Rather than a whodunit, "The Masque of the Red Death" is the perfect story to analyze how Poe combines literary devices to create the suspense that grips readers. The richly detailed lesson is carefully scaffolded, moving from teacher...

Whether you choose to include Twelfth Night in your course or whether Shakespeare's comedy has been thrust upon you, be not afraid to incorporate an interactive resource into your study of Shakespeare's tale of loss, love, and identity....

Read and incorporate a variety of Aesop's Fables into a fable genre study with an eBook produced by the Library of Congress. The interactive eBook contains 146 fables written by Aesop and includes colorful interactive illustrations by...

Language arts learners don't need a lecture about poetry; they listen to poetry every day on the radio! Apply skills from literary analysis to famous songs and beautiful lyrics with a instructional activity about literary devices. As...

A definitive resource for your figurative language unit includes several worksheets and activities to reinforce writing skills. It addresses poetic elements such as simile and metaphor, personification, hyperbole, and idioms, and...

Zora Neale Hurston's beautiful language in Their Eyes Were Watching God is not only a pleasure to read, it helps to further the plot and character development. Once your class has finished Chapter 6 of the novel, have them discuss...

Hamlet's famous soliloquy (Act III, scene i) gets the close reading treatment in a group of skill building exercises. Assuming the role of a WWE wrestler, a kindergarten teacher, ninja assassin, and others, learners deliver a line from...

Imagery is the focus of this lesson, featuring "The Moon is distant from the Sea" by Emily Dickinson. Readers discuss the lunar cycle and its connection to the speaker's desires, and then choose an image from the poem to compare to their...

Robert Frost's "Nothing Gold Can Stay" serves as a model for a poetry analysis activity. The whole class critiques the sample and then groups select a poem and prepare a PowerPoint presentation in which they illustrate how their poet...

Scholars demonstrate the ability to evaluate authors' use of literary elements such as metaphor, simile, personification, imagery, and onomatopoeia. They are provided with a checklist and must shop for poems that contain the poetry terms...

New ReviewJane Hirshfield's poem "My Skeleton" asks readers to pause and think about the amazing, often taken-for-granted structure that protects and gives form to human bodies. After observing the human skeleton's image, class members read the...

New ReviewThe language of and the perspective of photographs, poems, and official reports differ. After a close reading of two photographs, two poems, and a military report about the Vietnam War, individuals adopt someone's voice or something from...

New ReviewSong lyrics, like poems, are meant to be heard. After examining the literary devices in several poems, scholars examine the lyrics of popular songs and identify the sound devices and the figurative language writers use to create the...

Ah, the dreaded words, "Write a poem." Take the fright out of poetry writing with a lesson that uses the gradual release approach to the writing process. Young poets brainstorm, draft, and revise their work with the help of their...

After a close reading of Sylvia Plath's "Mirror" and Flora de Falbe's "Five Things About the Lake," young poets craft their own personification list poem about a very special place.

Are your classes weary of dreary worksheets? Are the learners nearly napping? Thrill them, fill them with delight with an interactive worksheet that asks them to identify the figurative language Edgar Allen Poe uses to add horror and...

Introduce young learners to imagery with a lesson that asks them to look closely at the lyrics from popular songs. Class members listen to a song rich with imagery, draw a picture of the images that come to mind, and then share their...

A shirt can't really swallow you—right? Readers find examples of symbolism and personification in S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders with two straightforward lessons.

A variety of activities boost viewers' comprehension of Rudyard Kipling's classic The Jungle Book. Discussions, games, writing assignments, and hands-on activities are available for before and after watching the play.  

Accompany a viewing of Disney's live-action feature film, The Jungle Book, with a packet equipped with several activities focused on story elements. Scholars discuss and complete diagrams and charts about the movie's characters, setting,...

Tasking class members to analyze a poem can strike fear into the hearts of many learners. Here's a worksheet that takes the mystery out of the process by providing questions about what to look for in the text and to the devices poets use...

Scholars take part in two exercises to boost their knowledge of personification. After reading a detailed description and excerpts from famous poems, writers list action verbs and objects then combine words to create a humorous...