CCSS ELA Standard: 7.L.5

What are examples of unseen Power? And can invisible power be more powerful than visible power?

Dust can mean “remove dust” but also “add more dust!”

Let’s help William Shakespeare with his use of repetition.

Let’s take a starting phrase about St. Patrick’s Day and get specific. No, even more specific!

Let’s write a holiday song about order and chaos!

Let’s write the cleverest Mother’s Day cards you’ve ever seen!

Let’s make this simile about a strong uncle even more specific.

Students will make this slimy broccoli simile seriously specific.

Let’s make this simile about a quick baby even more specific.

Let’s make this simile about a loud class super specific!

Students will make this simile about stinky seaweed super specific.

Five sets of idioms related to money.

Five sets of idioms related to fire!

Four fantastically terrific tasks for a weekly idiom study.

Five sets of idioms related to the weather.

Five sets of idioms related to the color red.

Students will look closely at this old image and write a short, structured poem.

So what could you do with a Universal Theme of Power? Well, here’s an introduction that will get your students’ brains sweating.

Two sets of idioms related to numbers.

Five sets of idioms related to birds (and bugs).

Five sets of five idioms, all related to body parts!

Five sets of five idioms, all related to food.

Let’s start with “As cold as fire.”

What if we started a sentence with the simile?

Let’s take a classic Christmas poem and remix it to work with another holiday!

Can you think of times when power is unseen, but we can clearly see its effects?

When students learn about alliteration, it’s hard to steer them away from goofy tongue-twisters. Certainly, there must be more powerful and practical ways of using alliteration. In this lesson, I draw on delicious examples from Shakespeare to show how a very advanced writer used alliteration. Then, I break those ideas down so students can try them out.

An ongoing series to expose students to five related idioms.

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.

Let’s make valentines with an educational twist!

We’ll start with the cliché “as cold as ice” and go somewhere much more interesting.