Curated OER
Environmental Art
Students create their own environmental art after the teacher shows them a variety of example and has a discussion about it. They then write an initial personal definition of environmental art.
Tech Coach Corner
Narrative Writing
A comprehensive presentation on narrative writing, this should be shown to a class before the writing process begins. There are not activities listed, so pupils can take notes on the elements of narrative writing and figurative language....
Curated OER
Elements of Fiction
The metaphor of a pot of soup and a series of colorful templates remind young writers of the elements that make for a rich story. Pepper the plot with carrot/character, potato/point of view, corn/conflict, tomato/theme, and season with...
Curated OER
Describe a Journey
Students describe the sensory experience of a character's journey in an essay. In this precise details writing lesson, students explain the effects on the senses of weather, time of day, landscape, and other experiences. Students use...
Roald Dahl
The BFG Lesson Plans
A 55-page unit examines the novel, The BFG, by Roald Dahl. Six lessons pay close attention to friendship, dreams, and believing themes while analyzing interesting characters, writing creative vocabulary, smilies, metaphors, an exciting...
Curated OER
Narrative Writing
Binoculars are used as a metaphor for good descriptive writing. Class members first view a small picture and then an enlarged view of the same image in which the details come into focus. Next, learners examine a paragraph lacking sensory...
Curated OER
Monster: Compare and Contrast
Helpful for a unit on Walter Dean Myers' Monster, or any novel that you are teaching, a graphic organizer prompts learners to compare and contrast different character traits. The first box has one set of lines to jot down what two...
Curated OER
A Sense of Place
Students read "Fish Tale: Falling For a Live One" from The New York Times and discuss the methods and techniques the writer uses to create a strong mental image. Students pick a place in their community they wish to write about and...
University of the Desert
What Is Culture?
Introduce your class to the meaning of culture with this great collection of activities and materials. After reviewing quotes from young adults around the world, learners then construct metaphors describing culture and discuss the...
Curated OER
Hot Dog Writing
Use a hot dog as a metaphor for good reading, and make your class drool! Writers identify the parts of a paragraph, linking them to parts of a hot dog. Then, they translate this knowledge into a well-written paragraph. While a check-list...
James Madison Memorial Fellowship Foundation
A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words
This exercise on the Constitution requires small groups to design a visual metaphor that expresses the concept behind one of seven principles: popular sovereignty, federalism, republicanism, separation of powers, checks and balances,...
Georgia Department of Education
Exploring Poetry and Poets
Combine the study of poetry and non-fiction texts with this complete and ready-to-use six-week unit. After reading numerous poems from local writers and compiling a personal anthology, high schoolers find and read a memoir or biography...
EngageNY
Inferring About Characters Based on How They Respond to Challenges (Chapter 4: "Los Higos/Figs")
How do you know what a character's personality is like if an author doesn't tell you? With a focus on character development in Esperanza Rising, pupils complete a jigsaw activity to analyze the actions of Mama, Abuelita, and Miguel. Once...
K5 Learning
The Blind Men and the Elephant
Sometimes it's necessary to view the whole picture before making a judgment about a small part. Read a short story about five blind men who try to identify an elephant by feeling different parts and coming to their own conclusions....
Curated OER
Comments WERD
Students examine several examples of similes and metaphors, stating what is being compared. Then each student chooses a different person from the Civil War era and writes similes and metaphors that describe that person.
Curated OER
Trustworthy Images
Students investigate metaphors. In this writing lesson, students brainstorm traits of a trustworthy person and create a metaphor for a trustworthy person.
Curated OER
Personalized Poetry Portfolio
Eighth graders create their own poetry portfolio containing poems that relate to Students' lives and families. The portfolio consist of the following types of poems: acrostic, diamante`, haiku, cinquain, and free verse.
Curated OER
Journeys to Self Discovery
Students explore both physical and mental journies that result in a change or self-discovery. They write poems that symbolize a personal journey that forever changed them. They understand the importance of a central image or metaphor in...
Curated OER
Teaching the Holocaust through Literature
Centered on the short story "The Tenth Man" by Polish Holocaust survivor Ida Fink, here is a solid one-day resource to support study of World War II or Nazi history, short stories, or to complement any ELA unit on The Diary of Anne Frank...
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
Fruit Writing
Students who have recently learned about similes and metaphors practice putting them in their writing. They get a better understanding of how similes and metaphors can be used by practicing the usage of them in their own personal...
Curated OER
Electricity and Magnetism
Make oral presentations electric and magnetic! As the conclusion of the study of electricity and magnetism, class members are assigned to bring to life items or people associated with these topics. Speaking as the person or object,...
Curated OER
1900 America: Historical Voices, Poetic Visions
Students examine the United States at the turn of the century. Using primary source documents, they interpret them within a specific historical context. Using this information, they write a poem with metaphors and a specific meter They...
Curated OER
Poetry: Techniques & Form
Ninth graders explore poetic technique and figurative language in this ten lesson unit. Comparisons are made between a variety of forms of poetic expressions and the lives of several poets are studied.