Explore point of view and more with a Common Core-designed instructional activity. Learners experience different points of view by representing one of two characters from Esperanza Rising during a partner discussion. They must use...

"The Dinner Party" is the anchor text in a lesson designed to encourage writers to use sensory details in their stories. After brainstorming descriptive words and phrases for the five senses, class members read Mona Gardner's...

Use the fairy tale Rumpelstiltskin to teach your third grade class about descriptive writing. Following a teacher read-aloud of the story, the class brainstorms a list of adjectives describing the main character. Students use this list...

Known as one of the most iconic advertisements of the 20th century, Macintosh's "1984" commercial has become more of a social statement. Present the ad to a new audience of viewers with a lesson focused on identifying dystopian...

Incorporate technology into a literature lesson with an innovative language arts lesson. Middle schoolers read an electronic version of original stories or fairy tales, and after determining the point of view, rewrite the tale from...

What's the story? Learners create the first of four storyboards about the invention of the television, incorporating narrative techniques and descriptive details. Next, they offer and receive feedback by participating in a peer critique...

Literary theories are lenses through which a text may be analyzed. The question in this lesson plan is how a particular literary lens can influence the reader's view of the text.

Make learning the parts of a book fun by having pupils construct their own glossary entries, table of contents, and title page. Beginning with a review of text features and a hunt for examples, kids use previously written fables to...

Historical accounts of various events have proven to differ depending on the point of view of the person documenting the event. Learners read and analyze two first person accounts of acts of slave resistance seen at a southern...

Young writers read excerpts from Gary Paulsen's memoir to identify figurative and literal language that contain sensory details. They determine which selections are examples of sensory language and fi the language is used literally or...

Teenagers face many temptations, and just saying "No!" can be very difficult. Here's a lesson that provides some help. Learners use a Venn diagram to compare and contrast excerpts from The Odyssey, Tennyson's "The Lotus-Eaters," and the...

Figures of speech, sensory details, and academic language are all targeted while reading Chapter Two of J. Ferris’ Go Free or Die. First, learners engage in an exercise to practice describing with detail. Then, partners use a...

Students explore expressive reading. In this literature lesson, students read the book The True Story of the Three Little Pigs and interpret key themes. Students perform a different version of the text.

Looking to introduce some text-based questions into your ELA lessons? Practice the kinds of skills the Common Core demands with the seven text-based questions and the essay prompt provided here. Designed to be a three-day lesson, day one...

Family and friendship are two very important themes of the historical fiction novel The Orphan of Ellis Island by Elvira Woodruff. From video clips and writing prompts to reader's theater and family interviews, this resource...

Young writers use the provided Halloween-themed template to record information gathered after researching a topic related to the October holiday. Six different expository text structures are suggested as a guide; however, information on...

Explore word meanings. Sixth graders identify examples of words with affixes while listening to the story Paul Bunyan by Steven Kellogg. They participate in the game "Pass the Parts" and practice separating given words into their root...

Research the characteristics of leaders who have used nonviolence to change society. The class then applies this information to their own community to find leaders with these same characteristics, creating a wall collage of pictures and...

Monsters take center stage! Elementary schoolers are assigned to write a descriptive paragraph by a toy company to help in designing a new monster for their toy line. One student composes the paragraph, another uses that to create a...

Turning 11 comes with a range of emotions. Explore those emotions by reading the short story "Eleven" by Sandra Cisneros. Readers analyze the main character's reactions to the events of her day. Then, they write an essay describing what...

"I have never been able to forgive the rich for being rich, and it has colored my entire life and works." This colored view is the focus of a close reading activity that asks readers of The Great Gatsby to examine the way...

A lesson on evaluating sources of information teaches scholars to "think twice" before using a source. Researchers examine a resource's home page, author, and sponsor, as well as the date published and the documentation provided.

Connect global examples of attempted genocide with a well-designed social studies lesson. It includes an excellent informational text with background information on the Holocaust, as well as worksheets, book report guidelines, and...

Work on narrative writing with this lesson, in which middle schoolers analyze the characters from a selected piece of literature and write narrative diary pieces as the character. They work to understand the point of view of the...