Students analyze passages from The Mysteries of Love and Eloquence, or the Arts of Wooing and Complementing, written in the seventeenth century. Students analyze the images, words and figures of speech the author used and compare the...

After viewing a Prezi presentation on Toulmin’s argument, (claim, reason, warrant, backing, grounds, qualifiers, rebuttals), groups re-examine the format, and then individuals craft an argument essay in response to Lord Chesterfields...

Binoculars are used as a metaphor for good descriptive writing. Class members first view a small picture and then an enlarged view of the same image in which the details come into focus. Next, learners examine a paragraph lacking sensory...

Students explore the literal and figurative meanings of twenty-nine phrases and sayings. This unit of nine lessons integrates written expression and convention to demonstrate the value of idioms to the language.

Fourth graders write and respond to sayings throughout the school year. They define the idioms, illustrate them and compare their meanings with other groups in the class.

Pupils listen to a teacher reading of The Little Red Hen, identify the story elements and sequence them. They talk about different jobs associated with providing food and act out a play based on the story. Be aware that although several...

Fourth graders practice spelling words that have prefixes un-, re-, and pre-. Assign this as homework. To help meet Common Core standards, you could also have learners look up each word in the dictionary and write down definitions.

What makes someone cry? Little learners read the story,  Why Do You Cry?: Not a Sob Story by Kate Klise to discover a bit about crying and a bit about cause and effect. They'll fill out a cause and effect chart while they...

Providing several examples of figures of speech, such as irony, paradox, and personification, this presentation could complement your lecture on pragmatic humor or humor in writing. Examples from Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in...

In 1856 Congressman Preston Brooks of South Carolina beat Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts over the head with a cane. This event, which highlighted the acrimonious debate over the expansion of slavery, is the focus of a paper...

Following an exhaustive list of animal idioms, metaphors, and similes (categorized by animal), an online interactive quiz checks reader facility with their use. In each of 20 questions, a sentence has a definition for one expression in...

Give your learners quick definitions of simile, metaphor, and analogy. As the first slide in this PowerPoint suggests, you can use the presentation as a warm-up and have scholars record the words and their meanings in a Literary Terms...

Practice the five W's and question marks with a fun grammar worksheet. After copying the words who, what, where, when, why, and how, kindergartners fill the words into various questions. For extra practice, have kids come up with their...

Young scholars explore different types of doors from an artistic point of view. In this creative thinking lesson, students look at different types of architectural doors and doorways and analyze them. They create a project of a door as a...

How did the women in France feel about their country’s involvement in World War II? Class groups are assigned a country involved in WWII, and individuals within the group adopt the point of view of leaders, laborers, businessmen, women,...

If you are teaching Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound, you can't afford to miss this source. An extensive list of ideas outlines numerous discussion topics, writing prompts, comprehension questions, oral presentations, and projects. Have class...

Explore the idea of democratic poetry. Upper graders read Walt Whitman, examining daguerreotypes, and compare Whitman to Langston Hughes. They describe aspects of Whitman's I Hear America Singing to Langston Hughes' Let America Be...

Cover both capitalization and the days of the week with a great kindergarten activity! Kids read each day of the week out loud, then write the name of the day on a line. They answer three questions about certain days of the week,...

Students examine the relationship of man and nature in "To Build a Fire" and discuss the juxtaposition of knowledge and instinct. They investigate third person, omniscient point of view.

Middle school years can be tough. An educator's guide for the works of Lynda Mullaly Hunt introduces readers to two texts that discuss the struggles pre-teens face during middle school. Chapter-by-chapter questions and activities for two...

Here is an authentic assessment task for Shakespeare's Macbeth. Young literature scholars prepare, perform, and record a news broadcast about the major events in the play. For example, groups may choose to report on the death of Lady...

Make learning Latin roots a game! After you have introduced the roots fin, sed, and fer, learners can use this word search to build their vocabulary. (Within the word search are words containing these roots.) You can further the activity...

Given the clues, can you complete the crossword puzzle for words containing the Latin roots spect, sta, and vert? No word list is given, but using the answer sheet, you can provide your class with the list of words to choose from. This...

As a journalist, would you publish everything you heard or saw? Discuss the ethics of journalism with a lesson from PBS. Young reporters imagine themselves to be the editor of their school's newspaper, and as they read five scenarios,...