There is more going on under the surface of Ernest Hemingway's work than one can glean in an initial reading. A literature resource compares the themes and structures of several of Hemingway's works before prompting class members to use...

Engage your class in the elements of poetry with a series of lessons and activities. The plans cover simile, metaphor, personification, onomatopoeia, alliteration, and imagery. Learners come up their their own metaphors, identify poetic...

A language arts instructional activity helps young writers identify elements that make up historical fiction. First, it guides them through elements of fictional pieces with vocabulary cards. Then, pupils work collaboratively to...

Go beyond a traditional end-of-the-year survey and have your middle school pupils compile a portfolio of work illustrating their progression as a writer. 

This isn't your traditional Robin Hood tale! Explore a Middle English ballad with your young historians, and examine the underlying structure and purpose of historical texts.

Once upon a time are four words most children are familiar with when reading a fairy tale. But do they know that fairy tales are a great way to learn the literary elements of reading and writing? Use a thorough fairy tale unit...

If your language arts learners have a hard time determining the universal theme of a written work, use a straightforward activity to help them find it. After reviewing a list of common themes, kids note the title, character, plot, point...

A picture is worth a thousand words, but a comic strip combines both images and words for the ultimate narrative effect. After reading The Three Little Pigs and deciphering the plot elements, elementary readers work through four...

Fourth graders use a four-square graphic organizer to plan a paragraph writing about a wheelwright. Using gathered research from the previous unit, young writers discover how to organize a plot in preparation for writing a historical...

Pages and pages of engaging activities, worksheets, and writing projects on teaching folktales and fables await you! You don't want to miss this incredible resource that not only includes a wide range of topics and graphic...

The intricate craft of narrative writing can make a happy story feel exuberant or a sad story feel devastating. With 42 extensive lessons that include poignant discussion questions, standards-aligned self-reflections, engaging writing...

Fifth graders analyze William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, paying close attention to character development, plot, and dialogue. With daily reading and thoughtful discussion, scholars take pen to paper to respond to journal...

An activity boosts reading comprehension by challenging scholars to answer questions about a narrative tale detailing elements—plot, characters, setting, theme, problem, and solution.

How can you tell if a character is a villain? What about a hero? Work on literary analysis with an engaging language arts worksheet. After completing an activity about the four types of conflict, learners fill out a character map about a...

While cities had only a small fraction of the population in colonial America, they played a significant role in pre-revolutionary years, and this was certainly true for the largest city in the North American colonies: Philadelphia. Your...

Lois Lowry's The Giver is one of the most engaging and thought-provoking works of literature in the middle school curriculum. Round out your novel unit with a collection of reading activities, comprehension questions, memoir and...

Two versions of movie trailers for the film Mary Poppins launch a supercalifragilisticexpialidocious lesson about how mood and tone impact a reader's experience of work. Using the provided list, readers identify the words that create the...

Once again, class groups examine two model paragraphs and, using the provided rubric, evaluate how effectively the writers use structural techniques to sequence events so that they build a specific tone. Individuals then use what they...

Narrative essay writing is the focus of a series of exercises that model for learners how to not only read a narrative, but how to also examine the techniques fiction writers use to create a setting, develop their characters, represent...

To prepare for drafting their Common Application narrative, class members return to the opening pages of The Autobiography of Malcolm X and examine how Haley engages and orients readers, establishes his narrator and point of view, and...

Everything you need to know about informational text features can be found in this resource. Recognizing these types of text features and how they are used in text allows readers to better understand information. Teachers...

Working in small groups, scholars look closely at a children's book to evaluate narrative techniques. Next, they complete a Children's Book Scavenger Hunt worksheet to analyze the literary elements of their selected stories. 

Learners analyze the epic poem form and its roots in oral tradition. In this epic poetry lesson, students research the epic hero cycle and recognize the pattern of events and elements. Learners analyze the patterns embedded in the stories.

Focus on poetry this summer to enhance those comprehension, fluency, and language skills with a set of resources intended to explore different types of poetry, specifically lyric poetry. The daily activities contain differentiation ideas...