Cluster 3: Vocabulary Acquisition and UseArchived

Use of these flashcards can help students build their vocabulary and prepare them for SAT testing.

Type: Educational Game

This close reading lesson focuses on Mary Schmich's comical commencement speech essay, "Advice, like youth, probably just wasted on the young." Students will take an in-depth analysis to discover her powerful satirical style, as well as the power of social nuances. Students will focus on academic vocabulary and answer high-level text-dependent questions as a guide for their comprehension of the essay, evaluating if her choice of words and wisdom remain valid, relative, and sufficient for the youth of today.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson, students will conduct research to answer the research question: How are current trends in education affecting higher education and/or the workforce?

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson, students will analyze Shirley Jackson's short story "The Lottery." Students will then read the short story, work to determine the meaning of selected vocabulary words from the text, and answer guided reading questions. In the summative assessment, students will become newspaper reporters and write an article to describe the events of the lottery, as if they were present on the day the lottery took place.

Type: Lesson Plan

This lesson is the 2nd part in a 3-part series on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s speech "I've Been to the Mountaintop." This lesson focuses on some of the figures of speech and rhetorical devices used by Dr. King in his speech. The speech has been divided into eight sections. As students read through each section they will analyze some of the figures of speech and rhetorical devices King used, record their answers on a graphic organizer, and analyze how use of the figure of speech or rhetorical device impacted the meaning of that section of the speech. Students will write an extended paragraph for the lesson.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson, students will read the poem "The War After the War" by Debora Greger and examine the three different perspectives within the poem. This lesson provides an opportunity for students to examine and analyze figurative language and perspective, as well as craft their own poem using multiple perspectives and figurative language.

Type: Lesson Plan

This is the third lesson in a three-part unit examining privacy, surveillance, and technology. In this lesson, students will create a digital presentation and present their information to the class discussing a current privacy concern related to technology.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson, students will conduct close readings of a teacher-selected news article that introduces a claim and two sides. As they read, they will implement vocabulary strategies, analyze the article’s claims and their validity. After they read, they will participate in a whole class discussion before choosing a side and writing a three-paragraph argument in the form of a letter.

Type: Lesson Plan

This lesson focuses on an excerpt from Markus Zusak's novel The Book Thief. Students will read an excerpt to discover Zusak's powerful writing style, as well as the power of words through the eyes of Liesel, the novel's protagonist. Students will demonstrate their analysis through answering a short response question.

Type: Lesson Plan

This lesson focuses on similes, metaphors, personification, irony, imagery and allusion in Richard Connell's short story, "The Most Dangerous Game." Students first create a "Silly Sheet" study aid for these literary devices, and then they engage in a "scavenger hunt" where they find examples of these devices in the story. Students then work in small groups to interpret the meanings of these devices within the context of the story. Finally, students will individually write an essay analyzing the effect that these devices have on the story as a whole. The "scavenger hunt" handout and answer key, two PowerPoints, and the directions for the essay with a planning sheet and rubric are included.

Type: Lesson Plan

Students often have difficulty envisioning and making sense of a story that is set in a markedly different time or circumstance than their own. This two-day activity introduces students to the dystopian society of 1984 by George Orwell. By analyzing Orwell's carefully chosen words, details, repetitions, and characterizations in these first few pages, students can construct a strong understanding of some of the key features of this society that will give them a solid framework for comprehending the rest of the novel. Doing this kind of close reading work also reinforces to students that authors do not randomly select the details they include in a text; they choose words carefully to create a mood or construct a particular image of a character or place in a reader's mind. The overriding question that students should be able to answer at the end of this exercise is: What can we understand about Winston Smith and the society he lives in based on the descriptive details George Orwell includes in the first few pages of 1984?

Type: Lesson Plan

Students will read, understand, and analyze a speech by Fredrick Douglass through close reading and scaffolded learning tasks. Students will write an essay to support their analysis of the central idea of Douglass's speech, "The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro."

