Persuasion and Use of Language

Who says that reading has to involve text? Use non-print texts, including videos, TED talks, and podcasts in your classroom to teach skills associated with nonfiction reading, including evaluating claims, finding main ideas, and...

Can three works of literature work together to establish and develop a common central idea? Put your thoughts into writing with a final assessment focused on a unit-long analysis of Christopher Marlowe's "The Passionate Shepard to His...

The Gettysburg Address is a powerful text. Use it to teach persuasion and the importance of word choice. The lesson detailed here includes a scaffolded background knowledge activity that includes image analysis of photos from the Civil...

Model for readers how to identify an author’s purpose in a nonfiction text.  Using a document camera, conduct a close reading and annotate a passage from N. Scott Momaday’s, “Riding is an Exercise of the Mind.” Groups then read and...

What are the benefits of media use? What are the dangers for young people and for society as a whole? After examining a series of materials, individuals craft an essay in which they explain what is at stake, state their own position on...

What does a speech reveal about the speaker? Pupils explore this question and more as they conduct a close reading of Sojourner Truth's speech. Class members activate a series of skills related to the Common Core as they analyze the...

What makes a commercial memorable? Is it the same qualities that make it effective? Young consumers analyze the messages in different advertisements, focusing on persuasive techniques, production details, and positive and negative...

“I am. I think. I will.” Seek the secrets of words. Ayn Rand’s Anthem provides the text for a series of exercises that ask readers to analyze how Rand uses antimetabole, epistrophe, parallelism, and repetition to create meaning. Using...

A reading of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech launches a study of rhetorical devices such as hyperbole, allusion, metaphor, simile, personification, connotative language and parallel structure. Class members then...

Engage in an activity that focuses on the concepts of formal and informal language use. Middle and high schoolers compare and contrast each style by using a Venn diagram that includes some examples. They read and hear a passage of lyrics...