play, class members engage in a guided imagery exercise prior to reading Act IV, scene i of Much Ado About Nothing (the wedding of Claudio and...

Find an extensive list of warm-up, cool-down, and strength-training exercises perfect for all ages. Each move includes written description as well as an image. Use these for your own reference or to give to students who are training on a...

Develop readers’ awareness of the visual power of language with a guided imagery exercise. Set the stage and create the mood with dim lights, soft music and potpourri. Then read the provided section of Bud, Not Buddy. Next, invite...

Kids get up and act! To promote inventiveness, timing, and clowning, they pair up and act as though they are looking in a mirror. Child A does a move while child B attempts to mimic it as closely as possible. This is a fun activity that...

An interactive matching exercise from MyVocabulary.com, this resource highlights 12 advanced-level words containing the Latin roots nat, tract, and sequ. Definitions nicely distinguish among closely related words: nascent, natal, innate,...

Need a quick but comprehensive reading strategies exercise? Even your most reluctant readers will be engaged by the story of a nuclear reactor explosion at a top-secret Idaho base. After reading the short passage, learners answer nine...

Prepare class members for a discussion of Sonia Levitin's dystopian novel The Cure, by leading them on a guided imagery exercise designed to encourage visualization of written descriptions.

Strengthen understanding of grammar and syntax with this task. First, grammarians identify the active and passive voices, then they rewrite individual sentences to be in the active voice before manipulating an entire paragraph. Great...

In this critical reading exercise, students evaluate the credibility of a piece of writing. Students read descriptions of various interest groups and lobbies and identify the group that made a quotation.

What is the difference between the simple past tense and the past continuous? Help your pupils master these tenses with the information and six grammar exercises included here.

A guided imagery exercise is a great way to get readers thinking about writing. As part of their study of Out of the Dust, Karen Hesse’s 1998 Newbery Medal winning verse novel, class members listen to a reading of one of the poems...

Poetry analysis need not be a lugubrious exercise for young learners. The approach used with Denise Levertov's poem, "The Metier of Blossoming" is one of close observation, of noticing and reflecting on the words, phrases, and images the...

Home in on the quote on this page to explore setting, the author's and character's voices, and plot in Willa Cather's My Antonia. Pupils draw a picture of what is described in the quote, discuss the content, and make connections to their...

Young grammarians demonstrate their understanding of pronoun reference. They read a series of sentences and choose the best correction for the underlined words. A link to an interactive version of the exercise is provided.

Here's an eight-page packet that describes 70 different improv activities to use as warm ups for drama classes. 

Zounds! Image an American president closing all ports and prohibiting exports. As part of an exercise designed to strengthen primary source comprehension skills, readers examine Thomas Jefferson's 1808 message to Congress urging such an...

Create rectangle and area models to help students understand expressions. The third installment in the 28-part series has pupils first represent expressions using rectangular array models. The exercises help scholars understand the...