Curated OER
Extreme Poetry Vocabulary
Challenge your class with this comprehensive list of literary vocabulary words. Learners take a pre-test, look up definitions, come up with an example, and then take a post-test. You might use this prior to a unit about poetic devices in...
Curated OER
Express Yourself
How do you make a story exciting? Teach young readers how to change your pitch, tone, and mood as you read. After modeling the various ways you can change your expression, have small pairs or groups work together to give it a shot!
Curated OER
Story Time
Ninth graders watch soap operas online. In this English lesson, 9th graders explore the story elements of the soap opera. Students write a journal on their own interpretations of characters.
Curated OER
A Picture’s Worth a Thousand Words
Pupils examine historical photographs and discuss what the photograph reveals and how they can contribute to writing. In this response to literature students choose a photograph and develop a paragraph around it.
Indiana University
World Literature: "One Evening in the Rainy Season" Shi Zhecun
Did you know that modern Chinese literature “grew from the psychoanalytical theory of Sigmund Freud”? Designed for a world literature class, seniors are introduced to “One Evening in the Rainy Season,” Shi Zhecun’s stream of...
National Humanities Center
Teaching Emily Dickinson: A Common Core Close Reading Seminar
Three of Emily Dickinson's poems, "I like to see it," "Because I could not stop for Death," and "We grow accustomed to the Dark," provide instructors with an opportunity to model for class members how to use close reading strategies to...
Curated OER
PowerPoint Short Story Report
Students make a Microsoft PowerPoint report from a short story read in class. They summarize and paraphrase a short story identifying the six story elements: characters, setting, plot, conflict, solution, tone/mood.
Curated OER
A Moment in Time
Eighth graders study poems to see how punctuation, line length, rhythm and word choice can be used to create a memorable moment. They read and discuss poems by Shel Silverstein.
Curated OER
Literary Data Collection Chart
Here’s a matrix that could be used with any literary work. For each assigned passage, readers are asked to record information about characters, setting, vocabulary, literary devices, symbols, tone, mood, etc. In addition, they are asked...
Curated OER
Crafting Poetry: A Sensory Journey
Tenth graders experiment with poetry devices to write poems. In this poetry lesson, 10th graders participate in learning stations. Students create a word pool and select a word from the list to create a line of poetry. Students complete...
Curated OER
CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT: EXAMINE EXPRESSIONS THROUGH PORTRAITURE
Students use a work or art as a springboard to a personal narrative or descriptive writing, create a collage to identify tone through art, and use inference to discern what might have caused an individual to feel the emotion that is...
Curated OER
INTRODUCTION TO POETIC WRITING
Students read about the four elements of poetry: form, theme, purpose, and mood. They are given several questions to ask themselves about each element as they begin to write their own successful poems.
Curated OER
Fall Similes and Metaphors
Students interpret what a similies and metaphors are. They give examples of similies and metaphors. Pupils write different similies and metaphors using fall or autumn descriptive words. Students base their comparisons on facts, once they...
Curated OER
Communicating Through Pictures
Students examine photographs, paintings and drawings convey meaning and mood. The ability to 'read' a picture is an important literary skill. This activity gives students the opportunity to tell a story through pictures by creating a...
Curated OER
Three Part Dialogue
Eighth graders write a three part dialogue as part of an effective memoir. In this three part dialogue lesson, 8th graders are given two parts of a dialogue and emotions that accompany the words. Students then create the...
Curated OER
Vocabulary Evaluation and Practice
Eighth graders are introduced to new vocabulary associated with communication. In groups, they discuss how they memorize vocabulary words and the importance of a large vocabulary. To end the lesson, they complete a vocabulary test.
Curated OER
Romanticism, Realism and Transcendentalism
Correct two sentences on overhead and complete one analogy,Define word meanings, synonyms, antonyms, variant forms and word parts for five words,interpret ?The Devil and Tom Walker?
-respond to teacher-directed questions
-discuss...
Curated OER
The Dream Factory
Students compare postcard samples from Los Angeles, CA and Austin, TX. They examine them to find common elements they share (tone, mood, romanticized themes, artistic elements, etc.) They create postcards to show the "real" Austin.
Curated OER
Incorporating Thoreau And Theatre
Young scholars investigate the writings of Thoreau. They read passages orally and look for words of imagery in the text. Students also answer a series of questions and they convert passages of writing into theatrical presentations in...
Monarch High School
TP-CASTT Practice
Acronyms can help learners remember facts and analyze poetry. This resource includes graphic organizers for TP-CASTT, SOAPS, SOAPSTone, and DIDLS. Class members can try out one or all of these strategies to assist with that difficult job...
Curated OER
The Study of Theme and Figurative Language in Poetry and/or Prose
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 instructional activity...
Curated OER
With Your Own Two Hands: Are You Changing the World or "Waiting for the World to Change"?
Can your pupils change the world? Explore this question with Ben Harper's song "With My Own Two Hands" and John Mayer's "Waiting for the World to Change." After listening to the songs, they discuss the tools at their disposal for...
Curated OER
Connotation and Denotation:
Eighth graders investigate the effect that connotations can have on writing. They are shown examples to build background knowledge before attempting the exercise. They finish by writing a paragraph to practice what they have learned.
Curated OER
Book Illustration
Students view a video and discuss what illustrations in a book show and don't show. In this observation lesson, students look at the details on a page in Alice in Wonderland and create an illustration.