Students explore the environment by learning about nature. In this art lesson, students go on a walk and find objects to help in creating a picture, or collage representing whatever season is being discussed. Students write similes...

Looking to introduce some text-based questions into your ELA lessons? Practice the kinds of skills the Common Core demands with the seven text-based questions and the essay prompt provided here. Designed to be a three-day instructional...

Third graders listen to the non-fiction book: COMING HOME: FROM THE LIFE OF LANGSTON HUGHES. They identify examples of metaphors and similies within the book and understand how this figure of speech is used in writing. They then create...

Natalie Babbitt's award winning fantasy, Tuck Everlasting, is the anchor text in a unit plan that focuses on identifying similes, metaphors, imagery, and personification in the text and analyzing how these elements effect the...

Fifth graders are introduced to the figurative language using metaphors and similies. They identify the similarities and differences between the two and practice developing their own to use in their writing. They illustrate their...

Students write an acrostic poem and analyze a work of art. For this art lesson plan, students look at a picture and answer questions about it, write a poem, write about the setting in the painting they saw, and answer short questions...

Middle and high schoolers remember their most memorable experiences, and then connect their own narrative with an exposition about the topic associated with their experience. This New York Times lesson plan would be a great addition...

High schoolers study and discuss definitions of metaphor, simile, and personification. In small groups, they read a section of "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" and identify those devices. The group presents their examples with the...

In this story writing skills instructional activity, students consider 6 guidelines for authoring their own stories. Students use the guidelines as they write their own stories.

Readers of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings are asked to craft an essay in which they compare how Maya Angelou uses figurative language to depict herself and Mrs. Flowers. 

What do all those chairs and pencils do in the classroom once everyone leaves? Allow imaginations to run wild with frighteningly short poems!

In this metaphor worksheet, pupils make a "word card" with the word metaphor for their vocabulary bank, then determine whether statement from The Dragonslayer are similes or metaphors, 

Under construction, this lesson focuses on Canto Familia, a collection of poetry about Gary Soto's experiences growing up in California's Imperial Valley. Representative of the experiences of many Latinos, the poems also address themes...

True! Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart" makes readers nervous. But how? Young scholars create a drawing while listening to a reading of Poe's eerie tale to understand how writers create the mood of their stories and what their writing style...

Go figure! Scholars examine the figurative language in the last half of W.E.B. Du Bois's work "Of Our Spiritual Strivings." They pay special attention to his metaphors and develop ideas with group discussion and guided questions....

We carry memories of where we're from; tweens and teens can capture these memories by first listening to several memory poems and then crafting their own. They analyze literary devices other poets use, brainstorm a list of images they...

Learners write similes with a partner. In this spring similes lesson, students discuss the season an write a story using a minimum number of similes.  

Learners are introduced to similes and read various examples. Then students write their own similes to describe themselves and share them with the rest of the class.

Fifth graders will be able to identify and use prepositions correctly in written work.¿¿¿ They will also be able to identify poetic devices.They will see how their writing can be more descriptive and "visual" for their audience.

Fourth graders, after brainstorming a list of things good friends do for each other, apply prereading strategies to the book, "Be A Friend to Trees," and create similes and metaphors utilizing content ideas. They also sketch an...

Learners create a haiku about the land formations they've studied.  In this haiku lesson, students identify the metaphor and meaning of a given haiku, brainstorm comparisons for a landform photo as a class and choose one to use in a...

Explore the short story "The Minister's Black Veil" by Nathaniel Hawthorne. First, read the short story and take notes on specific uses of the elements of writing such as characters, setting, plot, similes, personification, metaphors,...

Students imagine themselves someplace -- the beach, a mountain top, a city street -- anywhere.

Students reflect on field trips in writing. In this journal writing lesson, students write about a recent experience by using 4 of their senses to tell what they remember. They turn these into poetry.