Augment your eighth grade language arts curriculum with a thorough set of reading comprehension activities and assessments. Focusing on a variety of skills, including vocabulary in context, text structure, main idea, and author's style,...

Make a match! Scholars play a matching game after looking at excerpt five from Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. Learners match types of figurative language with example sentences, and add to their powerful language word wall...

No, not literally. Scholars read Hugo, the Lord’s Nephew to compare figurative and literal language. Readers learn about simile, metaphor, personification, and idioms with a graphic organizer. Pupils then answer text-dependent...

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,...

Discuss the work of Matthew Henson, an African American who traveled to the North Pole with Robert Peary. After reading the story "Matthew Henson" by Maryann N. Weidt, learners answer questions by drawing inferences and conclusions,...

Many developmentally disabled learners struggle with accurately conveying messages and interpreting those of others around them, especially when they are non-verbal. This lesson contains fun activities and exercises, such as talking with...

Another awesome ASL lesson! Teach ASL to a special ed class, hearing impaired child, or for your own enrichment. This lesson provides comprehensible ASL language development. Each highlighted blue area links to a video, printable image,...

Is there value in preserving indigenous languages that are almost extinct? That's the question posed to viewers of a short film about the attempt of one Native American woman who is creating a dictionary for Wakchumni, the language of...

Expand your class's vision of the French-speaking world by conducting this research project. Pupils focus on building 21st-century skills while they look up information about a French country and put together presentations.

We live in a time of fake news, alternative realities, and media bias. What could be more timely than an activity that asks class members to research how different sources report the same topic in the news?

After a close reading Marge Piercy's poem "Barbie Doll," class members craft an AP®-style explanatory essay in which they analyze the diction and other figurative literary devices the poet employs to deliver her commentary on modern...

Check out the view! Scholars complete a graphic organizer to analyze how Laurence Yep develops a character's point of view in Dragonwings. Additionally, pupils re-read parts of the novel and annotate the text on sticky notes, looking for...

There's a fine line between reality and fiction. As an end-of-unit assessment, scholars complete worksheets to analyze how Laurence Yep's perspective on being Chinese factors into his novel Dragonwings. Next, pupils engage in a...

Students interpret figurative language.  In this language lesson, students are read the poem "I Love the Look of Words" by Maya Angelou and are to find examples of hyperbole and personification in the poem.  Students then...

Students take pictures in different settings to demonstrate the importance and influence of body language. For this body language lesson plan, students use a camera and work in groups over a 5 week period.

Students explore websites that contain poems about autumn, winter, and the seasonal holidays and explore how similes and figurative language can be used in poetry.

A Six-Trait Writing instructional activity helps your middle schoolers liven up their word choice and shows them how to evaluate their own writing. Class members take a close look at the language used in poems by Shakespeare, Kipling,...

Improving listening comprehension skills is the goal of this language arts lesson. Young readers listen to the story Two Greedy Bears, stopping to have discussions with a partner. They predict outcomes and make inferences based on...

Shed light on the beauty of language with a great poetry activity. After learning about Austin Kleon's blackout poetry model, pupils respond to some of his poetry and use it as a model to produce their own. Young writers also share their...

You can't read Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory without craving the rich treats described in Dahl's vivid prose. Young writers try their hands at sensory language with a lesson plan that prompts them to write about...

Young historians examine the gestures of human subjects represented in Mannerist, Baroque and Renaissance paintings. After they play charades and attempt to match dialogue with body language, learners create a drawing that...

"Why do we have to learn a foreign language?" Have you ever heard that question before? Give your novices this project, and have them research different jobs that require the use of a foreign language. They create a PowerPoint...

Do you speak to your parents the same way you speak to your friends? The differences between formal and informal language are highlighted in this exercise. Groups are asked to select a scenario and script different dialogues that might...

Slang, as an example of language change in action, is the focus of a short lesson that asks learners to contribute examples to a class list of terms that they use to separate themselves from other groups or adults. Consider expanding the...