What a lovely way to incorporate artwork into your language arts lesson. View artwork in illustrated manuscript pages, depicting insects, animals, plants, flowers, and ornate writing in the Getty Museum. Practice using figurative...

Scholars use technology to explore poetry and its related elements, such as theme, figures of speech, and other literary devices. They complete four poetry projects including a poem analysis with a concept web, an interactive poem...

Introduce your class to the delights of nonsense poetry and explore literary devices with the writing of Edward Lear. Learners identify rhyme and meter as well as figures of speech, alliteration, and onomatopoeia in "The Owl and the...

Figures of speech, sensory details, and academic language are all targeted while reading Chapter Two of J. Ferris’ Go Free or Die. First, learners engage in an exercise to practice describing with detail. Then, partners use a...

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...

Examine the changing nature of language in the U.S. View and discuss excerpts from a PBS documentary with your class and then conduct Internet research, and complete a team project on the evolution of teen expressions. 

Compare real events from Mark Twain's life to events in the story. Middle school readers identify point-of-view, its purpose, and its reliability by citing two examples. They describe the tone of the story using four examples and...

Interpret current events using editorial cartoons and other print media. Middle schoolers explore the meanings of literary and artistic terms such as satire, irony, and caricature. They visit internet sites to develop an understanding of...

Middle schoolers analyze the speaker's ideas and tone in the Billy Collins poem "The Lanyard." After identifying how each of the five senses is addressed in the poem, they compare images to draw conclusions about the speaker and his...

In order to read and respond to Toni Morrison's A Mercy in this figurative-language lesson, high schoolers discuss the differences between a literal and a figurative interpretation of a text.  They explore figures of speech...

Students create pieces of writing about a creature they have created. They examine the parts of speech and how they are used in their writing to see how they can write more specifically.

Fifth graders listen to a story that uses homonyms and figurative language throughout the text. They illustrate the literal and figurative meanings of some figures of speech.

Explore figurative language with your secondary class. Extending a language arts unit, the lesson plan prompts middle schoolers to examine how an author's word choice establishes a story's tone, possibly using metaphors, similes,...

The second lesson in the series asks groups to analyze an exchange of love letters between Abigail and John Adams. Scholars identify the many allusions and references in the letters and consider what they can infer about the writers.

The courage of Las Mariposas, the Mirabal sisters, is the focus of a series of activities designed to accompany a reading of In the Time of the Butterflies that ask readers to consider what it means to be courageous. Beautifully crafted...

Do your classes love reading and drawing cartoons? Middle schoolers read an editorial cartoon from a newspaper. They discuss the cartoonist's topic, audience, and purpose. Next, they brainstorm questions they have about the cartoon and...

Investigate with your class how similes are figures of speech that use the words as and like as visual terms. They use this knowledge to complete a worksheet where they write some similes of their own. Be sure to download the attached...

Middle schoolers use context clues to find the figurative meaning of similes and metaphors in writing. They practice using figurative language to help their writing come alive. Use this activity in a instructional activity about poetry,...

Seventh graders use context clues to determine the figurative meaning of idioms and hyperboles. They practice writing idioms and hyperboles in sentences about real life situations around them. This lesson is a good way to improve variety...

Invite your class to investigate racism and civil rights by analyzing the great Dr. Martin Luther King's speech. Your learners will read the words from the "I Have a Dream" speech and analyze the political and racial overtones. They will...

Third and fourth graders study literary devices and figurative language. They view a PowerPoint presentation (which you must create) to review hyperbole, idiom, simile, and metaphor. They read and discuss the book There's A Frog in...

Students know the meaning of a given list of figures of speech and stylistic devices. They identify examples of these terms in the music and songs with which they are familiar. They examine how to apply the knowledge of these terms to...

Tenth graders complete a variety of activities related to the first two chapters of the book The Outsiders. They define metaphor, simile, idiom, and hyperbole, and take a vocabulary pre-quiz. In small groups, they write a character...

To protect young people from questionable content, many schools limit access. This resource suggests that because learners can so readily avail themselves to unrestricted Internet access, it is vital for 21st century...