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...

Sixth graders explore figurative and literal language. They study literary devices through short pieces of Shakespeare's work. Then investigate Shakespeare's works and life.

Nathaniel Hawthorne as a humorist? Really? The three lessons in this series focus on the the storytelling style, conventions, and literary techniques employed by Hawthorne, George Washington Harris, and Mark Twain. 

Identify and analyze the use of figurative language used in select pieces of writing. These pieces of literature will represent at least two pieces by one writer and at least two pieces by different writers. This lesson would be a great...

Let's Look Around! is the theme of a unit that offers a plethora of challenge activities. Enhance your scholars' learning experiences and reinforce concepts with activities such as writing a book about farm animals, an...

Metaphors are word pictures, creating images in our brains that draw readers to consider how two seemingly unrelated items are alike. Poems by Langston Hughes, Margaret Atwood, and Naomi Shihad Nye provide learners with an opportunity to...

Bring Edgar Allan Poe's spooky story to life! After reading the short story "The Tell-Tale Heart," middle and high schoolers identify the theme, character traits, irony, and other story concepts. During pre-reading, they take notes,...

Introduce your class to epic heroes with these activities for Beowulf. After watching a video clip, taking notes on heroes, and tracking characteristics of heroism throughout Beowulf, class members retell an episode of Beowulf using a...

Students explore a variety of poetry and poetry concepts. They examine figurative language, mood, and literary devices. The students write and recite their own poetry.

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

Participate in writing poetry as a group. Focused on a given theme, young writers compose a popcorn poem using sensing verbs and adverbs. They write popcorn poems, onomatopoeias, collective poems, and diamond poems. You could introduce...

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...

Eleventh graders are introduced to various basic and advanced poetic devices. They read several poems and practice identifying poetic elements. They identify at least two different poems and substantiate why they belong in the canon.

Students complete a survey of interests to allow the teacher to become quickly acquainted with each student and introduce themselves using an alliterative adjective that best describes their personality.

In our increasingly visual society, it is often difficult for some readers to create a mental picture of a picture created only with words. An image-rich text like F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby can therefore, present a real...

Students explore the basic elements of poetry through Appalachian life poetry. In this poetry lesson, students read seven poems from Jim Wayne Miller's the Brier Poems and complete poetry analysis activities for each poem.

Students are introduced to the idea of traditional oral narratives and divide them into genres. They explore the genres of context, motifs and variants. Each student finds oral narratives in their own lives and practice retelling them in...

Students investigate the concept of theme and how it is used in literary works. They read a variety of texts looking for the theme in each of them. Students also differentiate between the plot and theme by using a correct definition for...

Students examine how allegory is defined and used in the visual arts. They create a list of the arts, and list the objects, symbols, and figures that suggest each art category, analyze various paintings, and identify the allegorical...

High schoolers explore the basic color wheel and the ways that artists use color to guide the viewer's attention through a painting's composition. A creation of a sense of depth in a two dimensional space and the effect of color on mood...

Whether you are planning a unit on F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, or simply want to improve your pupils' descriptive writing, this lesson could be a good addition to your class. Using the Six-Trait Writing process, pupils...

Eighth graders select ordinary objects, determine their uses, and write poems about them. Once they select an object, they create a web about its uses to serve as an outline. Once they have written their own odes, 8th graders meet in...

What do Jeep advertisements and Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath have in common? They both employ the art of the extended metaphor! Using the Six-Trait Writing model, learners begin to work on their own extended metaphors. Development...

Students engage in a lesson about symbolism while reviewing the work of Edgar Allen Poe. They review the definition of symbolism and use it to list the symbols in his work. They write a journal about how the author uses many literary...