Shaping our Team

Here's a richly detailed unit, designed for second graders, that focuses on decoding figurative language, including similes, metaphors, personification and idioms.

Show your class one way in which art and math are related by teaching them about M.C. Escher. Class members read a brief passage and then respond to five related questions.

Use short stories to teach English? Yes! Designed as a professional development opportunity for English language teachers, the ideas in this booklet can easily be adapted to advanced ESL/ELL classes.

How can you teach a text to a group of readers who struggling with the language? The second in a set of three ESL lessons related to Theme 4: Problem Solvers engages English language learners by introducing vocabulary and grammar...

Calligrams, or shape poems, are the focus of ninth exercise in a ten-part poetry writing series.

Everyone loves food! Help your English language learners pick up some vocabulary with a series of activities based around cognates and food. Pupils practice each word and focus on the words in-depth by filling out Frayer model...

Shape poems can be fun! Give your writers this example of a poem shaped like a fir tree, then give them the chance to try one of their own. This can be a fun poetry-style exercise to let visual learners experience a new side of poetry.

In order to understand figurative language, learners read 5 poems, each exemplifying a different literary device. They discuss and write responses to each poem. They then choose one literary device which they will use as the basis...

Turn grammar practice into a game, a video game this is! Scholars show what they know about figurative language with a video game that takes them through a land filled with coins, magic, and animals. Concepts include similes,...

Figures of speech, sensory details, and academic language are all targeted while reading Chapter Two of J. Ferris’ Go Free or Die. First, learners engage in an exercise to practice describing with detail. Then, partners use a...