Students create poems using a group of four predetermined words. In this poetry lesson students incorporate each of the four words into a poem that makes sense.

Track the poetic elements in any text with a guided reading worksheet. Kids note examples of consonance, alliteration, onomatopoeia, repetition, rhyme, and rhythm when reading a poem or story, and provide a short explanation as...

Chinese and Japanese calligraphy is beautiful and significant in both culture and tradition. Engage your class in this expressive fine art form through a lesson on using, holding, and creating brush strokes common to Japanese writing...

Students study the topic of peace and use brainstorming techniques to create a clustering diagram. In this peace brainstorming activity, students organize brainstorming material to complete a writing assignment. Students create...

Scholars are introduced to the characteristics of a legend. They read and discuss Old Father Story Teller by Pablita Velarde. Then, in groups, they write and illustrate a poem based on one of the legends from the book. This lesson plan...

Students read Wordsworth sonnet, "The World is Too Much With Us," and complete reader response criticsm worksheets. They examine the poet's ideas and techniques then write a letter to Mr. Wordsworth and explain how he might feel about...

In this poetry worksheet, students read different poetry and identify the type of poetry that is being used based on the sound. Students complete 10 short answer questions.

Students explore Earth Day by creating an arts and crafts project. In this nature appreciation lesson, students utilize nature related vocabulary terms on magnets and put them in different orders to create interesting poetry. Students...

High schoolers read and analyze several highly symbolic poems. They create their own symbolic poem, read it to the class, and discuss whether they can guess any hidden meanings.

Students read and analyze the twelve short stories in the novel "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes." They create their own detective that has to solve a new kind of crime, and write and edit a short story with their original detective as...

Students recognize poetic devices including rhyme, syllabification, and meter. They identify the characteristics of a nonsense poem and of a limerick. They write their own limericks.

Second graders will write a story. In this writing and meteorology lesson, 2nd graders read the story Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, then use KidPix to create a weather picture. The picture is imported into a word processor and the...

Eleventh graders are introduced to various basic and advanced poetic devices. They read several poems and practice identifying poetic elements. They identify at least two different poems and substantiate why they belong in the canon.

Students create and solve haiku riddles.  In this haiku writing lesson, students work in groups to match a haiku to an illustration.  Students write haiku and assess themselves and their peers.

To prepare for crafting their own memoir, class members examine poetry by Margaret Atwood, Billy Collins, Robert Hayden, and Claude McKay, stories by Richard Rodriquez and Willa Cather, and Barry Levinson's film Avalon. They examine...

Betty Botter and Theophilus Thistle provide models for willy writers to wrestle words into tricky tongue twisters. 

First graders listen to the story The Hungry Caterpillar, then sequentially organize their own re-writing and re-creating of the story. They construct illustrations for their book using the collage technique Eric Carle used in his...

A guided imagery exercise is a great way to get readers thinking about writing. As part of their study of Out of the Dust, Karen Hesse’s 1998 Newbery Medal winning verse novel, class members listen to a reading of one of the poems...

Does more power make you more important? Test takers ponder the question as the 2005 AP® English Literature and Composition Free-Response Questions Form B asks scholars to take a close look at power by writing thoughtful essays. Writers...

Need some ideas for team-building activities? This 27-page packet contains a wide variety suggestions, everything from back-to-school bingo to positive comments name charts. There's even an inspirational poem by David Roth...

Have you ever felt like you are pulled into two directions? Some authors depict this feeling in their characters. Scholars choose a play or novel in which a character is pulled or influenced by two different directions and write essays...

"Ode to la Tortilla" and "Ode to Joy"? Sure! Use Gary Soto's poem to introduce learners to the ode format. After examining the descriptive words Soto uses, class members study a poster of Ludwig van Beethoven, suggest words that describe...

Do you have a political agenda? Some authors do. Scholars analyze a piece of work and determine how the author deals with a political or social issue. Responding to two other essay questions, writers create essays exploring how authors...

Three free-response prompts provide scholars an opportunity to practice for the AP® English Literature Composition exam. Using released prompts from the 2010 free-response section, writers craft an essay about the experiences of a...