Students study the structure and artistry of Dante's, Divine Comedy. They examine how romantic love is interpreted in the episode of Paolo and Francesca while experiencing literary allusions.

Robert Hayden's poem "Those Winter Sundays" serves as the anchor text in a five-part lesson that takes the mystery out of poetry analysis by modeling explicit strategies for pupils to employ to conduct a close reading of a poem. After...

Beowulf, the Old English epic hero, comes alive again in the activities found in a teacher's guide designed to accompany a reading of the classic poem.

Want a handy way to remember the difference between metaphors and similes, or allusions and alliteration? Individuals craft their own figurative language booklet, complete with definitions, examples, and illustrations, following...

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...

Poetry is all about sound and rhythm. The sound of the words, the rhythm of the lines, and the emotional atmosphere created by these elements and the literary devices poets use, compress whole stories into a few stanzas. The specialized...

The poems of Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson are the focus of a unit that asks readers to consider how an artist's life and changes in society influences his or her work. After careful study of Whitman's and Dickinson's perspectives on...

Have everything you need to know about the elements of poetry with a nine-page handout. Split into four categories—word sounds, meanings, arrangement, and imagery—budding poets may reference terms, read definitions, descriptions, and...

Bone-crusher. Troll-wife. Battle-sweat. Blood-worm. What study of Beowulf would be complete without offering readers of this Old English epic poem an opportunity to craft their own kennings and epithets? Provide individuals with a copy...

Call Us By What We Carry, a poetry collection by Nation Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman, is the focus of a 10-page teacher's guide. 

What is figurative language, and why do we use it? Introduce your high schoolers to some examples and discuss the importance of including this element in your writing. After studying a text and searching for examples, writers will...

Seriously, 93 slides of literary terms? Yes, and well worth the time, although perhaps not all at once. The beauty here is in the concise, easy-to-understand definitions for such well-known terms as imagery and personification, as well...

Paul Fisher, the main character in Tangerine, comes to see that it's the choices in life that lead to the consequences that make all the difference. A unit study of Bloor's young adult novel leads readers down this same path. 

Learners use text and photos to visualize the delivery of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s historic "I Have A Dream" speech. They analyze Dr. King's speech for examples of imagery and allusion and create original poetry and illustrations...

This instructional activity focuses on how the blues both operates as poetry and informs the poetry of many prominent African American poets. Students consider the poetic devices and recurring themes in blues lyrics and the significance...

Introduce your class to epic heroes with these activities for Beowulf. After watching a video clip, taking notes on heroes, and tracking characteristics of heroism throughout Beowulf, class members retell an episode of Beowulf using a...

How close are your eighth graders to mastering the ELA Common Core standards? Keep an eye on progress with these charts, which include every eighth grade identifier and full standard text. As you move through the year and teach,...

High schoolers identify the distinction between literal and figurative language with a focus on metaphors. They complete a metaphor analysis chart, then practice expanding metaphors by composing their own comparisons of elements of the...

If you're tired of defining allusion, onomatopoeia, and satire for your language arts students, hand out a complete list of literary devices to keep the terms straight. Each term includes a definition that is easy to understand and...

Robert Frost's "Choose Something Like a Star" and John Keats' "Bright Star" provide the text for a two-part instructional activity in which class members analyze the effects of style on meaning in poetry. Randall Thompson's song cycle...

Middle schoolers are exposed to two different works of poetry in order to complete a task of comparing and contrasting them. They analyze the poem and identify the juxtaposition. The analysis is compiled by them to make a class report of...

Pupils investigate historical context by reading poetry.  In this language arts lesson, students discover the work of Michael Longley and examine his poem "Ceasefire."  Pupils identify the sonnets used in the piece and discuss...

Eleventh graders discover the thematic connections between classical literary and popular song lyrics.  In this English lesson, 11th graders research a specific topic to be presented to the class.  Students analyze song lyrics...