Curated OER
Poetic Justice: Understanding the Life of a Tethered Dog
The Humane Society provides a activity in which class members explore the issue of tethering dogs. Through the resources used -- a comic, a poem, and narrative and expository writings -- class members realize that messages can be...
Curated OER
Writing in First and Third Person
Explore narrative writing by participating in a role-playing activity. In this perspective lesson, learners define first and third person in writing and discuss how it changes the mood of the reader. The first activity has pupils write...
Curated OER
Scripting The Great Train Robbery
Take writing prompts to another level in this activity, which allows pupils to create scenes of dialogue based on the 1903 silent film, The Great Train Robbery. Useful for a language arts/history cross-curricular activity, the...
Curated OER
Jack-O-Lanterns
Set a spooky mood with this presentation about Jack-O-Lanterns. Use the presentation on Halloween to reinforce holiday vocabulary, or as a backdrop to a class Halloween party.
Curated OER
Humor in the Movies
Lighten the mood in your film class (or film as lit class) with this amusing presentation. From pictures of Sacha Baron Cohen as his infamous character Borat to a play-by-play of jokes and exaggerated plot lines in many popular movies,...
Curated OER
"Cask of Amontillado" by E.A. Poe Practice Test
Assign this practice test to your ninth graders reading "Cask of Amontillado," by Edgar Allen Poe. They examine the characters, the plot line, the mood, and different themes in the text during this 32-question quiz.
Hawaiʻi State Department of Education
Picture Poetry
What a fun idea! The class discusses, and then writes free-verse poems using sensory detail. They get into small collaborative writing teams to compose their poems. Next, they pantomime the actions from the poem while their teammates...
Virginia Department of Education
Determining Purpose and Audience
Build the writing skills of your junior high wordsmiths with activities that introduce many essential skills of writing. As a class, they develop working definitions of formal vs. informal writing, explore different categories of...
Hawaiʻi State Department of Education
Poems That Dance
Combine the elements of dance with the actions in a poem. Learners review basic grammar, write an action-packed cinquain poem, and then choreograph a dance based on their cinquains. After the dances are done, they'll discuss the elements...
Virginia Department of Education
Developing an Essay: Word Choice
Grading essays after reading a novel written by a lyrical master (think Nabokov, Morrison, Chabon) is a deflating experience. Why can’t your student’s display the same skill in diction as your favorite writers? Because you did not use...
Night of Mystery
Pirate Words and Phrases
Avast, ye mateys! A full dictionary of pirate phrases and words is sure to get your little pirates in a mood for sailing, reading, or writing. It features a basic list of terms as well as a more extensive dictionary for your class to be...
Jessica Winston
Gingerbread Friends Lesson Plan Guide
Full of activities for Jan Brett's story "Gingerbread Friends," this resource will get your kids in the mood for some snacks, fortify their need for vocabulary, and fill their minds with story elements.
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Family Time: English Language Development Lessons (Theme 5)
Support English language development with a family-themed unit consisting of a series of lessons designed to get your scholars moving, looking, speaking, writing, and listening. Conversation topics include birthdays, family...
EngageNY
How to Read a Poem: “The Negro Speaks of Rivers”
Learners listen as a teacher models how to read a poem using The Negro Speaks of
Rivers. They use the How to Read a Poem anchor chart to help guide their thought process on how a poem requires different reading than other text. While...
EBSCO Industries
Music and Poetry
Song lyrics, like poems, are meant to be heard. After examining the literary devices in several poems, scholars examine the lyrics of popular songs and identify the sound devices and the figurative language writers use to create the...
Mr. Ambrose
The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
Good discussion questions, quizzes, and tests teach as well as assess. Readers of The Great Gatsby will learn much from the materials in a 36-page packet designed to help students prepare for the AP Literature exam. Included in the...
Curated OER
Analyzing Poetry with TPCASTT
Middle schoolers read a poem and complete a TPCASTT chart. They make a prediction about the title (T) , paraphrase each line (P), identify poetic devices and nuances (C-connotation), explore mood and tone (A-attitude), point out shifts...
Curated OER
Looking Back
Students examine the difference between a communist and a free-market economy. They discuss challenges occurring in Macedonia and explain the mood of its people.
Curated OER
Half Man, Half Limping Rabbit
Read your class a folk tale from Romania then discuss it. As they listen they discover how the author sets the mood using English conventions such as foreshadowing, magical elements, and they look for descriptive language while looking...
Curated OER
Novel Ideas: History of the American Novel
Explore the history of the American novel in the contexts of literature and US history. How does a novel or piece of writing from a particular time showcase the mood during that historical period? After conducting research and discussing...
Curated OER
The Sounds of Daydream
Based on the poem "The Lake Isle of Innisfree" by Irish poet William Butler Yeats, this resource is well constructed and guides learners through examining the Yeats poem (rhyme, meter, content) to composing a poem of their own about a...
Curated OER
Green Light
How is music like reading? First, listeners rank music from slowest to fastest. How does the music's pace affect your mood? How does this same theory compare to reading? Spark a discussion to identify the similarities.
Curated OER
Core Poetry and More
Second graders examine poetry in the context of American History in the four lessons of this unit. They read, write, and edit their own pieces in this unit.
Curated OER
Song Writing
In this music instructional activity, students identify specific tips for composing a song. They use strophic form where each verse has the same melody. Students also select a chord sequence and use cadences at the end of each phrase and...