Invention Timeline

Combining questions about figurative language and Sandra Cisneros's The House on Mango Street, this quiz would be a good addition to your class. The majority contains questions about simile, metaphor, and personification, from...

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...

Similes and metaphors make writing more beautiful and detailed, but can be a little harder to decipher during a first reading. Use a passage from The Man Who Loved Words to show young readers how to think through passages that...

Here is a lesson plan in which pupils connect themes and rules to live by from the story Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis to those found in the poem If by Rudyard Kipling. First, scholars discuss their reading and review Bud's...

How is a story different when told from various points of view? Learn about first and third person points of view with an activity based on Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island. Readers examine a passage written in first person,...

Use Jack London's The Call of the Wild to help young writers learn the difference between first and third person points of view. After they read a passage from the novel, they rewrite it in the first person point of view.

It's story time! Scholars take a look through the eyes of a storyteller as the teacher reads aloud The People Could Fly. They also listen as the story is played on video. Learners then answer questions about the reader's facial...

Read a sample of creative descriptive writing to your science class. Discuss how writing can be used to record and communicate observations that scientists make. Reading selections and thought-provoking questions are suggested. Also...

What does "freedom of speech" mean to your class, especially in the context of Internet communications? In round-table discussion format, middle and high schoolers address the issues discussed in "State Legislatures Across U.S. Plan to...

Houses come in all shapes and sizes, but not all houses are safe from Mr. and Mrs. Twit. The 10th lesson in a unit designed to accompany The Twits by Roald Dahl turns learners into architects. While designing houses for the monkeys, they...