PBS
Satire, Parody, and Humor in Catch-22
Laughter is the heart of dark comedy. It makes the unbearable bearable. Joseph Heller crafted his dark comedy Catch-22 to enable readers to laugh at the painful realities and underscore the absurdities of a war where people you don't...
National Endowment for the Humanities
Nathaniel Hawthorne and Literary Humor
Young scholars examine Nathaniel Hawthorne's style of humor and compare it to other humorists. They discuss the purpose of literary humor and determine how it develops characters and plots in stories. They analyze the use of different...
Benjamin Franklin Tercentenary
From Ben’s Pen to Our Lives
What would Ben do? Jumping off from the pseudonymous letters Ben Franklin fooled his older brother into publishing when he was still a teenager, young literary lovers dive into acting, writing, and addressing a local issue with wit and...
Curated OER
Keyboarding - Story Grafting
Bring some humor and fun to your keyboarding or language arts class! Middle and high schoolers begin a story in response to a prompt and then move from keyboard to keyboard, continuing to add to the story while the monitor is turned off....
Curated OER
Make Up Your Story
Putting together an interesting story can be hard, but this set of worksheets will guide your writers into the depths of their own creativity as they characterize both their main character and villain. Using humor to keep learners...
Curated OER
Edgar Allan Poe-try
Oh the Poe-try of Edgar Allan! Apart from the punny title, not much more humor can be found in either Poe's works or in this quiz. The questions highlight the sad, dark focus of much of Poe's writing. Quotes from poems then have various...
Reading Resource
/ue/ Word List
The final resource in a series of 16 phonemic awareness activities, designed to develop the awareness skills needed to detect the vowel sounds in words, features the /ue/ sound. Kids identify and highlight the /ue/ sound in a list of 13...
Curated OER
Metaphors
In this metaphor worksheet, students read and determine metaphors. In this multiple choice worksheet, students identify seven metaphors.
Curated OER
School Safety Tips for the Fall Season
You can review safety strategies with a seasonal twist.
Curated OER
Haiku Straw Painting
Learners explore haiku poetry, have the experience of writing a haiku, and make an ink painting to enhance the haiku.
Curated OER
Bat Activities and games
First graders read the book Stelluna by Janell Cannon. For this bat lesson plan, 1st graders use their sense of smell to identify objects, learn and recite a rhyme, and differentiate between the words night and day.