Looking for an innovative resource that will help your students to better understand how literary elements create meaning in a text and apply those lessons to their own writing?

Through many years of teaching, I have found that students usually have a fairly easy time identifying literary devices, but when it comes to explaining how those elements create meaning in a text, they are often stumped. Getting them to experiment with devices in their own writing is even more of a challenge.

This kind of high level analysis and writing does not come naturally to most teens, but with the right structure and scaffolding it is possible.

By digging deep on one short passage, these focused lessons take students through the noticing of the details to a close reading of those choices and finally to a thorough analysis of how the literary elements work to further an author’s themes. But far from being dry questions based around defining terms, these are challenging, rigorous, and fun activities that will get kids playing and experimenting with language and writing as well as discussing big ideas and questions.

When you teach with these fun, structured, and innovative mentor sentences activities, you will:

• Get students to calm their bodies and wake up their minds as they start to contemplate their own views on bigger questions when they write on the high-interest freewrite prompts.

• Give your classes a concrete method for noticing some of the more subtle choices that an author makes when they compare the original sentences to alternative versions and analyze the differences with the ready-to-go questions on the passages.

• Teach your students to understand, analyze, and explain how literary elements function to create meaning in a text with focused questions and exercises on rhyme, colloquial language, diction, three-part lists, alliteration, direct address, repetition, parallel structure, tone, punctuation, point of view, cliché, show don’t tell, sentence structure, and extended metaphor

• Effortlessly review the questions with your classes when you refer to the extensive answer keys which explain how the literary devices create meaning through the authors’ choices.

• Get students experimenting with their own writing, focusing on form and style, and having lots of fun in the process when they complete the sentence imitation activities.

• Teach these lessons to all levels of classes from standard to AP Literature and Composition when you utilize the structure and scaffolding in the ready-to-go handouts.

• See noted improvements in your students critical thinking, close reading, literary analysis, and writing skills when they complete these engaging yet rigorous lessons.

Lessons that focus on this kind of high level skill building are not easy to create, but when you teach lessons created by an experienced teacher and lots of trial and error, they can be easy to teach!

“I think these sentences really helped my students understand how to add variety to their writing. The discussion questions are wide-ranging and thought provoking.”—Kathryn P

“This is a great collection of prompts that would interest all students.”—Tricia F.

“Fabulous! You will not regret this purchase. I love using this for my classes.”—Candace B.