Riddle me this! What do kennings, caesura, and alliteration have to do with the Nowell Codex? Introduce class members to Anglo-Saxon poetry and prepare readers for a study of Beowulf with a series of activities that...

Learners create a flower pot for their mom on mother's day. They use pictures found in magazines to create a collage on the flower pot. They are to follow instructions to complete this lesson.

Unsuspecting George McFlys are presented into the craft workings of the science fiction genre of literature. Speculations are developed through teacher-led dialogs about how science fiction impacts science, technology, and comments on...

A one-page template provides primary writers with a graphic organizer to assist them in drafting a persuasive paragraph. Labeled the “Hamburger Model” because of its appearance, the worksheet asks pupils to craft an introduction, provide...

Are your middle schoolers writing a sonnet? Here's a worksheet to help them craft their first sonnet! Make edits as you see necessary. 

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...

Young scholars review previously taught material by playing a teacher made board game. They answer questions and move their pieces along the path to the end.

Students listen carefully and put pieces together following the teacher's instructions. They point to the different shapes and sizes as they are being called out and count the number of items they have in front of them. They decorate...

Pupils choose their favorite television show, craft and illustrate an advertisement for this show, and then write a short paragraph about why the show appeals to them. No provisions are made for children with limited or no viewing...

The Scarlet Letter is a treasure trove of topics awaiting exploration by readers of Nathaniel Hawthorne's romantic opus. Whether looking for imagery (light/dark, mirror, scarlet letters), symbols (static or evolving), ironies, etc.,...

Make analyzing the sequence of events in an informational text easy. Ask readers to craft a one-sentence summary of each paragraph in a document and create a text map. To demonstrate their understanding of the process, participants read...

Students analyze close readings of poems, looking up words in the dictionary, and discussing the major parts of dictionary definitions, including word origin and parts of speech. They examine sonnets, then compare/contrast their findings.

C.S. Lewis’s That Hideous Strength provides the model for using dreams in narrative writing. After a discussion of the purpose of dreams in Lewis’s tale, class members craft a story in which their dreams play an essential role.

Learners read and discuss several Pourquoi tales--legends that explain why certain natural events occur. They complete a variety of activities surrounding each tale and then write their own Pourquoi tale.

Tenth graders define the term slang, explaining its various social, historical, and racial contexts, so as to articulate when it can be appropriately used as a means of effective communication. They use their own personal slang lexicon,...

Class members use e-mail and the merry-go-round story format to create a science fiction story. Each writer begins by selecting one of three prompts, crafting the introductory paragraph and sending the paragraph to the next person on the...

Middle schoolers read a poem and complete a TPCASTT chart. They make a prediction about the title (T) , paraphrase each line (P), identify poetic devices and nuances (C-connotation), explore mood and tone (A-attitude), point out shifts...

Student explore feelings, how to deal with them and how to express feelings. For this feelings lesson, students discuss different ways they feel. Students sing songs about feelings and show actions for each feeling.

Did Shakespeare really write all that stuff? After viewing a trailer for the film, Anonymous and reading Stephen Marche’s article “Wouldn’t It Be Cool If Shakespeare Wasn’t Shakespeare?” class groups read articles about the Shakespeare...

A fan of magic squares vocabulary activities? Readers use terms drawn from Gary Paulsen’s Canyons to complete an exercise. The worksheet, an answer sheet, as well as complete directions for crafting a magic square, are included.

There is nothing more frustrating than discussing theme in literature, and now the Common Core requires that your learners determine two or more, and discuss the development of it throughout the text. This is crazy, but manageable with...

“. . .different men often see the same subject in different lights. . .” but the great orator Patrick Henry used all the skills at his command to craft a speech to convince listeners to see things as he did--that liberty was worth dying...

In this arts and crafts instructional activity, learners cut out an Aztec puppet. Students cut the two slits on either end of the stand and push one end onto the other in order for the puppet to stand up.

Students create pine cone owls. In this visual arts lesson, students use a pine cone, acorns, glue, and feathers to create an owl pine cone. Students may use paint to decorate their project.