Find out how much your class knows about literary elements with a quick pre-assessment. Pupils work first individually to identify the instances of personification, metaphor, simile, and more, and then with group members to...

To gain insight into the many different types of habitats, individuals must first get to know their own. Here, scholars explore their school environment, draw a map, compare and contrast their surroundings to larger ones. They then...

You've got your topic—now how do you make your poem funny? Explore ways to make a poem humorous, including puns, exaggeration, silly words, and surprising endings, with a helpful poetry lesson.

Choosing a poet or a theme, eighth graders conduct research in the world of poetry. They conduct Internet research and select five poems that fit their poet or theme, and create a seven slide PowerPoint presentation on their selected...

Academics take turns as actors in an engaging poetry cafe. Elementary learners work in small groups to create original poems or stories addressing community issues and read their work in front of a live audience. Scholars also reflect...

You could spend a full day discussing The Phantom of the Opera and not scratch the surface, but a set of lessons about the literary elements and themes of the musical production is a great start. Young thespians build upon the...

Determine what young pupils already know about earth science with a brainstorming activity. After class members work together to complete a KWL chart about the Earth, they craft an acrostic poem to demonstrate their understanding.

Focus on plot and the impact-specific events in The Cay. Class members use their double-entry journals, created in a previous lesson in this series, to record their thinking about the guiding question as they read chapters 15 through 17....

Learners follow five steps to compose an alliteration poem. They choose one consonant and brainstorm as many nouns, verbs, and adjectives they can think of to create rhyming sentences that come together in a poetic fashion. 

Imagine an interactive that teaches young poets all the essential elements of poetry. This colorful resource does just that. Players are introduced to rhythm, meter, and rhyme schemes using famous poems. They practice marking the...

Use Langston Hughes's poem, "Words Like Freedom," to explore the concepts of freedom and liberty. Learners read the poem, determine the theme, and use the provided graphic organizer to examine the connotative and denotative meanings of...

Encourage your learners to examine the setting in Theodore Taylor's The Cay. Pupils work in small groups to put together a description of the setting before reading two more chapters of the book. They use their double-entry journals to...

Riddle me this! What do kennings, caesura, and alliteration have to do with the Nowell Codex? Introduce class members to Anglo-Saxon poetry and prepare readers for a study of Beowulf with a series of activities that...

Build understanding of theme with an activity designed for The Cay and the Common Core. Small groups or pairs use graphic organizers to determine themes, find and record related details from the text, and formulate theme statements. In...

Conduct a close reading of chapter 9 of The Cay. Read the chapter again and ask pupils to respond to a list of included text-dependent questions. Finish the class with the provided writing assignment, which asks learners to use textual...

A silk rank badge was a symbolic emblem worn by high officials during the Qing Dynasty. Your class will get a chance to examine the details, symbolism, color, and design of such a badge as they make their own symbolic trading cards....

Over the course of two class periods, young historians explore human rights issues; specifically, forced labor in China. This resource provides everything you need, including relevant vocabulary, an anticipatory activity, and a...

Students discuss books they are reading during the semester through e-mail with other students. They complete a reading interest survey, e-mail their partner weekly, and read and suggest six novels by the end of the semester.