Helpful for an American literature or history unit, this lesson prompts middle schoolers to examine slavery in the United States. They read slave narratives that were part of the Federal Writers' Project and then conduct their own...

Sign language is an effective way to communicate with those special needs, hearing, impaired, and non-verbal pupils. This lesson provides a highly structured way to learn or teach ASL. Included are multiple links to images, descriptions,...

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...

Young scholars practice writing descriptions by researching various artifacts from ancient Egypt and writing captions for them. They read and discuss the Times article, King Tut, Museum Trailblazer, Begins Encore.

Students discover enunciation and alliteration by reading tongue twisters in class.  In this language arts lesson plan, students listen and repeat some of the classic childhood tongue twisters along with their teacher....

Access your senses with a worksheet on sensory language. Based on Owl Moon by Jane Yolen, the worksheet prompts kids to find examples of each of the five senses, as well as phrases for inner emotion. 

Instruct your readers to scrounge through the pages of Maniac Magee in search for descriptive passages or words they may use to write poetry. As they look for meaningful, sensory descriptors in Jerry Spinelli's novel, readers...

What is your favorite thing to do on a Saturday afternoon? You can look forward to a nice variety of descriptions from your youngsters regarding this classic writing prompt.

Characters in a story are more than a name to remember. Use a character builder worksheet to write out a character's appearance, background, personality, attributes, and story relevance, including whether they are a main or minor...

Students discuss the importance of using adjectives in writing. They separate into five groups, each group is given a bag with an object inside to describe using just one sense. They write a description of a Hershey's Kiss using adjectives.

Twelfth graders hone descriptive writing skills by making a J. Peterman Catalogue. They bring to class a favorite piece of clothing or jewelry item and create their own description of it. They accompany each description with a hand-drawn...

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...

Students use the descriptive writing process through the use of landscape scenes, the Paragraph Writing Strategy from the University of Kansas Institute for Research in Learning, and the 4MAT Instructional Model.

Students examine descriptive language. In a worksheet activity, they practice writing a one-page description of an event, trying to use descriptive words. They also describe a noun, e.g. rabbit, using descriptive language.

Students identify techniques used to communicate visually. They compare and contrast different visual techniques found in mass media. They apply their understanding by creating photographs that use a variety of visual literacy techniques.

Use funny tongue twisters to entice your young learners! They'll love this game where they   face off against members of the other team and recite tongue twisters. Who will win this enunciation and pronunciation competition! 

Check out this clear description of how and when to use accent marks and special characters. The information, necessary to truly understand the purpose of special characters and accent marks would make a great reference material for...

In this comprehension exercise, readers compare Carl Sandburg's "Chicago" to a description of the city from Upton's Sinclair's The Jungle.

This worksheet addresses the issue of language and its barriers within the diverse European Union. Due to the reliance on a resource called, "Europe in the Round", this worksheet may have limited appeal.

Students identify similes and create their own self descriptions using them as examples. After identifying characteristics associated with pictures of the sun, fish, and other items, they discover how those traits can be used as...

Review many different types of essays with this presentation. Each slide gives a short description of an essay such as narrative or persuasive. Makes for a good overview of various formats.

Young Spanish language learners review the names of each planet. Then, in pairs, they work to complete the chart provided. What is the composition of each planet? What is the color? They learn how to describe the planets. 

Learners put themselves in the shoes of students who integrated Little Rock High School in 1957-58. Note: The primary resources in this activity provide powerful and poignant descriptions of what those students faced.

Explore how photographs can represent a whole story to a viewer. Middle schoolers work on narrative writing techniques in this lesson, focusing on photographs from the New York Times to write first-person descriptive narratives....