Can three works of literature work together to establish and develop a common central idea? Put your thoughts into writing with a final assessment focused on a unit-long analysis of Christopher Marlowe's "The Passionate Shepard to His...

Poe goes high tech with a lesson that asks high schoolers to use the internet and various apps as they read and analyze "The Masque of the Red Death." In addition to responding to comprehension questions in Quizlet, they use Minecraft to...

Similes and metaphors make writing more beautiful and detailed, but can be a little harder to decipher during a first reading. Use a passage from The Man Who Loved Words to show young readers how to think through passages that...

"Who says a pen has to be called a pen? Why not call it a frindle?" Inspired by this quote from the award-winning novel written by Andrew Celements, this lesson allows children to invent their own...

Have you ever listened to a song that had a deeper political meaning to it? Every examined a work of art with layers of meaning? Pupils analyze the drawings of Arthur Szyk. They research the deeper meaning of several artistic cartoons...

Portraiture, artistic expression, romanticism, and androgyny are discussed in a thought-provoking lesson. Upper graders first discuss and examine the history of portraiture and the elements common to the Romantic style. Then they turn...

Extend scholars' learning experience with a unit consisting of five shape lesson plans, an extension activity, assessment, and rubric. Begin by reading a story about shapes, then conduct an overview and assign pupils' their first...

Kurt Vonnegut's short story "Harrison Bergeron" engages adolescents with its theme about the dangers of complete societal equality. Learners complete a graphic organizer to track literary elements in the story, as well as an inference...

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...

Everything old is new again. The Los Angeles J. Paul Getty Museum presents a activity on how Greek black-figure painting influenced eighteenth century Neoclassical artists. After looking at a series of examples, class members create...

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...

Students investigate historical figures and how they play a role in tourism by reading and discussing the article "When Robin Hood Supped, Was it Yorkshire Pudding?" In groups, students investigate issues related in the article in...

Explore the hidden meanings behind the images on US currency with this elementary school lesson on symbolism. Starting with a class discussion about symbols, children go on to brainstorm different objects that represent the Unites...

Examine artwork, research literature, and create art pieces for a monument to a literary figure. Young scholars analyze the sculpture Model for a Monument to Alexandre Dumas père and compare it to other well-known monuments. They...

Students explore the book Billy Brown and the Belly Button Beastie. In this verb, onomatopoeia, and syllable lesson, students pantomime verbs, read onomatopoeia from the story and clap out syllables. Students unscramble sentences from...

Celebrate poetry month all of April with a guide that uses six of Shel Silverstein's most famous books as a basis for the lessons. Discussion questions and writing activities are provided for each of Silverstein's books.

Young scholars identify clues that tell them about where, when, who and what they are seeing in art images. They work, step by step, through the layers of meaning, delving more deeply into these layers with each work as they progress...

Students explore one of the techniques artists often use to highlight important elements within a painting's composition and to move a viewer's eye around the canvass from highpoint to highpoint.

How do you figure out the meaning of a word you don't know? Young readers develop skills to identifying missing words in a story using context clues. Picture clues are used to identify covered words in the story I Can’t Get My Turtle to...

It's time to get crafty with shapes! Your future farmers demonstrate their geometric ability by building a farm using triangles, circles, rectangles, and squares. But first, scholars take part in a brainstorm session inspired by their...

A study of onomatopoeia for 5th graders is here for you. Pupils discover that the use of highly descriptive language makes it possible for readers to picture objects in their minds. After engaging in a class discussion and listening to...

Draw back the curtain, add a spot of joy to your class, and let learners be lessoned by a close reading exercise that models how to develop an interpretation based on evidence drawn from a text. Robert Browning’s dramatic monologue “My...

Combine landscape with collage to create unique art pieces. Class members examine works of art before creating their own pieces with photos of a special place. Learners create a panoramic image and add in figures.

Looking to introduce some text-based questions into your ELA lessons? Practice the kinds of skills the Common Core demands with the seven text-based questions and the essay prompt provided here. Designed to be a three-day lesson, day one...