Achievement Strategies
ACT College Readiness Standards
Here is a template offering a comprehensive outline of ACT skill categories, what standards are expected to be mastered, and blank spaces for you to include how you plan to address those standards within your curriculum.
Curated OER
What is Proofreading?
Is your essay coherent? Does it make sense? Is it formatted correctly? Does it adhere to standard English conventions? This helpful and informative slide-show walks learners step by step through the editing and proofreading process. Each...
Curated OER
What's In a Noun: Grammar and Usage
Nine lessons in a grammar and usage unit provide endless opportunities for drill and practice. Topics include the four types of sentences, subject and predicates, nouns, verbs, adjectives, pronouns, adverbs and prepositions, conjunctions...
Curated OER
Commas: Conventional Usage
This four-page handout explains in detail when and why to use commas. Three extended sentences provide an opportunity for practice splitting long sentences into shorter ones. Multiple examples help to clarify correct usage.
Prestwick House
New (March 2016) SAT Writing and Language Test Practice
Prepare class members for the SAT Writing and Language exam with a practice test that prepares students for the types of questions and the kind of language used in the exam. Test takers must select the best way to fix poorly constructed...
Curated OER
Word Wake
Put your common writing errors to rest with this resource, which prompts high schoolers to create eulogies and tombstones for overused and incorrect words. They work on correcting common errors in spelling and usage mistakes in their own...
Curated OER
Analyzing Word Use Through Guided Wordle
Even though this lesson is just a basic way to review verb usage, it takes a novel approach. First, pupils identify verbs that they use too often in their writing, and then they create a Wordle. Wordle is a website that provides graphic...
Shmoop
ELA.CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.11-12.1
Despite English grammar rules, in the e-world the plural of mouse is mouses. lol. Standard American English is constantly evolving. Introduce your class members to a variety of terms that describe different usage changes (economy,...
Curated OER
Perspectives on Written & Spoken English
Students explore issues surrounding language norms, including the distinction between prescriptive and descriptive norms, the differences between norms for spoken English and those for written English, how word meanings change, and...
Curated OER
The Classification Station
Second graders identify proper nouns and categorize them by subject. They apply correct principles of grammar: they write complete sentences, use correct capital letters, use correct punctuation and apply correct rules of usage and...
Curated OER
Vocabulary Comic Strips
Who says comic strips aren’t educational? Prove these naysayers wrong by asking your class members to create a comic strip for a selected vocabulary word. Using online technological tools that provide access to an array of options for...
Curated OER
Weather and Seasons
Use pictures and manipulatives to develop vocabulary with your beginning language learners. This plan can be used with foreign language learners (although you'll have to provide the vocabulary), English language learners, or a young...
Curated OER
What I need for School
You can use this lesson with English language learners, a young language arts class, or speakers of a foreign language. The phrases learned are I need and I don't need. The teacher collects several items around the room, and learners...
Curated OER
When Is a Noun a Verb? Examining Double Duty Words
The New York Times' Learning Network provides great lessons! This one uses articles from the paper to help readers understand homonyms like mail (verb and noun). It also includes an exercise in reading informational text. Links to the...
Shmoop
ELA.CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.11-12.6
Here's an exercise designed for the Common Core Literacy Standard L.11-12.6 that asks learners to demonstrate their ability to put together all they have learned about language. The first activity is based on a passage from Rosencrantz...
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Grammar and Usage: Section 2, #4
In this online interactive grammar and usage worksheet, students examine 10 sentences, select the appropriate revision using the rules of standard formal English for each sentences, and submit their answers to be scored.
Curated OER
Satchel Page
Bring a lesson about Negro League Baseball to your Black history unit, or any other research unit throughout the year. While the lesson plan itself is simplistic, there are several good ideas that you could use, such as creating trading...
Portland Public Schools
Opinion: Persuasive Essay Unit Introduction
Opinion, audience, purpose. Fourth graders are introduced to the three characteristics of persuasive writing in the third unit of a year-long writing program. The 98-page packet is complete with plans, model essays, graphic organizers,...
Curated OER
Teaching Descriptive Word Usage
Second graders practice their creative writing by using descriptive words. In this language arts lesson, 2nd graders utilize their best descriptive writing to elaborate on one of 20 different bean bag characters. Students listen to...
Curated OER
An Overview of the THEA Writing Test
Prepare your class for the Texas Higher Education Assessment (THEA) or any other upcoming writing test (such as the SAT) with this presentation. Complete with instructions on the composition and rubric of the test, as well as sample...
Curated OER
Goldie Girl and There, Their, and They're: Homophones and Homographs
Instruct your class on homonyms and homophones. Learners take a pre-test and examine a list of homophones. They also play online word games to practice spelling and usage and write a fairy tale in which they use at least 10 homophones....
Curated OER
Extreme Poetry Vocabulary
Challenge your class with this comprehensive list of literary vocabulary words. Learners take a pre-test, look up definitions, come up with an example, and then take a post-test. You might use this prior to a unit about poetic devices in...
Curated OER
Consumer Scams
Letter writing may be outdated but it's a great way to practice English conventions, grammar, and spelling. The class researches consumer scams, then writes a letter about them. They each choose a scam to write about paying close...
Curated OER
My Daily Routine
Foreign language learners work in pairs to translate the daily routine of celebrities or everyday people, presented in daily planner format, into English. They then illustrate and record their own daily routines in storyboard (film...