Type: Lesson Plan

Students will explore poetic expression, both written and spoken, and evaluate its significance as a medium for social commentary. Students will also examine literary devices including metaphor, simile, symbolism, and point of view.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson, students will examine the figurative language and literary devices used in Edgar Allan Poe's "The Masque of the Red Death." They will read the first part of the story with support and modeling from the teacher, the next part with a partner or in small groups, and the final section on their own. Students will also use various strategies to determine the meaning of selected vocabulary within the context of the story and identify which of those words and phrases create the suspenseful mood in the story. In the summative assessment, students will share their analysis and provide textual examples of how Poe creates suspense in his story.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson, students will review the key terms: diction, denotation, and connotation. Working in groups, they will determine denotative and connotative meanings of various words and discuss how this choice of diction relates to the tone and author's attitude. The lesson culminates with a short creative writing activity in which students use connotative diction to convey a particular tone.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson, students will read "My Watch: An Instructive Little Tale," by Mark Twain. Students will analyze how Twain’s use of figurative language creates style. Students will present their analysis in an oral presentation.

Type: Lesson Plan

This is part two in a series of three exploring and analyzing Emily Dickinson's style. In part two, students will use the historical and literary research conducted in part one and they will read and analyze a variety of her letters written during the Romantic Period. Students will use their analysis of the letters as sources for the summative assessment, a letter to the editor written in response to one or several of Dickinson's letters or topics.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson (the third in a three-lesson unit), students will analyze an excerpt from Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried. Working collaboratively and independently, students will explore the diction, images, details, language and syntax of the text. The summative assessment requires students to write an essay analyzing how the author uses language and literary techniques to convey the experience of the soldiers in the Vietnam War. Supporting handouts and materials are provided.

Type: Lesson Plan

This is Part 2 of a poetry unit designed to support students as they embrace the study of poetry. Part One focuses on universal themes. In this lesson, students read and analyze two poems for their use of imagery as it supports the mood of each.

Type: Lesson Plan

This lesson is part one in a series of three lessons analyzing the language of Emily Dickinson, researching the Romantic Period, and comparing her works to her contemporaries. In part one of this lesson series, students will work in small groups to analyze the language of Emily Dickinson's poems, they will research the literary period of The Romantic Period, and they will create a re-envisioned poem using information gleaned from their small group discussions, research, and whole group discussions.

Type: Lesson Plan

This is the first lesson in a unit of three lessons focusing on spoken word poetry. In the first lesson, students will read, view, and analyze the figurative language in several poems in print and on video. Students will then write original poems based on their own lives, that includes poetic devices. Students will then present their original poems to the class using appropriate intonation, inflection, and fluency.

Type: Lesson Plan

The lesson introduces students to irony and how instances of irony in a piece of literature, "A Sound of Thunder" (1070L) by Ray Bradbury, advances the plot. Students are exposed to examples of irony from other works of literature to assist them with this particular form of figurative language. The summative assessment entails a written analysis of how the author incorporates instances of irony to further develop the plot.

Type: Lesson Plan

This lesson teaches students to identify and analyze conflict, suspense, and sequence within a text using the short story "The Sniper" by Liam O' Flaherty. Students will engage in class discussion and will complete short responses to questions to analyze conflict and suspense.

Type: Lesson Plan

This is lesson one in a three-part series on “The Gift of the Magi” by O. Henry. In lesson one, students will read "The Gift of the Magi" by O. Henry. As they read, they will complete a context clues activity to solidify their understanding of how to use context clues to determine meanings of unknown vocabulary words.

Type: Lesson Plan

This lesson plan details the ethical concepts of biotechnology and allows students to explore basic concepts of manipulating and analyzing DNA in a classroom setting. The lesson takes the students through a discussion of controversial topics related to molecular biology and biotechnology, DNA isolation, restriction digestion of DNA, gel electrophoresis, and DNA cloning.

Type: Lesson Plan

This lesson provides secondary students with opportunities to analyze a character's motivation in an excerpt from a work of literary nonfiction.

Type: Lesson Plan

The purpose of this lesson is to introduce to students the various types of irony. When examining an excerpt from "The Cask of Amontillado", students will be expected to identify and analyze how and why an author would choose to incorporate irony into their writing.

Type: Lesson Plan

This lesson will help students develop a cladogram to demonstrate the evolutionary relationships of diverse organisms.

