Curated OER
Setting the Tone with Figurative Language
Explore figurative language with your secondary class. Extending a language arts unit, the lesson plan prompts middle schoolers to examine how an author's word choice establishes a story's tone, possibly using metaphors, similes,...
Growing Kids Ministry
Useless Junk? or Made with a Purpose?
Demonstrate that all items (and people) have a purpose in God's plan with a Sunday School assignment. After examining seemingly useless items, such as bolts, paper clips, or batteries, kids fill in the blanks to express the item's...
Utah Education Network (UEN)
7th Grade Poetry: Ode Poem
Walt Whitman's "Captain, My Captain" and Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken" provide seventh graders with examples of odes. After reading and discussing these and other examples, young poets craft an ode and respond to the ode of a...
Curated OER
Analyzing Persuasion
A reading of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech launches a study of rhetorical devices such as hyperbole, allusion, metaphor, simile, personification, connotative language and parallel structure. Class members then...
Curated OER
Literary Analysis of The Minister's Black Veil
After reading The Minister's Black Veil, by Nathaniel Hawthorne as a homework assignment your class will complete a literary analysis. Learners will analyze important element of the story and take notes to help support their essays....
Shmoop
ELA.CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.4
The fourth standard for reading literature in the Common Core calls for young readers to be able to determine the figurative and connotative meanings of words and phrases. Use this resource, a continuation of a series of Common Core...
Curated OER
Pictures in Words: Poems of Tennyson and Noyes
Learners examine how Tennyson and Noyes use words to paint vivid pictures. They read and analyze two poems, complete an online scavenger hunt, complete a worksheet, and write examples of alliteration, personification, metaphor, simile,...
Curated OER
Animal Diaries
Launch this lesson with Doreen Cronin's Diary of a Worm! Discuss the format and content of a diary, and ask learners if they've ever kept a diary before. Then, after an introductory discussion, have learners choose an insect or another...
Curated OER
The Coin and the Fable: Alaska quarter reverse
An Alaskan quarter and a book of fables is what you'll need to start this lesson. Learners will use the image of the bear and the salmon found on the reverse side of the Alaskan quarter as inspiration. They will compose a fable about the...
Curated OER
Flora and Fauna as Figures of Speech
What a lovely way to incorporate artwork into your language arts lesson. View artwork in illustrated manuscript pages, depicting insects, animals, plants, flowers, and ornate writing in the Getty Museum. Practice using figurative...
Curated OER
Fabulous, Fractured Fables
Elementary schoolers develop an awareness of the literary form known as the fable. They explore how authors write fables to pass along moral lessons. After reading and discussing many famous fables embedded in the plan, learners attempt...
Curated OER
Apples Personified
Students write a creative writing piece by personifying apples. In this creative writing lesson plan, students view a PowerPoint about the writing process and brainstorm about apples. Students write a rough draft about their apple and...
Curated OER
"Black Boy"
Students read a series of sentences and decide what literary term is being shown. They also discuss a novel about prejudice.
Curated OER
Symbolic Poem
High schoolers read and analyze several highly symbolic poems. They create their own symbolic poem, read it to the class, and discuss whether they can guess any hidden meanings.
Curated OER
Writing a poem
Young scholars imagine themselves someplace -- the beach, a mountain top, a city street -- anywhere.
Curated OER
My Candle
This is probably my students' favorite writing assignment. They obviously tell their friends about it, because every year my ne
Curated OER
Folktale Unit Outline
Seventh graders analyze grammatical structures and identify literary elements in a variety of texts. Through the genre of folktales, ancient or indigenous cultures are studied.
Curated OER
Identifying Figurative Language
Students explore Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. In this figurative language lesson, students locate similes, metaphors, and examples of personification in their reading. Students write down the page numbers of each example for future...
Curated OER
Conversing with an Object
Students analyze museum artifacts and create conversations between these inanimate objects using prior historical knowledge. In this museum artifact lesson, students create theoretical dialogue between historical artifacts in order to...
Curated OER
I Have a Metaphor
Learners locate the literary devices used in Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech. In this figurative language lesson plan, young scholars first distinguish between similes, metaphors, analogies, personification, etc....
Curated OER
Haunting Music
Students discover music that was inspired by the spooky and bizarre. In this music of Hector Berlioz and Camille Saint-Saens activity, students identify elements of music and listen to the Symphonie Fantastique and Danse Macabre....
Curated OER
American Rhythms
Students combine elements of music with poetry. In this creative writing instructional activity, students examine poems from a variety of authors with varying writing styles. Students explore the different elements of poetry, including...
Academy of American Poets
Teaching the Vietnam War with Poetry and Archives
The language of and the perspective of photographs, poems, and official reports differ. After a close reading of two photographs, two poems, and a military report about the Vietnam War, individuals adopt someone's voice or something from...
Learning for Justice
Maya Angelou
Maya Angelou's poem, "Still I Rise", offers young scholars an opportunity to consider how poets use literary devices to create powerful messages. After a close reading and discussion of the poem, class members reflect on how they can...