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Other

Concepts and Practices for Writing Courses: Interpreting Literature

For Students 6th - 8th Standards
This tutorial surveys the way readers should interpret literature or text in symbols, syntax, meaning, and the like. The article features a Literary Toolkit for Analyzing Literature.
Interactive
Quia

Quia: Matching: Literary Devices

For Students 3rd - 8th Standards
This matching game has students match examples of literary devices (yellow boxes) with the terms (blue boxes). There are multiples of each, but each set is matched to a specific box. Java is required.
Handout
Virtual Salt

Handbook of Rhetorical Devices: Analogy

For Students 9th - 10th Standards
Defines analogy. Also explains the reasoning behind the multiple levels of comparisons within an analogy. Includes examples and quotes from famous authors.
Unknown Type
Polk Brothers Foundation Center for Urban Education at DePaul University

De Paul University: Center for Urban Education: Can Infer Meaning of a Multiple Meaning [Pdf]

For Students 3rd - 8th Standards
Students will analyze a word in several different sentences. Students will determine the meaning of the same word in several different contexts. Students will also write their own sentences with the same word in several different contexts.
Lesson Plan
ReadWriteThink

Read Write Think: Finding Figurative Language in the Phantom Tollbooth

For Teachers 6th - 8th Standards
Contains plans for four lessons that use The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster to teach about figurative language. In addition to objectives and standards, this instructional plan contains links to handouts and to sites used in the...
Interactive
Quia

Quia: Concentration: Literary Devices

For Students 9th - 10th Standards
This game asks students to match literary devices (similes, metaphors, personification, slang/dialect and allusions) with their examples while remembering where they are located behind covered squares. Java is required.
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E Reading Worksheets

E Reading Worksheets: Simile Worksheets

For Teachers 3rd - 8th Standards
This site contains figurative language worksheets that assess students' understanding of similes in the context of sentence. After seeing an example, students will fill in the words that are compared in each simile. In addition, students...
Handout
Goshen College

Goshen College: Literary Analysis Guide

For Students 9th - 10th Standards
This resource not only explains how to analyze a text, but also, provides student examples of literary texts. W.9-10.9b Research/Argum, RI.11-12.5 Evaluate text structure
Interactive
Study Ladder

Studyladder: Shades of Meaning

For Students 3rd - 8th Standards
Interactive activity to help students differentiate shades of meaning among groups of words.
Handout
Grammarly

Grammarly Blog: Idioms and Phrases

For Students 9th - 10th Standards
An explanation and examples of idioms and how to use context clues to understand their meanings.
Handout
Grammarly

Grammarly Blog: Idioms and Their Meanings

For Students 9th - 10th Standards
An explanation and examples of idioms and their geographic ties.
Handout
Other

Lifestream Center: Lessons: Literary Concepts: Elements of a Story

For Students 6th - 8th Standards
This site offers a basic understanding of the elements of a story. It clearly defines each literary term.
Handout
Washington State University

Washington State University: Epigram/epigraph/ Epitaph/epithet

For Students 9th - 10th Standards
This site gives a definition of the word "epigram." It also includes a few examples of epigrams.
Whiteboard
ClassFlow

Class Flow: Figurative Language Review

For Teachers 6th - 8th Standards
[Free Registration/Login Required] This lesson helps students understand figurative language.
Whiteboard
ClassFlow

Class Flow: Poetry Figurative Language

For Teachers 9th - 10th Standards
[Free Registration/Login Required] This flipchart discusses various forms of poetry and gives examples of each. Figurative language is explored as a way of determining the meaning of a piece of literature.
PPT
Sophia Learning

Sophia: Personification

For Students 9th - 10th Standards
Seven slides introducing and providing examples of personification. Slides also explain the purpose and impact of personification within a text, and examples come from "Rappaccini's Daughter" by Nathaniel Hawthorne.
Unit Plan
TES Global

Blendspace: Figurative Language & Tone

For Students 4th - 8th Standards
A twelve-part learning module with links to texts, videos, and websites on figurative language and tone.
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Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Holt, Rinehart and Winston: Elements of Literature: Identifying Figures of Speech [Pdf]

For Students 9th - 10th Standards
A graphic organizer which allows students to document and list the figures of speech they identify in a given piece of literature. These include simile, metaphor, personification, and symbol, and require examples from the text.
Handout
Sophia Learning

Sophia: Determining Denotation

For Students 9th - 10th Standards
This lesson explains how to determine the denotation of words; it defines denotation and offers a plan of action: look up the word in the dictionary, read all meanings paying attention to parts of speech, and compare each of these...
Handout
University of Pennsylvania

University of Pennsylvania: Assonance

For Students 9th - 10th Standards
This resource provides a detailed explanation of the term "assonance." Several examples provided as well as links to related sites.
Lesson Plan
PBS

Wnet: Thirteen: I Have a Metaphor

For Teachers 9th - 10th Standards
This lesson not only examines the message of Dr. King, but also the words themselves. This is a lesson in identifying the literary devices that he used in his "I Have a Dream" Speech. It will introduce the following literary devices:...
Unit Plan
Texas Education Agency

Texas Gateway: Compare/contrast Themes and Genres in Literary Texts

For Students 7th - 9th Standards
You will learn how to analyze, make inferences, and draw conclusions about theme and genre in different cultural, historical, and contemporary contexts and provide evidence from the text to support your understanding.
Unit Plan
Texas Education Agency

Texas Gateway: Allusions to Mythological, Classical, and Traditional Texts

For Students 9th - 10th Standards
You will be able to identify and understand allusions in myths, the classics, and other traditional texts and their influence on modern literature.
Unit Plan
Texas Education Agency

Texas Gateway: Denotation and Connotation (English I Reading)

For Students 9th - 10th Standards
Distinguish between the denotative (dictionary) meaning of a word and its connotative (emotions or associations that are implied rather than literal) meaning. L.9-10.5b nuances