"I Cannot Tell a Lie"

Edgar Allen Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart" is full of imagery and excitement for the reader. Review this passage with your class to discuss perspective, tone, and word choice. Then writers are asked to create their own piece: a one-page...

It is entirely fitting and proper that Wilfred Owen’s powerful “Dulce et Decorum Est” is the poem used for an exercise in close reading, discussion, analysis, and argumentative writing. Class members discuss focus questions in pairs,...

To do something to someone or something or not to do something to someone. That is the question. And it is the source of the confusion between lie and lay. The strength of this worksheet is in the clear, cogent explanation for the...

Are your pupils caught in the lie/lay confusion? Give them extra practice with a worksheet that defines the difference in meaning, conjugates the words, and gives examples of how the two verbs are used. Learners then practice with 10...

"Hate is why we cannot wait." Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s attorney and advisor Clarence B. Jones' six words on race are at the center of an article that reflects on the civil rights movement. After reading the article, middle schoolers...

Close your eyes and picture a time where you decided to tell the truth to someone. What were you wearing? How did you feel? Such prompts begin a guided imagery activity for Zach's Lie. Directions for creating an environment conducive to...

Your class won't be a bunch of squares from using this well-rounded activity! Instead, they'll be expressing thoughtful questions using the cubing strategy. The class brainstorms questions of increasing rigor about Zach's Lie in the...

Looking for some additional materials for Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart"? Included in a 14-page packet are an anticipation guide, a vocabulary list, exercise, and quiz, a list of literary terms, and an essay assignment with pre-writing...

Pupils explore some of our country's founding myths and legends by participating in an online poll. For example, did George Washington really chop down a cherry tree, then confess to his father about the deed, saying, I cannot tell a lie?

Boost the importance of telling the truth with an audiobook taken from Aesop's fable, "The Boy Who Cried Wolf." This version is told by the young boy who is now a grown man looking back on the time he made the unfortunate decision to lie.