Exposing young children to the wonders of world cultures is very important. Here is a sweet instructional activity which does just that! In it, learners listen to music, and stories from cultures around the world. They learn greetings in...

Big Buddies is a wonderful tradition that has been going on in schools for a long time. Older children get together with much younger children for mentoring purposes. It's a confidence builder for all involved. There are two wonderful...

Investigate current local elections across the United States with this New York Times reading lesson. Using informational text, middle and high schoolers research local elections and create their own news reports about what they...

What would you ask a presidential candidate if you had the chance? Bring politics to your language arts classroom with this lesson, in which young readers brainstorm questions they would have liked the presidential candidates to answer....

How can understanding the genre of historical fiction help your language arts class with literary analysis? Use this lesson to help young readers learn about historical fiction. After reading a selection from the "Dear America" or "My...

Each color holds its own feeling and these feelings are used to describe the four seasons. Youngsters create a color palate based on the four seasons, assigning various colors to each season. They each create four clay tiles, painting...

Here is a nicely designed lesson with everything you need to implement it in your classroom. First, pairs of learners get together and each write their own version of a classic fairy tale. They then peer edit each other's stories, taking...

Bring multi-cultural experiences and literature into your language arts class with this instructional activity. Here, young readers explore the points of view of first and second-generation Asian immigrants with a list of various fiction...

The rich language of O. Henry's "The Gift of the Magi" is only appreciable if you understand the words. A short lesson reviews 13 words from the story and prompts class members to apply each word and its definition to other situations.

Feeling conflicted? Work out those issues with a language arts lesson on internal and external conflict. Using "The Interlopers" by Saki, class members identify the conflicts between the characters before writing their own short...

Students create Inspiration webs using graphics or photographs that depict high and low points in their lives. This technology-based Language Arts lesson plan for the upper-elementary or middle-level classroom is excellent for improving...

Students investigate the broad range of jobs that can be found in the world of design. Students explore sound design, language architecture, etc. Students design a resource book and post it on a website for others to share.

Young, yet experienced, Spanish language learners are introduced to basic weather-related vocabulary. They talk about basic phrases, use various photographs to practice describing the weather, and illustrate their favorite season. In...

After hearing the Passion, Jesus' suffering, death and resurrection, through an account of the gospel writer St. Mark students will comprehend the saving story of our Christian faith. They comprehend their language skills by writing and...

Useful for literary analysis, citing textual evidence, or summary skills, this lesson about the Kumeyaay Indians would be a good addition to your language arts class. Middle schoolers read novels and summarize the literature in their own...

In this language arts worksheet, young writers consider four action photographs, and must write three descriptive words that could be used to describe what they see. The words are then used in complete sentences. An interesting way to...

A challenging worksheet is here for your learners of language arts. In it, they must find words that convey a more powerful, or more descriptive meaning than the guide word at the top of the list. There are 12 guide words, and nine more...

Introduce your language arts class to connotation, denotation, and diction. Middle schoolers identify and differentiate between the connotative and denotative  meanings of words by analyzing the fictitious sports team names....

Your class hears a Native American Indian point of view of Europeans' arrival in Louisiana. They assess how cultural perspectives (especially an insider's view) and native language can shape a story. Each pupil identifies the...

Help your middle schoolers identify personal experience narratives in their own lives through telling stories themselves and from family members or other adults. They study personal experience narratives in Swapping Stories and compare...

Students assess new ways to strengthen and expand their vocabularies by creating crossword puzzles for their classmates to experience. They become aware that learning a new language can be a fun experience if approached with an open mind...

Investigate the significance of adjectives with a newspaper activity that addresses effective language. Readers probe teacher-provided articles in search of the mighty modifiers, and practice by replacing them with a different word, and...

Des'ree's song "You Gotta Be" is used to model for language learners the forms that can be used to express necessity (must, have to, have got to). After examining the grammar in the song, the attention switches to a discussion of the...

Here's a clever way to introduce language learners to noun clauses. After a brief exercise that provides examples of different types of noun clauses, class members listen to the Association's "Never, My Love" and identify the clauses in...