Do figures of speech enhance a play or story? In small groups, learners locate and describe figures of speech they find while reading a reader's theater play. After making predictions, they describe how the figures of speech make the...

"O pun" the door on this activity. Have your pupils compare the puns and word play in scenes from Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night to those in Gary Blackwood’s The Shakespeare Stealer. Warm up and introductory activities, as well as...

Students consider toys as more than items for playing, compare and contrast inventors and toys they created, and discuss purpose of specific toys, including whether toy was created for education, financial success, or both.

Scritch, scratch, scritch. It's the sound of pupils writing poetry! Focus on sensory language and onomatopoeia with a writing lesson. After listening to some sounds, learners examine a couple of poems that include sound words and then...

The Olmec were an ancient people native to Mexico who lived from 1000-500 BC. Young artists examine the Olmec piece Seated Figure to analyze the use of body language to communicate a tone or feeling. They then use clay or play-dough...

To make the point that there are many forms of language, each with its own purpose, class members select 10 lines from Doescher's play, translate these lines first into contemporary English and then into "SMS/Tweet." 

Connect a scene from a class play to events in your middle and high schoolers' own lives. First, they act out a scene from A Midsummer Night's Dream in pairs. They work to role play a scene as an extension of the one they have read,...

East Egg, West Egg, the Valley of Ashes, and the green light. Bring Gatsby, the Jazz Age, and the American Dream to your classroom with a resource designed for teachers. Included in the treasury are six great teaching ideas for F. Scott...

Learners view a slide show featuring famous athletes and educational institutions that have played a part in the history of basketball. They participate in a game in which a basketball is tossed from person to person as facts and...

Feel the rhythm! Pupils begin reading Act 2, Scene 1 of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream as they continue participating in a drama circle. With discussion, they examine Shakespeare's use of rhyme, rhythm, and meter, analyzing how...

Pupils participate in a drama circle to read Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream aloud. They work with partners to discuss Shakespeare's use of language and analyze how specific lines of dialogue within the play help propel the...

What is Hamlet's attitude towards life and death in Shakespeare's Hamlet? Scholars continue reading the play to answer the question, paying particular attention to Hamlet's most famous soliloquy. By holding a discussion and completing...

What does your class want to know about William Shakespeare's The Tempest? Host a discussion about the questions high schoolers have about the play with a KWHL activity in which they write down their inquiries, what they...

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...

How do complex characters develop throughout a text? Pupils read Act 5.1 from Shakespeare's Macbeth, which depicts Lady Macbeth's descent into madness. Using discussion and writing exercises, scholars analyze how Shakespeare develops...

Class members identify bullying in contemporary texts and role play how they might change those scenes to examples of anti-bullying. They then re-define their initial definitions of bullying and discuss what they...

What decisions might an author make about the structure of a play? Pupils participate in an evidence-based discussion about Shakespeare's choices in Macbeth. Next, scholars analyze the effect of Shakespeare's structural choices in Act 2,...

Celebrate our similarities and differences through multiple readings of Whoever you Are by Mem Fox. Readings are accompanied by a grand discussion, charts, creative art, dramatic, and music play to reinforce the uniqueness that is...

Young scholars write rhyming poems using rebus. With pictures instead of words, authors create original work about things they love. 

Prove that Gertrude did kill Ophelia from practicing the word inflections activities with these pre-reading strategies for Hamlet. Thespians practice the line, “Is that your sandwich?” as they stress and accent different words, and...

Students watch the series "Unforgiveable Blackness". They examine the media's response to Jack Johnson in the film. They role-play the role of reporters to compose poems of headlines.

In order to assess their mastery of the concepts taught in a 12-lesson plan unit study of Christopher Paul Curtis' Bud, Not Buddy, individuals read excerpts from President Barack Obama's 2009 Back-to-School Speech and use the strategies...

Discuss the meaning of the phrase tone of voice with the class. They respond to a variety of scenarios where a particular tone would be prevalent. They then read "Mother to Son" without knowing the title and answer some questions about...

Learners read the play "Julius Caesar" by William Shakespeare. In groups, they identify the instances of similes, metaphors and personification. They use the Internet to compare and contrast the events in the play with historical facts....