What a lovely way to incorporate artwork into your language arts lesson. View artwork in illustrated manuscript pages, depicting insects, animals, plants, flowers, and ornate writing in the Getty Museum. Practice using figurative...

Can three works of literature work together to establish and develop a common central idea? Put your thoughts into writing with a final assessment focused on a unit-long analysis of Christopher Marlowe's "The Passionate Shepard to His...

Poe goes high tech with a lesson plan that asks high schoolers to use the internet and various apps as they read and analyze "The Masque of the Red Death." In addition to responding to comprehension questions in Quizlet, they use...

What do a pair of stinky socks and a toy hamster have in common? The third lesson plan in an 11-part unit designed to accompany The Twits by Roald Dahl uses silly objects to teach about figurative language. Zany pranks and role play...

You're as cute as a bug. But are you really as cute as a bug? Bugs aren't cute! Idioms are fun nonliteral phrases that mean something different than the words they contain. Second graders learn about idioms as they read the book, More...

Animals oftentimes elicit various characteristics which make them symbolic or representative of human feeling, action, or emotion. The class creates horse characters out of clay to show character action and symbolism. This is a great...

Anansi is a tricky character, but can he realize he's wrong and write an apology letter? Learners use Anansi and the Pot of Beans to practice writing, art, and figurative language. A series of activities are engaging for both...

Is it do'nt or don't? How about doesn't or does'nt? A lesson on contractions helps learners identify, form, and use contractions. Components within the plan include direct instruction on decoding and encoding contractions, as well as...

Similes and metaphors make writing more beautiful and detailed, but can be a little harder to decipher during a first reading. Use a passage from The Man Who Loved Words to show young readers how to think through passages that...

"Who says a pen has to be called a pen? Why not call it a frindle?" Inspired by this quote from the award-winning novel written by Andrew Celements, this lesson allows children to invent their own...

Sixth graders research railroad idioms.  For this idiom lesson, 6th graders read through a glossary of different railroad idioms and their meanings. They illustrate a chosen idiom.

Young scholars analyze visual arts by creating drawings in their classroom. In this art analysis lesson, students identify the paintings of Keith Haring by researching the web. Young scholars utilize paper and oil pastels to create...

Learners illustrate a simile. In this figurative language lesson, second graders are introduced to similes. They read the story Quick as a Cricket and talk about the similes used. Everyone chooses a simile and draws a picture to go along...

Kurt Vonnegut's short story "Harrison Bergeron" engages adolescents with its theme about the dangers of complete societal equality. Learners complete a graphic organizer to track literary elements in the story, as well as an inference...

This resource on personification provides three different approaches aimed at different levels. The first, appropriate for upper elementary, provides examples of personification, followed by an exercise that requires replacing a word in...

Learn about how the seeing eye dog program began with a reading instructional activity about Eva Moore's chapter book, Buddy, The First Seeing Eye Dog. With vocabulary words, discussion questions, and extension resources, the...

Metaphors are word pictures, creating images in our brains that draw readers to consider how two seemingly unrelated items are alike. Poems by Langston Hughes, Margaret Atwood, and Naomi Shihad Nye provide learners with an opportunity to...

Students discover visual arts by creating sculptures in class. In this personal expression lesson, students research the Internet and examine different examples of modern sculptures and 3 dimensional art. Students utilize paper stock,...

Students investigate the uses of images, shapes and colors in classic art sculptures.  In this art analysis lesson, students observe Malagan Figures, a type of sculpture from New Guinea, and describe the different ideas and images...

Use this lesson to study similes and metaphors and the inferred meaning. For this language arts lesson, 5th graders write their own similes and metaphors. A worksheet is provided for extension work or to check understanding as homework.

Many activities related to the Chrisitan religion are included in this lesson about storytelling; students create their own Bible related art from stickers, stamps, t-shirts and hats. Puppets also help to to retell Bible stories and...

Benjamin Franklin's famous aphorisms are a perfect time capsule of colonist values in the mid-18th century, as well as a clever reminder of the way life still works today. Middle and high schoolers select one aphorism to interpret...

Introduce your class to the delights of nonsense poetry and explore literary devices with the writing of Edward Lear. Learners identify rhyme and meter as well as figures of speech, alliteration, and onomatopoeia in "The Owl and the...

In this geometry worksheet, students examine 2 geometric figure drawn on a grid and then draw congruent figures. Next, students answer 1 fill in the blank question where they look at a figure and determine which sections are congruent. ...