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.

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...

Revenge, mortality, madness—what are the central ideas from Shakespeare's Hamlet? Scholars answer the question by writing multi-paragraph responses. They also identify and discuss literary devices from the play.

Make learning the definitions of literary terms memorable with a fun and engaging activity. Teams of scholars are given several terms and create an acrostic poem with simplified definitions and examples.

Mermaids will sing to your class members as they engage in an activity related to T.S. Eliot's famous dramatic interior monologue. After engaging in a socratic seminar about literary devices in the poem, individuals choose one...

Tone and Mood are not synonymous! Introduce young readers to these literary devices with a series of exercises that not only point out the significant differences between the terms but also shows them how to identify both the tone and...

Six lessons comprise a unit about Roald Dahl's George's Marvelous Medicine. Over time, scholars explore themes such as the power of words, exciting writing, and mixed feelings. They examine the writing's literary devices, persuasive...

True! Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart" makes readers nervous. But how? Young scholars create a drawing while listening to a reading of Poe's eerie tale to understand how writers create the mood of their stories and what their writing style...

We carry memories of where we're from; tweens and teens can capture these memories by first listening to several memory poems and then crafting their own. They analyze literary devices other poets use, brainstorm a list of images they...

Work on literal and figurative meanings with a lesson plan focused on Robert Frost's "After Apple-Picking" and "The Road Not Taken." Readers identify the literary devices used by the poet to set the poems' themes, settings, and...

Scholars complete their study of the collective fear in Arthur Miller's "The Crucible" by conducting a mock trial to determine how many witches are in the class. Groups then analyze sections of the play for the literary devices used and...

Archetypes help readers connect literature to the world around them. A lesson plan uses elements of pop culture to teach about archetypal traits of common characters  and discuss issues of perception and other literary devices. At...

Explore the fascinating ways in which authors use specific literary devices to create interesting and realistic texts. Using non-fiction articles with the subject of rogue waves, an excerpt from The Perfect Storm, by Sebastian Junger,...

“It was a dark and stormy night.” Thus begins the 1830's novel Paul Clifford and, of course, all of Snoopy’s novels! Encourage young writers to craft settings for their stories that go beyond Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s often-mocked phrase...

Wonderful worksheets and activities complementing six sequential lessons are what you'll find in this unit on folklore. Pupils create folktales using literary devices and included story starters, compare and contrast different...

Both Money and Cummings were able to capture the essence of Paris. Critical thinkers analyze how each artist used his medium to describe the same place in a different way. Kids then write a Cummings-style poem about Monet's Waterloo Bridge.

Students practice analysis of poetry by analyzing song lyrics using a worksheet to guide the analysis process. They work in small groups to assess the stylistic and literary devices used in the song lyrics then they find a published...

Fifth graders study narrative writing. In this language arts instructional activity, 5th graders review how an author uses vivid verbs, imagery, and adjectives to capture reader's attention. Students explore literary devices of...

Introduce your freshmen to reading comprehension strategies and key literary elements with a year's worth of lessons and exercises. Each lesson focuses on a specific literary device and includes a definition of the term, a passage that...

Lines from Shakespeare and from hip-hop artists provide learners with an opportunity to examine the literary devices these artists use to express their ideas about love. Groups use the provided lines to craft found poems, and then the...

Natalie Babbitt's award winning fantasy, Tuck Everlasting, is the anchor text in a unit plan that focuses on identifying similes, metaphors, imagery, and personification in the text and analyzing how these elements effect the...

Explore the complex themes of Alexandre Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo with a concept and vocabulary analysis lesson plan. Lead your class in a discussion about the underlying social and historical issues surrounding the novel, as...

Song 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...

Maya Angelou's poem, "Still I Rise", offers young scholars an opportunity to consider how poets use literary devices to create powerful messages. After a close reading and discussion of the poem, class members reflect on how they can...