In this recurring lesson, students watch an artistic video clip and use the words in their current vocabulary lesson to process the content through several types of creative writing. This gives students a chance to write in a unique voice and to understand the meaning of their vocabulary words in a new context. They also have the opportunity to analyze their peers' use of the vocabulary when they read and discuss each other's stories.

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This resource contains a list of terms used to analyze poetry and activity suggestions for student use.

In this video from Shakespeare Uncovered, students explore the use of soliloquy as a device to reveal character and advance plot. They consider how using soliloquy perhaps more truthfully exposes character than other devices like dialogue. In addition, students focus particularly on the famous soliloquy in Hamlet, "To be or not to be," and discuss how and why the topics of his speech are best explored through soliloquy.

In this lesson focused on Walt Whitman's poetry, students use "I Hear America Singing" as a model to write a poem about their own environment - in this case, their school.

Creating Facebook-like presentations via Microsoft PowerPoint will engage and motivate students to learn about famous people of the American Revolution. To gain background knowledge prior to their study of the Revolutionary War, students will research people who played an important role during this time period. While sharing their research in their PowerPoint presentations, students provide written feedback.

In this lesson students will listen to examples of several dialects and discuss what they hear about each speaker from the recordings. As a class, students will also define dialect and use Alice Walker's novel the Color Purple to continue their analysis.

In the 1850's abolition was not a widely embraced movement in the U.S. It was considered radical and extreme. In his speech, "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?" Frederick Douglas sought to make abolition acceptable to Northern whites. In addition to making historical points about attitudes towards slavery in the 19th century, this speech can be used to teach formal rhetoric. The lesson features five interactive activities requiring close reading and analysis of Frederick's use of language and rhetorical strategies.

This lesson pairs Ernest Hemingway's "Cat in the Rain" with Raymond Carver's "Little Things" to guide students to an understanding of the characteristics of minimalist fiction. When asked to think about the reasons behind the popularity of minimalism, students begin to appreciate how literature develops and learn to see it as a reflection of the culture. Afterwards, students are tasked with comparing both works using a Venn diagram. Next, students read additional Carver stories to develop a list of characteristics for minimalist writing. Finally, students explore the roots of minimalism and write using characteristics of the style.

This lesson examines Charlotte Perkin Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaer" through critcal reading and analysis of the short story. Students will also use text-dependent questions to write a reflective, thematic essay.

Students write about present-day pop culture as well as learning about pop culture of the past by using Cole Porter's song "You're the Top!" (1934) to touch on many issues relevant to a language arts classroom, especially the literary technique of cataloguing. After an introduction and context information about Porter's song, students listen to the song and examine the lyrics. They look at the list of the pop culture items referenced in the song to see what they feel is still valid today, brainstorm replacements for other items, and create revised lyrics for the song. They then present their updated lyrics to the class.