Curated OER
Press Review
How can word choice affect a political speech? Middle and high schoolers examine the text of the 1999 State of the Union Address, and then determine how newspaper articles and television reports describe and analyze the event. Use this...
Curated OER
Who Could Have Been Who
Can word choice affect a candidate's likeability? Use a New York Times lesson to explore how a presidential candidate's likeability factor can fluctuate in public opinion polls. Young readers choose a presidential election from their...
Curated OER
Persuasion as Text: Organizational, Grammatical, and Lexical Moves in Barbara Jordan’s "All Together Now"
A thorough lesson plan on persuasive writing takes middle schoolers through several activities, including group discussion, collaborative posters, and independent writing. They compare historical speeches and analyze the persuasive...
Curated OER
Persuasion in Historical Context: The Gettysburg Address
The Gettysburg Address is a powerful text. Use it to teach persuasion and the importance of word choice. The activity detailed here includes a scaffolded background knowledge activity that includes image analysis of photos from the Civil...
Curated OER
Speech! Speech!
Critical thinkers consider how word choice in speeches impacts the meaning and effectiveness of the message being presented. They examine and respond to some of the speeches made at the 2004 Republican and Democratic National Conventions.
EngageNY
Mid-Unit Assessment, Part 2: Analyzing an Excerpt from the Narrative
Writing is a craft. Scholars take a mid-unit assessment where they answer questions about the author's purpose and craft in Douglass's narrative. After completing the assessment, pupils look continue with their independent reading text.
Southern Poverty Law Center
Analyzing How Words Communicate Bias
Words are powerful ... can your class choose them wisely? Scholars evaluate news articles to discover the concepts of tone, charge, and bias during a media literacy lesson. The resource focuses on recognizing implicit information and...
Curated OER
Ethos, Logos, and Pathos in Civil Rights Movement Speeches
Examine three speeches while teaching Aristotle's appeals. Over the course of three days, class members fill out a graphic organizer about ethos, pathos, and logos, complete an anticipatory guide, read speeches by Martin Luther King Jr.,...
Curriculum Corner
7th Grade ELA Common Core Checklists
Track your class's progress on all of the ELA Common Core standards with these handy charts. Along the left side, each seventh grade identifier is listed along with the full text of the standard. As you teach, reteach, assess, and...
Curriculum Corner
7th Grade ELA "I Can" Statement Posters
Help your seventh graders relate the ELA Common Core standards to their own learning with these "I Can" statement posters. Each standard has been translated into a statement that pupils can understand and placed on its own page for easy...