Puns

Tickle your funny bone with a worksheet that presents five famous puns drawn from Shakespeare's Richard III, Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, and Much Ado About Nothing. Readers identify the play on words as a homographic or homophonic pun. 

What is a homophone for aloud? Or right? Fifth graders complete a list of 24 homophones, choosing another word that sounds like a given word but has a different meaning. At the bottom of the page, they write punning sentences to practice...

Read and analyze a variety of Shakespearean and contemporary puns using Visual Thesaurus computer software. Middle and high schoolers analyze a pun as a class; in small groups they analyze a Shakespearean pun using contextual clues and...

Students analyze why puns are funny. In this puns usage lesson, students work in small groups to analyze Shakespearean puns, then write their own puns to share with the class. Students are encouraged to use VisualThesaurus to aid in...

Students examine the wit of characters in two plays. In this drama lesson, students read The Shakespeare Stealer by Gary L. Blackwood and Twelfth Night by Shakespeare. Students analyze the puns used in both plays and write essays that...

Introduce your middle school writers to a higher level creative writing activity. They become familiar with the literary term pun, and illustrate their writing with clipart they find online. They complete a worksheet on puns in which...

Middle schoolers increase their knowledge of homonyms and become familiar with puns.

Explore the writing traits of word choice and conventions. Middle school writers use this Six-Traits Writing instructional activity to discuss the writing style of the Tom Swift Adventure Series by Victor Appleton. They examine "Tom...

Encourage more pun-derstanding of word play in your literary scholars as they explore Brian P. Cleary's book Rhyme and Punishment: Adventures in Wordplay. Although this isn't suggested, consider beginning this study by simply showing...

Explore how language is used for comic effect. Middle schoolers determine which of the three formulas for jokes (double meanings, unexpected outcome, humorous mental image) make each of 18 classic, corny examples funny. They complete a...