Good discussion questions, quizzes, and tests teach as well as assess. Readers of The Great Gatsby will learn much from the materials in a 36-page packet designed to help students prepare for the AP Literature exam. Included in the...

“What’s in a name?” Just about everything. Barack Obama, Vincent van Gogh, Justin Bieber. Famous names evoke a multitude of reactions and poets often use the names of famous people in their works precisely because names carry...

Prepare your learners to identify figurative language in poetry. Tips for reading poetry and what to look for are listed on these slides. Rhetorical devices are defined and plenty of examples are given. 

Seriously, 93 slides of literary terms? Yes, and well worth the time, although perhaps not all at once. The beauty here is in the concise, easy-to-understand definitions for such well-known terms as imagery and personification, as well...

Young writers needn't be self-involved to craft a conceit. Directions for how to craft this form of extended metaphor, models, and a worksheet are all included in the packet.

Track your class's progress on all of the ELA Common Core standards with these handy charts. Along the left side, each seventh grade identifier is listed along with the full text of the standard. As you teach, reteach, assess,...

Students read and analyze Iago's rhetoric in specific monologues and dialogues with other characters, examine what Iago says and how he says it, define some basic rhetorical terms, and discover the sometimes dangerous power of language.

Cross-comparison, the technique of focusing on two different texts with the same themes, motifs, events, etc., is employed in an exercise that asks groups to examine two different translations of “The Ruin,” a poem, written in Old...

Students examine the use of literary prose in the story, "Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed." In this literary prose lesson, students investigate the use of imagery, metaphor, and simile in the story. They tell how author's purpose is...

High schoolers identify the distinction between literal and figurative language with a focus on metaphors. They complete a metaphor analysis chart, then practice expanding metaphors by composing their own comparisons of elements of the...

Don't let your pupils bite off more than they can chew! Comprehending idiomatic speech can be very perplexing to language learners. Readers must use context clues, common sense, and knowledge of the connotative and denotative meanings to...

Intended to be used along with the first chapter of An Introduction to Language textbook, this PowerPoint is full of linguistic terminology that is not necessarily explained. This tool can be used to complement a lecture or a text, but...

Jump back into expository writing and analysis at the start of a new school year! Start with a review of an authors' stylistic choices in diction, syntax, treatment of subject matter, and figurative language. Writers choose a text to...

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,...

Students examine denotation and connotation in language, and paraphrase a poem. They read and analyze a sonnet by iam Shakespeare, analyze the attitude and tone, paraphrase a poem, and create a thesis about a poem based on textual evidence.

Eighth graders identify figurative language and poetry in this literary analysis lesson plan. Using Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll and a YouTube video for "The Walrus and the Carpenter," young readers complete a literary...

Poetry is all about sound and rhythm. The sound of the words, the rhythm of the lines, and the emotional atmosphere created by these elements and the literary devices poets use, compress whole stories into a few stanzas. The specialized...

Word choice can drastically alter the tone of a piece of writing. Ninth graders read Karen Russell's short story "St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves" and use textual evidence to help them analyze how word choice affects their...

After screening an episode by BizKids, scholars show what they know about business vocabulary, then take part in grand conversations about role models and ethical dilemmas.

Young scholars place emphasis on the use of figurative language when analyzing prose and poetry. For this figurative language lesson, students explore the tone of a story and its imagery. Young scholars read and discuss how the author...

Students read and analyze the poem, "My Last Duchess," by Robert Browning. They examine the use of dramatic monologue as a poetic device, and write a character profile of the Duke.

Twelfth graders examine the characteristics of transcendentalism. For this transcendentalism lesson, 12th graders determine what this type of writing entails before reading a passage from, Ray Bradbury's, Dandelion Wine. They cite three...

Students study personification and alliteration in various fiction texts. In this literary devices lesson, students use various texts to identify the literary devices of personification and alliteration. Students use examples of both...

Students investigate writing techniques by analyzing a chart. In this figurative language lesson, students define similes, metaphors and identify the difference between them and personification. Students demonstrate their understanding...