Powerful orators make their messages compelling with a combination of factors. Learn how to be an inspirational speaker with a reading assessment activity that presents a list of persuasive speaking techniques, as well as two...

A primary source set of photographs, videos, newspaper articles, and FBI reports provides insight into race relations during the 1960s, the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing, and the murder of Emmitt Till. Designed to be used to...

“Ich bin ein Berliner.” Here’s the full text of John F. Kennedy’s famous address delivered to the people of Berlin on June 26, 1963. The resource could be used as part of a study of Kennedy’s presidency, of rhetorical devices, or as...

Readers examine the rhetorical devices Haley uses in chapter 8 of The Autobiography of Malcolm X, paying particular attention to the diction and syntax and how these choices reveal changes in Malcolm X's point of view.

Target audience, covert message, explicit and implicit appeals. As part of an investigation of rhetorical devices used in campaign ads, class members examine and deconstruct the appeals in logos from...

Looking for an assessment that reveals how well readers understand complex text? Check out an assessment module based on "The Gettysburg Address." Pupils are asked to craft an essay that demonstrates their understanding not only of...

To demonstrate their ability to comprehend complex text, ninth graders are asked to craft an essay in which they use evidence drawn from "Letter From Birmingham Jail" to analyze how Martin Luther King, Jr. uses rhetorical devices...

How do authors use rhetorical devices and word choice to emphasize their ideas? Pupils consider the question while reading paragraphs 16–19 from Julia Alvarez's essay "A Genetics of Justice." Readers engage in evidence-based discussion...

Introduce your class members to allegory and propaganda with a series of activities designed to accompany a study of George Orwell's Animal Farm. Readers examine the text as an allegory, consider the parallels to collective farms...

As part of their study of the 1963 March on Washington, class members do a side-by-side comparison of the original text of Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream Speech" with a transcript of the speech he delivered. The take away from the...

Wonderful worksheets and activities complementing six sequential lessons are what you'll find in this unit on folklore. Pupils create folktales using literary devices and included story starters, compare and contrast different...

Lesson five in the series focuses on syntax and the elements that make sentences enjoyable. Learners practice building different clauses and phrases and using figures of speech and rhetorical and literary devices.

Is a list of literary terms found frequently on AP English exams of value to test takers? Now there's a rhetorical question. Here's a list that provides definitions for everything from allegory to vernacular. To say the list is...

Current immigration issues and the rhetoric surrounding the controversies come into focus with a lesson that uses Richard Blanco's anthem, "The U.S. of Us," written after the August 2019 attack in El Paso, Texas, to open a discussion of...

Middle schoolers aren't too young to feel strongly about politics, social issues, consumer rights, or environmental problems. Demonstrate the first steps toward social change with a project about action-oriented writing. Eighth...

Are American young people prepared to become tomorrow's leaders in technological innovation, or does an obsession with being cool sidetrack essential skills? That is the question freshmen and sophomores must address in a performance...

C.E.R = Claim + Evidence + Reasoning. That's the framework behind building a solid piece of argument writing. Introduce young writers to this format with an engaging lesson that uses YouTube videos and a PowerPoint to illustrate the...

Choose your words carefully. Martin Luther King Jr. carefully chooses his words to provide evidence to support his claim about segregation. Scholars work in pairs to discuss previous lessons, complete homework assignments, determine the...

Take your place in the world—or the text. Scholars look at how the placement of a particular paragraph adds to the meaning of "Letter from Birmingham Jail" by Martin Luther King Jr. Before working on a quick write activity; readers...

Where have all the activists gone? Class members compare 21st-century activism with the suffrage movement and the work of Susan B. Anthony. They begin by examining Anthony's biography and speeches to find evidence that her words and...

An excerpt from Henry MacNeal Turner's address to the Georgia legislature provides class members with an opportunity to develop their literary analysis skills. Prompted by the provided factual, evaluative, and interpretive questions,...

The second module in a series for high school seniors focuses on tracking the central idea of a text across genres and from multiple author and character perspectives. Twelfth graders read a speech by Benazir Bhutto entitled "Ideas Live...

To conclude a study of One Hundred Years of Solitude, class members analyze Gabriel Garcia Marquez's Nobel Prize in Literature acceptance speech. After a whole-class discussion of the main ideas in the speech, individuals draft a...

National Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman's "The Hill We Climb," featured at the 2021 inauguration of President Joseph Biden, is the focus of a six-page guide. The guide includes before reading, during reading, and after reading...