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...

Create a language mosaic to reveal the linguistic diversity in your community. Pupils interview a person with a home language other than English and contribute to a bulletin board display representing the variety of languages spoken. The...

How can you create an "English-free" classroom for your foreign language learners? This year, use some of these strategies to maximize your high schoolers' opportunity to communicate in the language.

Learning to read is not a simple task, but there are methods for assisting pupils as they develop literacy skills. The first four pages of this resource include information about language development and reading development, as well as...

Prepare class members for the SAT Writing and Language exam with a practice test that prepares students for the types of questions and the kind of language used in the exam. Test takers must select the best way to fix poorly...

Identify and analyze the use of figurative language used in select pieces of writing. These pieces of literature will represent at least two pieces by one writer and at least two pieces by different writers. This lesson would be a great...

A very interesting worksheet on language aquisition is here for you. In it, learners are presented with many common phrases in the English language, and they must write down how they would say that phrase in their own language. This...

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. 

High schoolers 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...

Practice listening skills while studying oral story tellers from different parts of Louisiana. Consider the regional dialects and insider language of folk groups with your class. Identify language as part of folk life and recognize that...

Middle schoolers consider languages as representations of cultures and the importance of preserving various languages, especially the rapidly disappearing languages of indigenous peoples, in a lesson that tells the story of Marie Wilcox...

Study the culture, language, and history of Mexico in this collection of lessons. Create maps of Mexico's geography, study Spanish language phrases, and create a fiesta, along with a Mexican Marketplace scene.

Have your class doing everything from reading literature, analyzing literary devices, identifying independent and dependent clauses, discussing, and writing creatively with the rich resource found here. After a mini lesson plan on...

Say precisely what you mean. Scholars analyze the importance of Washington's precise language in paragraphs eight and nine of the "Atlanta Compromise" speech. They interpret his figurative language and add it to their Idea Tracking...

What is the difference between formal and informal language? Pupils rewrite their position speeches to adapt them for an audience of adults. Next, they present their speeches in small groups, attempting to answer the question, "Which...

If you've ever wished you could respond to an author's message, an instructional activity that connects three poems with the same concept will appeal to you. Based on the first few lessons' focus on Christopher Marlowe's "The Passionate...

How do Supreme Court justices interpret amendments to the Constitution? The resource helps answer that question by discussing how people use explicit and implicit language to interpret the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. Learners...

Macbeth describes life as a light and a candle, suggesting it is fleeting and meaningless. Using the resource, scholars engage in an evidence-based discussion and complete a Quick Write about Shakespeare's use of figurative language in...

Go figure! Scholars examine the figurative language in the last half of W.E.B. Du Bois's work "Of Our Spiritual Strivings." They pay special attention to his metaphors and develop ideas with group discussion and guided questions....

A film showcases a Native American woman and her hard work to create a dictionary detailing her tribe's language. While viewing, scholars reflect upon and discuss the importance of language and sustaining cultural identity. 

Students view the film "Nell" and analyze it for presentation of language pathologies and dialects. They consider the definition of dialect, research phonetic representation of dialects and observe their own communities for speech patterns.

Students describe idioms and their use in everyday language. They describe the difference between literal and idiomatic meanings. In groups, students use iPhoto to create books that explain and illustrate a variety of idioms describing...

A study of onomatopoeia for 5th graders is here for you. Pupils discover that the use of highly descriptive language makes it possible for readers to picture objects in their minds. After engaging in a class discussion and listening to...

Pictures often reveal different meanings. Scholars analyze the images in Eight Days and discuss how they add meaning to the text. Readers answers questions about how specific colors are used to create different emotions. Learners then...