Mr. Wormwood, one of the characters in Roald Dahl's Matilda, is not the most trustworthy of characters. Have student groups take on the roles of car salespeople and play a game to see who can make the most profit by selling...

Before reading Chapter Six, "The Platinum-Blond Man" in Matilda, readers preview the illustration of Mrs. Wormwood dropping her plate of food, and think about what may have happened to cause the scene. After reading the chapter, class...

After reading the 11th chapter in Matilda, class members take on the role of Bruce Bogtrotter and re-enact the cake eating scene. Here's the catch: they must come-up with an impromptu re-enactment of the scene from the story, and...

Readers take the main characters in Matilda and individually describe them through a mnemonic. To get there, group members create an acrostic poem describing the character they were given, and choose one of the words from the...

How would you react to the Trunchbull if she was your teacher? This is the focus of an activity that has readers imagining and then acting out their reactions to various Trunchball scenarios in the story.

If a bar of chocolate was on the floor, would you try to pick it up? What if it was covered with glue? The eighth lesson in an 11-part unit designed to accompany The Twits by Roald Dahl has scholars imagine crazy scenarios. The...

"A person who has good thoughts cannot ever be ugly." The second lesson in an 11-part unit that accompanies The Twits by Roald Dahl uses poetry to encourage positive character traits. Mrs. Twit has ugly thoughts, but those...

Keeping readers on track while reading the 64 chapters in Charles Dickens's David Copperfield can be a challenge. If readers are punctual and diligent, and respond to the worksheet questions in order with determination, they can be the...

Theatre producers in Shakespeare's time didn't have the special effects that are common today, so they had to get creative. Using the handout, pupils explore the topic of costume design. Additionally, readers learn about the stage makeup...

Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream takes center stage in an interactive designed for an audience of English learners. After watching a short animated version of the play, individuals read a printed version of the script, match the...

Before your high schoolers read Julius Caesar, have them complete this thought-provoking activity! To familiarize them with some of the play's most important lines, break the class into pairs and have them create a skit around...

Young scholars investigate the bread baking process through the use of literature. In this reading comprehension lesson, students read the book, The Little Red Hen and discuss the steps the hen followed to bake bread. Young scholars bake...

Mark Twain, the famous American author, is often studied in the school system. Use "The Prince and the Pauper" to analyze the differences between the text and its video version.  This lesson includes several culminating project...

After reading Julius Caesar 1.2 and 1.3, break your class into pairs for this role-play. Each pair will receive one of four prompts (or more, if you create additional examples), in which one person tries to persuade the other to do...

Learn how to correctly analyze and score a written performance task. Example work shows annotated think alouds for grading. Teachers also have access to graphic organizers for helping writers succeed,

Shark! Scholars read about sharks in Facts about Sharks by Susanna Batchelor. They then pretend they are shark scientists and choose a shark they want to study. Learners research their sharks and record information in graphic organizers...

Introduce the background of design and designers and their role in communicating their thoughts to others. In groups, you can assign participation in a writing cluster on various designers and write paragraphs to submit to magazines. To...

High school learners examine primary source materials on history and the supernatural which relate to Julius Caesar. They then act out a scene based on different historical understandings and identify facts, theories, and similarities in...

Young drama pupils will perform a number of expressive speaking exercises as they consider the themes of responsibility, consequences, and justice in the very modern Australian play The Stones. With a lot of role playing and...

In this grammar activity, students read twenty sentences to find the trite expression in each one and then think of a creative way to rephrase it.

Designed as a review of verbs studied in first three chapters in this grammar series, the 16-page packet includes activities, worksheets, games, and assessments.

After viewing this slide show, which goes over the mosts common reasons for misspellings, students take a short quiz. They must choose the correct version of the underlined word in each sentence, or choose option D; which means "no...

Commas can be complicated. Help learners achieve a greater understanding of comma usage with this handout, which includes two different comma activities. Following given directions, young writers punctuate provided sentences and combine...

Why is it a sin to kill a mockingbird? Test your readers with these multiple-choice questions from To Kill a Mockingbird. The quiz features some challenging, lesser-known questions about the novel.