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...

Have your class practice their comprehension skills using this resource. After reading Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George, learners engage in cause and effect activities, identify story elements and figurative language, and...

Readers of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings are asked to craft an essay in which they compare how Maya Angelou uses figurative language to depict herself and Mrs. Flowers. 

Create poetry with a worksheet based on alliterative phrases. After reviewing ten nouns, kids add an adjective to each based on the first letter of the noun. They then rewrite five sentences to involve more alliteration.

Poetic language is abundant in Natalie Babbitt's beautiful novel, Tuck Everlasting. Learners note the examples of similes, metaphors, and personification they find as they read, and illustrate how the language creates a sensory...

Alliteration and imagery are two vital parts of any well-written poem. Encourage your young poets to include these devices with a set of activities designed to get them thinking, writing, and creating.

Language learners use the debate format to practice formulating, expressing, and defending their ideas. Working in teams, class members develop resolutions, use opinion indicators to express their opinions and reasons, and prepare...

Maya Angelou's first autobiography,  I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, demonstrates both the author's exemplary writing and the themes of gender and racial injustice that perpetuate beyond the limits of the 20th century. Use a...

You don't have to slay the dragon in this activity. Young writers review poetic devices with a set of worksheets about alliteration and similes. Once they finish waxing poetic about their dragon friends, they craft a final...

Sometimes a picture reflects a thousand descriptive words. To illustrate the importance of sensory words in descriptive writing, scholars listen to a song and craft a painting in response. After sharing their work with the class,...

Use art museum paintings as inspiration for your class's creative writing works. Observing the paintings closely, middle and high schoolers list details and write descriptions. Their completed stories are displayed on bulletin boards...

Teaching young learners about similes is easy as pie with this primary grade language arts lesson. Following a class reading of the children's book, Quick as a Cricket by Audrey Wood, young readers learn the definition of a simile...

Heroes appear in unexpected places. This is true about Hiccup, a character in How to Train Your Dragon. Scholars use a novel study to learn how a useless and weak dragon reveals his brilliance. The resource includes 10 new vocabulary...

Author E.B. White once had a dream about a small boy who acted like a rat, and that is how he conceived of his classic children's novel, Stuart Little. Using the novel study, scholars answer some questions based on their reading....

Let's see how the story unfolds. Scholars examine paragraphs of Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Letter from Birmingham Jail" to determine how King unfolds his analysis of the church. Before arriving at an answer, learners work in pairs and...

Complete a puzzle one piece at a time. Scholars gather in triads to complete jigsaw activities over a monologue from Good Masters! Sweet Ladies. They read as a group and independently and use sticky notes to identify the gist of...

Students examine figurative language in writing. Students demonstrate simile, metaphor, and personification in their own writing.

What do you imagine when you think of the sea? Put on some ocean sounds, close your eyes, and listen to a guided meditation based on the imagery from The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway. After class members listen to...

The problem with beards is that they collect a lot of food. The first lesson in an 11-part unit related to The Twits by Roald Dahl explores the hairy jungle that is Mr. Twit's beard. A concluding project has learners create their own...

What do all those chairs and pencils do in the classroom once everyone leaves? Allow imaginations to run wild with frighteningly short poems!

Engage in an activity that focuses on the concepts of formal and informal language use. Middle and high schoolers compare and contrast each style by using a Venn diagram that includes some examples. They read and hear a passage of lyrics...

The battle of wits and wisdom rages in Sophocles' Oedipus the King, particularly in Oedipus' discussion with Teiresias about the Sphinx's riddle. Ninth graders focus on this crucial conversation with a literary analysis instructional...

Poems carved into the wooden walls of the Asian immigrant prisons on Angel Island provide upper elementary graders an opportunity to study not only the story behind the poems but to also focus on the figurative language employed by the...

Your young readers might know that the stars on the American flag symbolize the fifty states, but what symbols best represent who your students are as people? Use this SMART board presentation to guide learners through an activity about...