Explore the paradox of the universe - or, at least, of popular music - with this lesson. Using the songs "Inaudible Melodies" by Jack Johnson and "She" by Green Day, your class will complete a graphic organizer to help them understand...

Present your class with an overview of poetry-related information. The slides are clearly organized by topic, starting with reading poetry, ending with myths, and touching on everything from the five senses to open and closed forms of...

Pairs of contradictory words introduce learners to paradoxes, the literary device writers use to get readers thinking deeply about their messages. An interactive lesson uses poems by Emily Dickinson and Wilfred Owen and excerpts from the...

Clichés, paradoxes, and equivocations are detailed in a short, animated video that defines and illustrates these writing traps. The resource also includes a quiz and the transcript for the video. Users can register to access free course...

Have everything you need to know about the elements of poetry with a nine-page handout. Split into four categories—word sounds, meanings, arrangement, and imagery—budding poets may reference terms, read definitions, descriptions, and...

High schoolers identify the distinction between literal and figurative language with a focus on metaphors. They complete a metaphor analysis chart, then practice expanding metaphors by composing their own comparisons of elements of the...

Seriously, 93 slides of literary terms? Yes, and well worth the time, although perhaps not all at once. The beauty here is in the concise, easy-to-understand definitions for such well-known terms as imagery and personification, as well...

How well do your learners really know the characters in Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising? A biopoem activity prompts readers to investigate the characters and their traits. Line by line, writers add the characters'...

Students view and analyze "Still Life," by Cornelis de Heem. They answer discussion questions about the painting, write similes, discuss symbolism, create a still life sketch, and create a paint box poem.

Students participate in reading various poems in order to complete different activities. In groups, they compare and contrast the writing style and subject matter of two different author's poems. They practice writing poems on...

"Timid, scared, terrified." High school scholars examine words, their denotations and connotations, in a series of exercises that use lines from Shakespeare to explore figurative language and word relationships. Participants then...

Looking for a great lesson to teach your class everything they need to know about Shakespearean sonnets? Here's such a lesson. "Sonnet #18" launches a study of the Shakespearean sonnet. Scholars watch two Prezi presentations that provide...

Great literature discussions are a consequence of carefully crafted questions, interpretative questions that permit more than one response, and responses supported by specific evidence from the text. The discussion questions in a guide...

Young scholars recognize inductive and deductive reasoning and analyze common fallacies in critical thinking.  In this argumentation and logic lesson, students use role playing activities and specific instances of inductive and...

Learners examine the themes of loneliness and frustrated love in the work of Carson McCullers. In this theme analysis lesson, students complete a comparison of patterns in the novels of McCullers as a part of a theme analysis.

Jack Johnson's "Inaudible Melodies" creates an interesting paradox of how society perceives itself versus the reality of how society really behaves. After listening to a second song using paradox in order to further understand the...

Source: Paradoxes, James Guppy, Flickr Paradox is a type of figurative language that A Handbook to Literature defines as "a statement that while seemingly contradictory or absurd may actually be well-founded or true." You will find...

[Accessible by TX Educators. Free Registration/Login Required] In this lesson, students will learn to identify and explain the purposes of irony and paradox in poetry. Both of these poetic devices are ways of saying one thing and meaning...

The text to "A Paradox" by Richard Lovelace.

[Accessible by TX Educators. Free Registration/Login Required] In this lesson, you will learn to identify and explain the purposes of irony and paradox in poetry. Both of these poetic devices are ways of saying one thing and meaning...

Definition of paradox with example from the poetry of John Donne and links to related terms such as oxymoron and metaphysical conceit.

This article by Dr. Marguerite Connor focuses on metaphysical poetry and the metaphysical poets. It includes a definition, the characteristics, a discussion of metaphycial poets and poetry, Neo-Platonism, platonic love, and T.S. Eliot's...

This site gives short definitions of the terms denotation and connotation. Also gives definitions for many figures of speech. Finally, includes discussion and study questions for a few poems at the bottom of the page. L.11-12.5b Nuance

Calling itself "unique," Bob's is easy to use, with cross-links throughout, phonetic pronunciation guides when necessary, and many examples and quotations. Click on the letter and scroll for the word.