Introduce your class to the MLA style of formatting. In addition to studying the formatting, learners improve language skills and review word processor features. They use the Interwrite SchoolPad for the first time to assist in proofing...

Eschew obfuscation! Using dictionaries, writers revise a complicated text so that it reads more simply and improves the clarity of the passage. Focusing on word meanings, they revise the sample worksheets and then present their...

Look at the most commonly confused words in the English language! This resource briefly explains the difference between there, they're, and their as well as too, to, and two, and finally it's and its. First, read the section...

You're on camera! Third graders find a news story and research it to get more information. Everyone uses their found information to write a script and create their own news broadcast!

What would you take with you if you were traveling on your own to a different place? A different time? Pupils decide individually and then in groups what the main character of Running Out of Time should take on her trip. Coming to a...

Students determine the origin of everyday words. In this language and literacy lesson plan, the teacher identifies words that students use that have roots in another language, then students work in pairs to determine the original...

Readers listen and critically read fictional prose to answer prediction questions at designated stopping points, and then they give a summary of the short story. This instructional activity is ideal for English language learners...

Feeling bored and unimpressed with word choice in your class? If so, consider this activity, which focuses on using specific and precise language. Pupils use highlighters, brainstorm independently and in small groups, and create a poster...

Focusing on let's, why don't, and shall I/we, a grammar lesson takes English learners through the process of making suggestions. The lesson comes with several activities, including scripts of conversations for kids to...

Here is a wonderful lesson designed for students with special needs. This well-thought-out lesson uses Big Books, familiar stories, and has a lot of review learning built into it. The book, The Keeping Quilt is used in the main part of...

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "Letter from Birmingham Jail" serves as an exemplar for a mini-lesson on semicolons. Working alone or in small groups, class members first circle all the semicolons in the letter, and then consider how this...

Aspiring writers complete and discuss fill-in-the-blank cliché expressions, define cliché as a form of predictable writing, take cliché expressions and turn them into new, unpredictable ones, read poetry that illustrates writer's use of...

Students research historical events of the past century to recognize that society impacts the themes within art and literature. They then interview an individual to develop a biographical narrative, a collage and finally an oral...

Students explore choreographic narrative. In this choreography lesson plan, students explore the elements of Appalachian Spring as they develop a series of written responses to assignments that challenge them to investigate the structure...

To conclude their study of immigration and human rights, class members create a civic engagement project centered on an issue of immigration and designed to influence US immigration policy. They examine examples of attempts to...

What are hyperboles? Examine the attributes of hyperboles with your high school classes. Pupils read selected poems and prose selections that feature hyperboles and discuss their functions in each work of literature. Specific poems and...

Pupils read speeches and identify the main idea as well as the literary techniques employed, paying careful attention to the persuasion and repetition elements that each speech possesses. Using a graphic organizer, they analyze,...

Practice makes perfect when it comes to learning grammar with this ESL resource. Offering a great way to teach about relative clauses, this lesson engages students with a series of partner, small group, and whole class speaking and...

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...

Paul Simon's "Father and Daughter" offers language learners and native English speakers an opportunity to study adverb, adjective, and noun clauses.

Ninth graders study the study of animals in an informational text lesson plan that focuses on analyzing text structure. As learners continue reading the first chapter of Temple Grandin's Animals in Translation, they form inquiries and...

Opposites attract. Scholars choose one of their claims from the previous lesson. They then must consider the opposite view of that claim and create a counterclaim, discussing it with classmates. To help guide the discussion, they use a...

High school writers participate in peer review of their end-of-unit tasks. They begin by discussing their thought process in pairs and then editing their work. Finally, learners participate in a class discussion on the use of the...

Leave the past in the past. Scholars read paragraph 12 of the chapter "Of Our Spiritual Strivings" to analyze Du Bois's development of gaining liberty and leaving the ideas of the past. Pupils then carry out a three to five-minute...