Type: Lesson Plan

This lesson is part one of a 3-part unit. The goal of Lesson 1 is that students will be able to identify and explain the effect of literary devices and what they reveal about the author's purpose, tone, and theme found within a specific passage. In Lesson 2, students will write paragraphs based on the devices found in the passage and their meaning. In Lesson 3, students will write an essay based on the prompt in Lesson 1 and using the activities of both Lessons 1 and 2.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson, students will read an excerpt from the prologue of The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. They will focus on how the word choices impact the mood of the excerpt. The summative assessment is a two-paragraph writing assignment which will require students to discuss how Zusak's use of figurative language creates mood in the prologue.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson, students will read the O. Henry short story "Two Thanksgiving Day Gentlemen." Through scaffold learning tasks, the students will analyze the two main characters and their interactions throughout the story. Students will practice using various strategies to determine the meaning of unfamiliar words in context. Students will also analyze the author's word choice, including his use of figurative language, and its impact on the tone of the story. These activities will build toward students' participation in a Socratic Seminar as the summative assessment for the lesson. The text of the story, reading comprehension questions, a teacher guide to assist with discussion, a vocabulary handout, and Socratic Seminar questions are all included within the lesson.

Type: Lesson Plan

Students will review elements and types of characterization and will analyze the various characters in the novel The Hunger Games or any appropriate novel of the teacher's choosing.

Type: Lesson Plan

Learn 12 new academic vocabulary words in this interactive tutorial! You'll practice the words' synonyms, antonyms, parts of speech, and context clues in order to add them to your vocabulary.

Type: Original Student Tutorial

Examine some commonly confused pronouns that often trick people into believing that they have the same meaning when their meanings can be very different. This interactive tutorial will help you properly use the following pronouns: who, whom, which, that, their, there, they're.

Type: Original Student Tutorial

Avoid "doppelganger danger" as you examine six pairs of commonly confused words in this interactive tutorial. Learn how to correctly use these commonly confused words to improve your language and writing skills.

Type: Original Student Tutorial

Avoid "doppelganger danger" as you examine six pairs of commonly confused words. Learning how to correctly use these commonly confused words will help improve your writing and mastery of English.

Type: Original Student Tutorial

Examine five pairs of commonly confused words in this interactive tutorial. This tutorial focuses on language and resolving issues of complex usage. You will examine pairs of words that are often confused in order to learn the correct use of each word. By the end of this tutorial, you should be able to accurately use these ten commonly confused words. 

Type: Original Student Tutorial

Avoid "doppelganger danger" as you examine fourteen homophones, which are words that sound the same but have different meanings and spellings. Learning how to use these homophones correctly in this interactive tutorial will help you avoid some of the most common usage mistakes.

Type: Original Student Tutorial

Avoid "doppelganger danger" as you examine eleven homophones, which are words that sound the same but have different meanings and spellings. Learning how to use these homophones correctly in this interactive tutorial will help you avoid some of the most common usage mistakes.

Type: Original Student Tutorial

Avoid "doppelganger danger" as you examine twelve homophones, which are words that sound the same but have different meanings and spellings. Learning how to use these homophones correctly in this interactive tutorial will help you avoid some of the most common usage mistakes.

Type: Original Student Tutorial

Determine the meaning of unknown words and phrases in an informational text about the Bermuda Triangle in this three-part interactive tutorial. In Part 2, you'll practice determining the meaning of unknown vocabulary using context clues and dictionary skills.

Click below to complete all three parts!

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3
  

Type: Original Student Tutorial

Determine the meaning of unknown words and phrases in an informational text about the Bermuda Triangle in this three-part interactive tutorial. In Part 3, you'll practice determining the meaning of unknown vocabulary using context clues and dictionary skills.

Click below to open the first two parts.

• Part 1
• Part 2

Type: Original Student Tutorial

Determine the meaning of unknown words and phrases in an informational text about the Bermuda Triangle in this three-part interactive tutorial. In Part 1, you'll practice determining the meaning of unknown vocabulary using context clues and dictionary skills.

Click below to complete all three parts!

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3

Type: Original Student Tutorial

Practice analyzing word choices in "The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe, including word meanings, subtle differences between words with similar meanings, and emotions connected to specific words. In this interactive tutorial, you will also analyze the impact of specific word choices on the meaning of the poem.

This is Part Two of a two-part series. Part One should be completed before beginning Part Two. Click HERE to open Part One.

Type: Original Student Tutorial

Practice analyzing word choices in "The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe in this interactive tutorial. In this tutorial, you will examine word meanings, examine subtle differences between words with similar meanings, and think about emotions connected to specific words. You will also analyze the impact of specific word choices on the meaning of the poem.

