Everyone wants to feel like they belong. James, in James and the Giant Peach, finds a feeling of belonging in a very odd place—inside a peach! Scholars read the story of James and the Peach and work through vocabulary, language, and...

Little Man, in Vince Vawter's Paperboy, is a great baseball player, but due to stuttering he'd rather not speak to a soul. Scholars read how Little Man deals with his fears as they use vocabulary words to complete sentences,...

Beauty is more than skin deep. Auggie, the main character in Wonder, has a facial defect, but his inner beauty shines. Taking a cue from Auggie, scholars learn how a person is more than outer appearance. To finish the resource, they...

Fourth graders recognize and create alliterative language in both literary and commercial use. In this language arts instructional activity, 4th graders analyze pieces of poetry and focus on the use of imagery, personification, and...

Students explore the literal and figurative meanings of twenty-nine phrases and sayings. This unit of nine lessons integrates written expression and convention to demonstrate the value of idioms to the language.

In this writing poems worksheet, students record 10 nouns, then write 2 or 3 verbs next to each noun, and finally write a simile or metaphor that matches the noun and verbs in that row. Students then organize these lines into stanzas to...

The key idea in this interactive exercise designed for high schoolers is that figurative language, especially similes, and metaphors, add layers of meaning to a text. Users examine examples from speeches, ads, movie dialogue, and poems,...

What are some of life's most tried-and-true lessons? Pupils listen to examples from the book Live and Learn and Pass It On by H. Jackson Brown, Jr. They write down their own life lessons to later compile in a class booklet. As...

Invoke creativity by using this resource on writing techniques. Learners create a description of a character they could use in their writing, focusing on the proper use of adjectives, similes, and metaphors. It's a great presentation for...

Access your young poets' senses and emotions with this activity, which guides them through the process of writing a "sense poem." After working on a sense poem as a class and modeling the procedure, individuals work on their own poems...

Explore descriptive language. Learners read a series of similes describing the eyes, teeth, skin, and other features of a monster. Then, they describe their own imaginary monster using similes and adjectives. Very creative!

Break down Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls into manageable chunks by focusing on plot points and literary elements in specific chapters. This resource is all about the first chapter, and asks pupils to use complete sentences to...

They say when you are told something enough times, you eventually begin to believe it's true. Sadly, Max in Freak The Mighty believed he was stupid and dumb, so he learned to be alone. That changed when he met another outcast, Freak....

A poem is compressed speech, like a can of frozen juice with all the water pressed out. An interactive teaches users how to reconstitute the language, the structure, and the literary devices to appreciate all the subtleties the poet...

Learners locate the literary devices used in Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech. In this figurative language lesson plan, students first distinguish between similes, metaphors, analogies, personification, etc. Learners...

Students examine the methods of effective characterization. In this writing skills lesson, students discuss how emotions, dialogue, actions, and physical descriptions build believable characters. Students then use the methods of...

Students study important historical figures.  In this United States history lesson, students trace the signature of John Hancock using cotton swabs, glitter, and various art supplies after discussing the historical significance of...

In this metaphor worksheet, students read information about how to write a metaphor . Students are instructed to write some metaphors about nature in an unlined blank space.

In this English idioms and metaphors learning exercise, students discover the metaphorical meaning of words and phrases associated with happiness and sadness.  Students work in pairs to role play a conversation about things...

Students, in groups, identify the origins of a number of transportation idioms. They search for current transportation idioms to have a partner explain.

There are six word exercises provided here, although they're not necessarily linked together. The first short practice asks learners to give compound words that use the list of words provided. The second asks learners to identify...

Sixth graders write descriptive narratives about animals. For this descriptive writing lesson, the teacher models how to write a paragraph with interesting sensory words and exciting verbs. Students choose a picture of an animal they...