Edgar Allan Poe's short story "The Cask of Amontillado" is a bit of a puzzle. Critics have long debated Montresor's motives for killing Fortunato. Young scholars examine examples of the three types of irony (verbal, dramatic, and...

My love is like an anaconda. Huh? Scholars investigate similes, metaphors, hyperbole, and personification used by writers to express feelings. They examine lyrics from songs and lines from Romeo and Juliet and consider how the use of...

If anyone suffers from metrophobia—the fear of poetry—the PowerPoint on the elements of poetry may help alleviate their worries. The presentation introduces learners to poetic elements, including simile, metaphor, and personification....

The AP Literature and Composition exam is all about close reading. Test takers are presented with a passage and asked to analyze how an author uses literary devices to create a desired effect. Prepare your students for the exam with a...

Whether you choose to include Twelfth Night in your course or whether Shakespeare's comedy has been thrust upon you, be not afraid to incorporate an interactive resource into your study of Shakespeare's tale of loss, love, and identity....

Play this slide show and then find out how much your class has learned with the included quiz. After jotting down the definitions of each term, class members label 10 examples with one of five terms: simile, metaphor, personification,...

Poetry or prose? That is the question facing middle schoolers as they begin a month-long poetry unit by examining the characteristics that differentiate poetry and prose writing. Pupils learn about poetic devices and different types of...

Reinforce understanding of five literary terms with a single-slide flow chart. Learners figure out if various words and phrases are examples of simile, metaphor, hyperbole, understatement, or personification. 

Adding details and figurative language makes any story more fun to read! After reading two versions of the same story, one devoid of figurative language and one embellished, young writers are asked to add alliteration, hyperbole,...

Want a handy way to remember the difference between metaphors and similes, or allusions and alliteration? Individuals craft their own figurative language booklet, complete with definitions, examples, and illustrations, following...

Looking for a lesson that teaches class members how to analyze nonfiction? Use Joseph McCarthy's famous "Enemies from Within" speech as a instructional text. Worksheet questions direct readers' attention to the many historical...

Have everything you need to know about the elements of poetry with a nine-page handout. Split into four categories—word sounds, meanings, arrangement, and imagery—budding poets may reference terms, read definitions, descriptions, and...

Are your classes weary of dreary worksheets? Are the learners nearly napping? Thrill them, fill them with delight with an interactive learning exercise that asks them to identify the figurative language Edgar Allen Poe uses to add horror...

What's the difference between a simile and a metaphor? Show language arts learners a presentation that identifies different types of figurative language used in poetry.

Remember when everything was Fantastic! Fabulous! Awesome! Iconic! A series of activities encourages young writers to move beyond these overused descriptors and instead choose a more precise language.

Young scholars study four essential propaganda techniques: Simplification, Exploitation, Exaggeration, and Division (S.E.E.D.). Individuals select an example of propaganda from the past and present then compare how the key elements have...

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...

A speaker, a message, an audience. After analyzing these elements in Queen Elizabeth's speech to the troops at Tilbury, groups analyze how other speakers use an awareness of events, and their audience to craft their arguments....

Discover the five main elements political cartoonists use—symbolism, captioning and labels, analogy, irony, and exaggeration—to convey their point of view.

Full truth, or an exaggeration? How can you tell when a storyteller is exaggerating a story? Readers analyze a story told by Hortensia, and identify the exaggerative language she uses. Then, learners write their own narrative story using...

Play a figurative language game! Starting with a review of terms, this presentation quickly launches into a quiz game with hyper-linked answers. Simply click an answer to find out if it's wrong or right. The option to try again is always...

Poetry is all about sound and rhythm. The sound of the words, the rhythm of the lines, and the emotional atmosphere created by these elements and the literary devices poets use, compress whole stories into a few stanzas. The specialized...

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...

Brighten your third grade classroom with this series of colorful Common Core displays. Including all of the English Language Arts standards and substandards, each with supporting illustrations and examples, this resource provides clear...