This tutorial is Part One of a two-part series on Poe's "The Raven." Click HERE to open Part Two.

Type: Original Student Tutorial

Learn how to transform words into other words, including nouns into verbs, verbs into adjectives, adjectives into adverbs, and much more with this interactive tutorial.

Type: Original Student Tutorial

Acquire new vocabulary through this interactive tutorial. You'll learn definitions for 15 new words, as well as their parts of speech, their synonyms and antonyms, and you'll practice using them in context.

Type: Original Student Tutorial

Acquire new vocabulary through this interactive tutorial. You'll learn definitions for 15 new words, as well as their parts of speech, their synonyms and antonyms, and you'll practice using them in context. 

Type: Original Student Tutorial

Review strategies for acquiring new vocabulary and then learn fifteen new words in this interactive tutorial. You'll also practice using the words in a variety of ways to help you add them to your vocabulary.

Type: Original Student Tutorial

Learn several ways to determine the meaning of unfamiliar words, including context clues, word parts, and dictionary skills. In this interactive tutorial, you'll apply these strategies to text passages from John Muir's book A Thousand-mile Walk to the Gulf, which includes vivid descriptions of Florida in the late 1800s.

Type: Original Student Tutorial

Read and examine Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address in this interactive tutorial. First, you'll practice using context clues to determine the meaning of unfamiliar words in the famous text. Next, you'll analyze Lincoln's specific word choice throughout the speech and examine how it conveys his tone or attitude.

Type: Original Student Tutorial

Learn to identify figurative language within poetry, including the use of similes, metaphors, and personification. In this interactive tutorial, we'll analyze William Wordsworth’s “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” and William Shakespeare’s “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” to discover how figurative language contributes to the meaning of each poem.

Type: Original Student Tutorial

Learn how to identify context clues in a nonfiction text to determine the meaning of unfamiliar words. In this interactive tutorial, you'll read excerpts from Patrick Henry's "Speech to the Virginia Convention." You'll learn strategies for applying context clues to make predictions about the meanings of unfamiliar words. Finally, you'll practice using dictionary entries to confirm your predictions of unfamiliar word meanings.

Type: Original Student Tutorial

Learn to use context clues, including synonyms, antonyms, and inferences, to determine the meaning of unfamiliar words in this interactive tutorial.

Type: Original Student Tutorial

Students read a high-interest short story. A PowerPoint mini-lesson explains the difference between freewriting and summary writing helping students distinguish between the two. An additional PowerPoint mini-lesson on writing thesis statements for literary analysis is provided. Students progress from freewriting to generating thesis statements to writing an outline for a literary analysis essay.

Type: Teaching Idea

Students use an online chart to match the character traits of a character in a book they are reading with specific actions the character takes. Students then work in pairs to "become" one of the major characters in a book and describe themselves and other characters, using Internet reference tools to compile lists of accurate, powerful adjectives supported with details from the reading. Students read each other's lists of adjectives and try to identify who is being described.

Type: Teaching Idea

Students will use teaching strategies as they read and discuss Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel's memoir Night. Everyone in the classroom takes a turn assuming the "teacher" role in a reciprocal teaching activity, as the class works with four comprehension strategies: predicting, question generating, summarizing, and clarifying.

Type: Teaching Idea

Are today's young adult novels darker in theme than in years past? What's behind the current wave of dystopia in young adult literature? In this teaching idea, students reflect on some of the reasons dystopian and post-apocalyptic stories appeal to young readers by engaging in one of six different activities.

Type: Teaching Idea

Type: Unit/Lesson Sequence

This unit exemplar from Student Achievement Partner web resources has been developed to guide students and instructors in a close reading of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. The activities and actions follow a carefully developed set of steps that assist students in increasing their familiarity and understanding of Lincoln's speech through a series of text dependent tasks and questions that ultimately develop college and career ready skills identified in the Florida State Standards. This unit can be broken down into three sections of instruction and reflection on the part of students and their teachers, which is followed by additional activities, some designed for history/social studies and some for ELA classrooms.

Type: Unit/Lesson Sequence

This video (6:24) illustrates how the language of Shakespeare, particularly his use of insults, created mood, atmosphere, and relationships. The ancillary quiz and extension activities enhance the lesson.

Type: Video/Audio/Animation