Mary Pope Osborne, Classroom Adventures Program
The Backpack Travel Journals
Strap on those backpacks, it's time to travel through history with this literature unit based on the first four books of The Magic Tree House series. While reading through these fun stories, children create story maps, record...
McGraw Hill
Phonics Teachers Resource Book
Looking to improve your classes literacy program? Then look no further. This comprehensive collection of resources includes worksheets and activities covering everything from r-controlled vowels and consonant digraphs, to the...
Curated OER
Poetry Shared Reading
Young scholars explore poetry. In this poetry instructional activity, students discover the qualities of good writing and the characteristics of poetry. Young scholars practice reading poems in different ways. Studnets also discuss the...
California Education Partners
Covers by Nikki Giovanni
Over three days, scholars listen to and read the poem, "Covers" by Nikki Giovanni. Learners complete a graphic organizer by sketching their visualizations from each stanza then discuss their pictures with a peer. Pupils answer...
Columbus City Schools
Poetry Speaking and Listening Standards
Celebrate April's National Poetry Month or enrich a poetry unit with a wealth of language arts material. Class members develop an oral interpretation of a poem and/or develop a podcast interview with a poet.
Curated OER
Language Arts Skills: Listening and Speaking Strategies
Your class can practice communicating clearly. They practice listening and speaking through games such asTelephone and a social scavenger hunt. This is a solid lesson that helps apply good communication skills.
EngageNY
Writing, Critique, and Revising: Two-Voice Poems (Chapter 14: "Las Ucas/Grapes")
Continue work on the two-piece poem that compares two characters from Esperanza Rising. Give class members a few minutes to finish their drafts. After they have a complete product, model how to critique and edit the poems with one group....
National Council of Teachers of English
A Bear of a Poem: Composing and Performing Found Poetry
Scholars work collaboratively to compose a found poem from one of their favorite stories. With a finished product in hand, class members form a circle and perform their work for an audience by taking turns reciting one line till the poem...
Curated OER
A Mysterious Story Poem
Your scholars will be hooked after reading the cryptic narrative poem "The Listeners." They explain why it is so mysterious, then use the poem to learn about pronouns. Learners read an excerpt from the poem that has been altered to...
Curated OER
De-Mystifying Poetry: Understanding Narrative Poetry
Tenth graders explore narrative poetry. They analyze sections of a poem and present to groups. They compose their own narrative poems using pictures as prompts. They exchange their poems and analyze their classmate's poem.
Texas Education Agency (TEA)
Cognates (English III Reading)
Did you know that "30-40 percent of all words in English have a related word in Spanish?" This fact launches an interactive study of cognates appearing the same in English and Spanish. Learners demonstrate what they have learned about...
Texas Education Agency (TEA)
Allusion (English III Reading)
An interactive lesson introduces readers to allusions, the literary device writers use to add depth to their work. Users record notes on the provided graphic organizer as they identify the allusions in poems by Walt Whitman, Langston...
August House
The Pig Who Went Home on Sunday
Turn your classroom into a pig sty with a instructional activity based on the Appalachian folktale The Pig Who Went Home on Sunday. Similar to the story of The Three Little Pigs, the folktale tells a story of four pigs who leave...
Texas Education Agency (TEA)
Simile and Metaphor (English III Reading)
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,...
Curated OER
Express Yourself Lesson Seed 6 Close Reading
Look back at the third chapter of The Cay with your class. Pupils will conduct a close reading, taking a second look at a chunk of text and responding to a series of text-dependent questions. Wrap up with an analytical writing prompt...
West Corporation
Making Inferences – Use Your Mind to Read!
How can you tell if someone is happy? The lesson works with elementary and middle school scholars to activate their schema and pay attention to details to make inferences in their daily lives, poetry, and other literature. Cleverly...
K12 Reader
Literature About Chicago: Prose vs. Poetry
In this comprehension exercise, readers compare Carl Sandburg's "Chicago" to a description of the city from Upton's Sinclair's The Jungle.
Great Books Foundation
War Is Kind
Ponder the complexities of war, peace, and country with Stephen Crane's "War is Kind." After reading the poem, learners answer six questions in a class discussion or as an individual assessment.
Read Works
Fireflies in the Garden
Imagine a dark sky lit up with fireflies. Robert Frost's "Fireflies in the Garden" instills a visual in the reader's mind of a star lit sky glowing with fireflies. After reading the poem, learners compare and contrast the image the...
New York State Education Department
Comprehensive English Examination: January 2015
Looking for practice for state standardized testing? Scholars work through a variety of passages and multiple question types in this exam. Questions range from comprehension of auditory passages, reading passages, and poems, as well as...
New York State Education Department
Comprehensive English Examination: August 2012
Looking for a resource to wrap up all English skills in one? Here's a comprehensive resource that includes listening and reading passages, responding to poems, writing an essay, and analyzing a quote. The packet includes passages and...
Novelinks
The Hobbit: Directed Reading - Thinking Activity
An in-class reading of Shel Silverstein's The Missing Piece Meets the Big O introduces class members to the journey motif that forms the basis of The Hobbit.
New York State Education Department
Comprehensive English Examination: January 2016
Poetry and prose often have more in common than it initially appears. A sample comprehensive English exam has test-takers compare and contrast two passages to answer short response questions. The exam, which is part of a larger set of...
Curated OER
Using Poetry As Inspiration for Composition
A reading of Robert Frost’s "The Road Not Taken" launches an interdisciplinary study of the connection between the meters of a poem and a melody. After identifying the number of beats in each line of the poem, young musicians use...