Language arts learners don't need a lecture about poetry; they listen to poetry every day on the radio! Apply skills from literary analysis to famous songs and beautiful lyrics with a lesson about literary devices. As...

Robert Frost's "Nothing Gold Can Stay" serves as a model for a poetry analysis activity. The whole class critiques the sample and then groups select a poem and prepare a PowerPoint presentation in which they illustrate how their poet...

After a close reading of Sylvia Plath's "Mirror" and Flora de Falbe's "Five Things About the Lake," young poets craft their own personification list poem about a very special place.

The logic, rhythm, and beauty of math sometimes get lost amidst numbers and variables. Amplify math's lyricism with a poetry project that uses metaphors and similes to compare mathematical concepts to other images.

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...

Want a handy way to remember the difference between metaphors and similes, or allusions and alliteration? Individuals craft their own figurative language booklet, complete with definitions, examples, and illustrations, following...

Adding details and figurative language makes any story more fun to read! After reading two versions of the same story, one devoid of figurative language and one embellished, young writers are asked to add alliteration, hyperbole,...

What does your class think about big business bailouts by the U.S. Government? Find out with this activity, where learners analyze a political cartoon comparing the "Big Three" automakers with the Greek Myth of Sisyphus. Background...

Use political cartoons to help your class understand the European Debt Crisis and visual symbolism. This analysis handout includes two cartoons depicting the crisis and prompts learners to consider possible symbols and allusions to best...

The name itself may have your scholars' heads spinning: Eyjafjallajökull. Its recent volcanic eruption spurred many political cartoons on unrelated topics- using an analysis handout scholars examine the use of metaphor in 2 cartoons...

Use this political cartoon handout to help pupils understand the role the Blue Dog Coalition plays with regard to Health Care Reform. Football is used metaphorically to represent a player (Blue Dogs) tackling someone on his team (Obama)....

Tenth graders complete a variety of activities related to the first two chapters of the book The Outsiders. They define metaphor, simile, idiom, and hyperbole, and take a vocabulary pre-quiz. In small groups, they write a character...

Combining questions about figurative language and Sandra Cisneros's The House on Mango Street, this quiz would be a good addition to your class. The majority contains questions about simile, metaphor, and personification, from...

What do Jeep advertisements and Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath have in common? They both employ the art of the extended metaphor! Using the Six-Trait Writing model, learners begin to work on their own extended metaphors. Development...

Are your middle schoolers able to identify the literary devices featured on this worksheet? They must demonstrate their understanding of figurative language by matching the terms with their definitions and label the devices...

"Lucky lady." "Straight as an arrow." Here's a figurative language activity that provides middle schoolers with six examples and asks them to identify the literary device modeled.

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...

Natalie Babbitt's award winning fantasy, Tuck Everlasting, is the anchor text in a unit plan that focuses on identifying similes, metaphors, imagery, and personification in the text and analyzing how these elements effect the...

Get your class writing with this project idea. Kids choose two pictures of objects that are like them and two pictures of objects that are not like them to entice their readers. Then, they write an informative paragraph describing each...

Explore the pop art movement and create a sculpture in the pop art style based on a visual pun, or play on words. The scholar's work may use humor, allegory, metaphor, or be in the form of a parody. Visual examples are provided, and some...

Beyond Paul Bunyan and his blue ox, tall tales can be a great way to teach young writers about word choice and voice in their writing. Using Jerry Spinelli's Maniac Magee  and the Six-Trait Writing process, they begin to write...

Arm your writers with an arsenal of literary terms. With definitions of everything from plot structure and figurative language to point-of-view and types of irony, learners will gain an understanding of elements in stories and be able to...

Review the elements of tall tales with your class. Take a look at their genesis and purpose. Different types of figurative language found in tall tales are included such as hyperbole, simile, and metaphor. Before reading an American tall...

This is a basic reading comprehension practice worksheet. Learners read 3 passages: folktale, Richard Cory, and an informational text about the Roosevelts. They then answer multiple choice questions that test reading comprehension. Some...