Thoroughly cover the nuances of apostrophes, quotation marks, dashes, hyphens, colons, and semi-colons. Intended for higher-level English classes, the examples given pertain to tricky rules and formal language. There are no animations or...

After reading Elie Wiesel's Night, watching the movie Life is Beautiful, and researching World War II, class members write a comparison essay on the book and film. This includes a prior knowledge activity, discussion in whole and small...

Learn about the animals of Australia with a language arts instructional activity about an Australian folktale called, Why Koala Has a Stumpy Tail. After reading the story as a class, kids discuss events and characters from the book,...

There are so many authors of short stories, and your class can have the chance to study quite a few. This seventh lesson in a series of fourteen continues the decision-making process for the final assessment: a short story author study....

Reinforce persuasive and argumentative writing skills with this lesson, which utilizes SchoolNet News Network's website/SNN Monthly magazine. Young writers review journalism writing styles that help them explain that writing a persuasive...

Give your class this introductory activity to spark interest in the Japanese language. Learners look at the Japanese vowels and practice their pronunciation. Then the class works to match vocabulary words to their visual representation.

Students determine the workings of the Braille alphabet and how people with visual impairments learn how to use it. In this Braille lesson, students study the associated vocabulary, read about Helen Keller, and complete associated...

Plan a Parts of a Book scavenger hunt. Begin by giving your young adventurers a book, and asking them to find the title, author, illustrator, and table of contents. After a discussion of the purpose of each of these items, class members...

Did you know that modern Chinese literature “grew from the psychoanalytical theory of Sigmund Freud”? Designed for a world literature class, seniors are introduced to “One Evening in the Rainy Season,” Shi Zhecun’s stream of...

Greed is the theme of this collection of multidisciplinary activities. As a class, read The West African folktale, Anansi Goes to Lunch by Bobby Norfolk, and take part in a grand discussion about it's plot and theme. Reinforce the...

Explore emotions associated with moving to a new home with young learners. First they listen to the books Painted Words/Spoken Memories by Aliki and Going Home by Eve Bunting. Then they are invited to share their experiences as well as...

Understanding a word's etymology can really help with decoding and building vocabulary skills. Readers compare and contrast words of similar origins but with different difficulty levels. They focus on prefixes, suffixes, and affixes....

Fifth graders explore historical fiction. In this genre study lesson, 5th graders go on a text feature scavenger hunt to identify the parts of a historical fiction text. Additionally, students read the book, My Secret War and discuss...

Here is instructional activity 5 from a 7 instructional activity unit on using blogging to create a community of writers. The aim of this instructional activity is to get students writing about what Archaeologists do and how they use...

Delve into the world of gerunds and infinitives with this detailed powerpoint. Each slide provides examples and corresponding images. Stopping throughout the presentation would allow for guided and individual practice. This could also be...

This presentation offers up some of the trickier rules of the English language when it comes to spelling. For example, one slide goes over the "i before e, except after c," rule. The rest of the slides present examples like this one and...

What kinds of foods include corn? Corn syrup? Start by viewing a clip of Food Inc. with your middle or high schoolers. Then, study a list of corn-derived ingredients, encouraging your class to see how many food products contain corn. A...

Why do books end up on the banned book list? How do these banned books contribute to the literary canon? Start by showing the photo slide show, and discussing notably banned books. Then focus on some of the most popular objections:...

Take a journey to India with a read aloud of The Drum: A Folktale from India by Rob Cleveland. Make connections to the story's theme by building and practicing drums, role playing story characters, and practicing skills in phonics, math,...

Identifying themes in literature is the focus of the language arts lesson plan presented here. Learners read short pieces of fiction and practice the skill of identifying the themes present in each one. The bulk of the lesson plan...

What does empathy look like? Encourage your pupils to put themselves in another person's shoes with several writing and discussion activities that relate to a featured short film. Over the course of the lesson, individuals collaborate...

Do your language arts students love to draw? Use this lesson plan to reinforce poetic techniques with illustration. After drawing what they think poem would look like with no words, middle and high schoolers work on several different...

What is a Socratic Seminar? Discover this type of discussion and it functions. Split the class into two groups with Group A sitting in an inner circle and Group B in an outer circle. Each person in Group B is assigned to a person in...

Combine participial phrases and creative writing with this lesson, which is equally helpful for writing skills and conventions. After a mini-lesson on participial phrases and reading the picture book Dancing in the Wings, pupils use a...