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Figurative Language
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...
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Parrot in the Oven: Instructional Routine
After reading "The Bullet," a particularly intense chapter in Victor Martinez's Parrot in the Oven: Mi Vida, class members listen to the Spanish and the English versions of "Dimelo" by Enrique Iglesias. They then discuss how the...
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Analyzing Famous Speeches as Arguments
A speaker, a message, an audience. After analyzing these elements in Queen Elizabeth's speech to the troops at Tilbury, groups analyze how other speakers use an awareness of events, and their audience to craft their arguments....
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A Walk Around the School: Mapping Places Near and Far
After reading Pat Hutchins’ Rosie’s Walk, have your young cartographers create a map of Rosie’s walk. Then lead them on a walk around the school. When you return class members sequence the walk by making a list of how the class got from...
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Spring Fling
Students take part in a number of activities that center around a spring theme. They draw the steps to show process of growing seeds.
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Simile and Metaphor Lesson Ideas
Teaching students about literary devices, such as simile and metaphor, can be a year long experience.
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Crossroads Blues
The crossroads, and the decisions made and entities met there, are a common theme in literature, pushing readers to examine the choices and encounters that shape life experience. The theme has also been explored in blues music, most...
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Book Project Lesson Plans
Long term book projects can help engage students and enhance their critical thinking skills .
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Thoreau, Emerson, and Transcendentalism
In this online interactive reading comprehension learning exercise, students respond to 13 multiple choice questions based on the Transcendentalist literary movement. Students may submit their answers to be scored.
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Hyperbole
Young scholars define the term hyperbole and determine when it is appropriate to use hyperboles in writing. They work in pairs to develop short stories and poems with examples of hyperboles.
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God's Weaving in Taylor's "Huswifery"
Eleventh graders trace Taylor's use of conceit or extended metaphor in his poem "Huswifery" where he compares the process of cloth making to God's salvation of man, and write a poem in which they compare a personal transformation with an...
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Incident
Students gain insight into human behavior from the study of literature. They read a poem and respond by creating a poem of their own. After a lecture/demo, students utilize a worksheet imbedded in this plan to help them compose an...
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Other Voices - Latino and Chicano Literature and Identity in America
Twelfth graders analyze "Dedication" and "Child of the Americas" using a double-journal format. They compare responses and infer meaning from the connotations of select images in the poems write a paragraph describing the importance of...
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Point of View and Mentor Relationships
Tenth graders analyze the role of mentors, point of view, and prejudice using the texts of To Kill a Mockingbird and Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. For this literature analysis lesson, 10th graders review Scout's...
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Comparatively Speaking
Students practice creating similes and metaphors together as a class. Individually students create similes and metaphors and illustrate them.
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Scops, Rappers and You: Historians with Style!
Students examine the epic poem Beowulf. In this analyzing poetry lesson plan, student compare listen to the Will Smith song "Wild, Wild West" and read Beowulf. Students analyze the song and the poem. Students then research an influential...
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The Poet's Message-"The Colored Soldier" by Langston Hughes
Students analyze the poem, "The Colored Soldier" by Langston Hughes to gain a greater experience of how poets use language to create meaning, influence thinking and thus become pioneers of change in American society. They work on the...
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Autobiography: Maya Angelou
Pupils study the concepts of autobiography, biography, and fiction as literary genres. They read, study, and analyze Maya Angelou's autobiographical writings in terms of what she intended to accomplish by her writings. They develop and...
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What is An American?
Students consider American values. In this individual responsibility instructional activity, students discuss democratic ideals that the nation was founded on and participate in an activity that requires them to create "What is an...
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Science Fiction
Students complete compare and contrast activities for two stories about racism and tolerance in the science fiction genre. For this literary analysis lesson, students read a Ray Bradbury short story and Walter Mosley poem, watch a...
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Magic, Sass, and Rage
Students are introduced to the characteristics of autobiographies. In groups, they read Maya Angelou's "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" and develop their own rules for survival in the classroom. They bring in family photos in an...
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Culture Creation vs. Culture Consumption - Finding Voice Through Digital Storytelling
Ninth graders explore the power of media in culture and Gandhi's philosophy of nonviolence. In this nonviolence and media instructional activity, 9th graders analyze Gandhi's nonviolent methods for social change and discuss the media's...
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Reader's Theater
Students act out and interpret the story for their peers. They study the simplest form of an organized reading to a more elaborate activity involving props, costumes, or a reinterpretation of the narrative into another art form.
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The Hobbit
Young scholars list W.H Auden's six characteristics of a quest story. They say what is meant by a "metaphorical quest." Pupils discuss some differences between symbolism and allegory. Students indicate how Bilbo Baggins's adventures...