Language Arts

Rather than just memorizing word parts, students will use those word parts to create four possible products.

Blow up a paragraph into individual sentences. Now reassemble it. The clues hiding in each sentence will surprise you.

We’ll take two seemingly unrelated pieces of content (say volcanoes and the human body) and then build analogies to connect the two ideas. In the end, students can create a skit, comic, or story relating the two concepts.

We tell students to ‘show, not tell’ — but that advice is useless until they experience the difference. This lesson makes it click.

‘Add more variety!’ teachers say. But how? This lesson gives students actual techniques instead of vague advice.

What if an inanimate object could express thanks for a special person in your life? What would it write?

Five emoji. One story. Where will your imagination take you?

When we try to solve a problem, sometimes we end up creating new problems. Which lead to new solutions. Which lead to new problems.

Can your students come up with a one-syllable word to sum up their time away from school? And then rewrite The Beatles’ song Help!?

Five emoji. One story. Where will your imagination take you?

How many words can you find within ORNAMENT?

Can your students match multiple meanings of the same five words?

So, which is happiest: happy, joyful, or ecstatic? Which is most temporary?

How many words can you find within COBWEB?

Let’s go beyond merely memorizing word parts and instead analyze across languages. How do other languages make a word the opposite?

What on earth is a Geosynth? Break apart the Greek and Latin roots, figure out what it should mean, then invent what it describes.

Every fantasy story has patterns hiding underneath the magic. Once your students see the elements, they’ll spot them everywhere — and use them in their own writing.

COLD to COOL. BAND to SING. Change one letter at a time — can you find the path?

How can we go from Biology to Immobile?

An intriguing passage from Anne of Green Gables to use as a mentor text, discussion starter, or writing prompt.

Let’s write a summary. A very short summary. With VERY strict rules.

COLD to COOL. BAND to SING. Change one letter at a time — can you find the path?

Young students can use this big idea organizer to identify the main idea and support it with details.

Can your students fit a whole story into seventeen syllables? Now do it from inside a character’s head. Then once more, following the power.

What on earth is a Pyrostasis? Break apart the Greek and Latin roots, figure out what it should mean, then invent what it describes.

These sentences about Washington, DC got scrambled. Can you put them back in order using nothing but context clues?

A passage from The Wind in the Willows to use as a mentor text, discussion starter, or writing prompt.

Five emoji. One story. Where will your imagination take you?

How would real people feel about the legends that have been created about them?

Does the antonym of an antonym bring us back to the same meaning?

What would Socrates have thought if he watched Frozen?

Two columns of sentences. Something is different about them. Can you figure out the rule?

What exactly does adding -less do to a word?

Have students mastered the art of anadiplosis: ending one sentence with the beginning of the next? Now it’s time to take it to the next level!

Five emoji. One story. Where will your imagination take you?

Students use 12 random phrases to create a story that takes place at school.

Can you use the context clues to get these sentences about The Great Sphinx back into the correct order?

Look closely at Impression, Sunrise. What do you notice? Now turn those details into a poem you didn’t know you could write.

How many words can you find within CORNMAZE?

What might a creature named “Aquacornus Rex” be like?

Aristotle noted that positive traits and negative traits are often the same thing, but just in different amounts. The right amount is a virtue, but too much or too little and it’s a vice.

Five emoji. One story. Where will your imagination take you?