Learners often regard sarcasm as a "you know it when you see it" language phenomenon, leading to confusing tone and humor in student writing. This presentation not only defines sarcasm (and irony) in plain terms, it also provides many...

It's all well and good when you're asked to identify a speaker's tone using his or her body language, facial expression, and pitch and emphasis. Identifying the tone of a written passage is another challenge entirely. Check out an...

O. Henry's "The Gift of the Magi" is the classic example of irony in literature. Teach young writers about the ways irony can engage their readers with an activity in which they write scripts using dramatic irony, situational irony, and...

Use O. Henry's ubiquitous tale of love and poverty to explore irony. After reading the story, middle schoolers identify examples of all three kinds of irony in the story. With partners, they brainstorm original examples of irony. Then...

Break an article down with a SOAPSTone chart. Class members determine the speaker, occasion, audience, purpose, subject, and tone. The chart includes a question for each of these elements, provides some clarifying text for each, and...

Students study a current political cartoon to introduce the ideas of symbolism, humor, exaggeration, and caricature in editorial cartoons. They study cartoons from the past to gain an understanding of the culture of 1912.

Students listen to a song which functions as an entertaining primary source. It illustrates the part angry, part irreverent anti-war sentiments of the counter-culture in the late 1960s. After hearing the song, students discuss how it...