Lofty Thoughts ELA

Excellent review resource for the English II End-of-Course exam!

Do you need more blended writing practice with your students before the End of Course Exam? In this practice students are asked to read a non-fiction article about the topic of failure, create a claim about the usefulness of failure, and blend narrative, expository, and argumentative writing to write a 2-3 page response on the topic. The scoring guide for this product was created by simplifying the Missouri EOC criteria set forth by DESE into kid-friendly language.

The presentation provides historical context for the poem to prepare students to discuss a common theme that runs through both the poem and the novel Fahrenheit 451. The last two slides provide a sample of themes that students could explore. For best results use the accompanying graphic organizer and study guide handout for students to use when organizing their constructed responses. https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Comparing-a-Theme-Across-Genres-Dover-Beach-and-Fahrenheit-451-307

Excellent final essay option for Hamlet! Invites students to compare themes across genres! step-by-step directions graphic organizeroutlinecopy of the poemoriginal example scoring guide In the tradition of the Renaissance tragedy, it is time to re-elevate the tragedy back to its original purpose: self-examination. This project presents Rudyard Kipling's poem "If" as a measuring stick for human virtue and invites students to evaluate how well Hamlet fits Kipling's definition of a man. In additio

Are commonly confused and misused words and phrases plaguing your students' writing? This two-week unit gives students a crash course or a quick review of some of the most commonly confused, misused, and misspelled words in the English language. The bundle includes a pretest to assess students' current skills, three Power Points packed full of notes and guided practice, two take home assignments, and a full-length test that includes a writing section.

These questions are modeled after the Missouri End-of-Course exam and provide students an opportunity to practice close reading with text-dependent questions. Also see the TED Talk Activity that can be used after students have completed Chapters 7-8: Rocket Boys/October Sky: TED Talk Guided Listening Activity

Students create a flip book for studying and reviewing logical fallacies such as bandwagon, appeal to nature, ad hominem, straw man, and false causation. I used this along with the argumentative writing practice in IXL for my English II students to prepare them for the End-of-Course exam.

These questions over Homer Hickam's Rocket Boys are modeled after the Missouri ELA End-of-Course exam. I put my heart and soul into these in hopes of increasing my students' scores. Enjoy!

Link broken.... to out to the product. Don't buy. Engage your class on the day before Thanksgiving and get real-time feedback while your students compete for the top spot in this KaHoot. Students practice identifying the following basic sentence parts: subjects, verbs (action, helping, and linking), direct objects, prepositional phrases, predicate adjectives, predicate nominatives, objects or prepositions, and more. Download the Word document and follow the link to open the KaHoot.

Are you reading a classroom novel with your students but know that they need to be practicing the various modes of writing (narrative, expository, argumentative) to prepare for standardized testing? Kill two birds with one stone with this writing modes practice activity. It can be used with any book that students are reading (fiction or non-fiction). One side of the worksheet describes the various modes of writing, and the other side gives students the opportunity to practice writing about the m

Students watch the TED Talk by Angela Duckworth about the topic of grit. Guided listening questions encourage students to identify her claim and evaluate her credibility as a speaker. Follow-up questions connect the content of the TED talk to characters in Rocket Boys/October Sky by Homer Hickam. Also see Chapter Questions for October Sky/Rocket Boys

Students make a foldable resource to record basic comma usage rules. The resource contains an example of the foldable flip book that my students made as well as 44 slides of notes and original examples.

A fun grammar review for Halloween, this project lets students get creative and think outside the box about participles, gerunds, and infinitives.

After reading "A Christmas Memory" by Truman Capote, students are invited to write about a Christmas memory of their own. Using Capote's story as a mentor text students are guided through the process of writing a strong introduction. I used this last year, and the writing my students produced was truly some of the best they had done all year. Enjoy!

Before reading Kurt Vonnegut's short story Harrison Bergeron, students practice combining sentences using coordination and subordination. The sentences in the practice pull double-duty as they give background information about the author and the story. Then students preview the theme of competition of the story by writing an 8-12 sentence paragraph.

Have you ever noticed that stories from as far back as Homer's Odyssey or as recent as The Hunger Games share common features such as a quest, a mentor, villains, and restitution? Joseph Campell first proposed the idea of the monomyth or epic hero cycle to explain this phenomenon. This essay assignment encourages students to explore connections between a modern-day movie or book and the structure that Campbell proposed. The product includes: * a print-and-go outline * student checklist

This is a guided reading worksheet for students to use along with their reading of Homer Hickam's Rocket Boys.

These bookmarks serve as quick reminders for your students when you're emphasizing literary terms. Terms on bookmark include metaphor, simile, allusion, idiom, onomatopoeia, hyperbole, pun, oxymoron, and paradox. Print these on card stock, cut, and enjoy!

This weekly writing assignment is centered on three pillars known to improve performance among high school and middle school students: rigor, relevance, and relationships. It allows students to discuss material that they are learning in any class and to reflect on the way that their new knowledge can be applied to real-world scenarios. I have learned so much about my students, their interests, and their learning styles by reading these weekly reflections. I hope you will enjoy using them in your

One of the most common questions that students ask when reading any classic literature is "why are we reading this"? This structured essay outline guides students through the examination of this question at the conclusion of Romeo and Juliet.