Words carry baggage. In addition to their literal, denotative meaning, words also carry the weight of the associations and connotations attached to the word—the connotations of words writers use to create the tone of a piece. An...

Find out how much your class knows about literary elements with a quick pre-assessment. Pupils work first individually to identify the instances of personification, metaphor, simile, and more, and then with group members to...

The tone is easy to hear but more challenging to detect in written texts. Users of this interactive learn how to closely observe the diction and words writers use to convey their feelings about their subject. They examine passages that...

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s speech "I Have A Dream" is hailed as one of the most eloquent and moving speeches of the 20th century. But what makes his words hit his listeners' ears in just the right ways? Young orators study Dr. King's...

Traditionally, a United States President's Inaugural Address establishes the tone and vision for his presidency. It has stressed the goal to unify the country and bring the political parties together after what are often divisive...

Though often used in shows of patriotism, Bruce Springsteen's 1985 song "Born in the U.S.A." is critical of America's role in the Vietnam war and its treatment of American veterans. High schoolers analyze the song's lyrics in an activity...

What level of voice is most appropriate for the classroom? Develop volume control in your learners with ASD with an activity that lets them know when they are using appropriate and inappropriate voice level.

Partners practice reading fluency by reciting sentence strips to each other with proper expression and intonation. Partner A chooses a strip at random and reads it silently, then aloud with expression. Partner B reads the same sentence...

Readers' theater is a fun way to get kids reading with expression and improve their fluency! There is a full script here for The Three Bears with five characters to assign.

Line, shape, color, texture, space. The first in a three-part series of lessons intended for advanced theatre arts classes introduces the elements of set design. Class members examine maquettes and analyze how designers have put together...

Considering Carson McCullers' The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter for whole-class reading or as a selection for book circles? Check out this resource that overviews the organizational patterns, themes, plot structure, tone, and setting. 

Is this any way to treat a Greek Myth? By all means, turn the tale of Orpheus into a reader's theatre exercise.

Let's listen to some codes. To understand how a modem sends binary numbers over a phone line, class member listen to the codes included in the provided mp3 files, translates the tones to binary numbers and then convert the...

Set the tone for a successful school year with a list of strategies to instill respect and responsibility. With tips for classroom management and ways to get parents involved, the resource is valuable for new and veteran teachers alike.

African Americans fought in the Civil War, and they were recruited by both the Union and the Confederacy! By comparing the wording of posters—one directed at freedmen and another to the owners of enslaved people—young historians discover...

A 12-piece primary source packet sets the tone for a study of the role women played in the origins, development, and impact of blues music. Legends like Bessie Smith, Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, Mamie Smith, and Ida Cox are featured, as are...

To appreciate the value of seeing and hearing a poetry performance, groups prepare readings of selected poems and then compare and critique their interpretations and videotaped versions of the same poem. Included in the resource are...

You may not know if that zebrafish in your fish tank is a model citizen—but it is definitely a model organism! What can we learn about ourselves from a tiny zebrafish? Discover more about the polygenic trait of skin color through a...

What do a colt and a boy in a tree have in common? More than might be first apparent. The fourth interactive in a series of ten introduces readers to intertextuality, the process of using abstract thinking to consider how one text...

The sixth interactive in this series introduces learners to the power of figurative language. After studying examples of similes and metaphors, readers examine how such comparisons help them see through a writer's eyes. Interactive...

The key idea in this interactive exercise designed for high schoolers is that figurative language, especially similes, and metaphors, add layers of meaning to a text. Users examine examples from speeches, ads, movie dialogue, and poems,...

After reading about how engineering has made adaptive devices possible for people with disabilities, pupils work in groups to discuss different devices to determine whether or not they are adaptive. They also disassemble a pair of...

Mini microbiologists play a card game in which they group microorganisms by groups: virus, fungus, protist, or bacteria. Then they identify the roles different microbes play in the natural world and explore how humans effectively use...

Geometric volume calculations are brought into the real world in a quick set of application problems. Learners are asked to help a patient figure out how to drink a prescribed amount of water both at work and at home. This activity...