English Language Arts Lesson Plans and Resources

This page contains links to lesson plans and resources for teaching reading, spelling, writing, journalism, communication, debate, and drama. Resources and lesson plans for poetry and reading as well as children's and adolescent literature have been relocated to separate sites, but are still accessible from the site index. Click on the topics in the index below. This page was scanned for broken links and updated on 12-31-23!

Index: Large Collections of Language Arts Lesson Plans, Language Arts Resources, Spelling, Vocabulary, Synonyms/Antonyms/Homonyms, Reading, Children's Literature, English/Shakespearean Literature, Mythology, Writing/Composition, Rubrics, Grammar, Punctuation, Parts of Speech, Drama/Theater/Story Telling, Poetry, Mysteries, Journalism/Media/Communication, Speech/Debate, Adolescent/Young Adult Literature, Return to Educational Resources and Lesson Plans; Go to the NCTE Home Page

Large Collections of Language Arts Lesson Plans
Read, Write, Think
Many high-quality lesson plans as well as standards, web-based resources, and student materials.

EDSITEment: Literature and Language Arts
High-quality lesson plans from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Literature Lesson Plans
"Custom lesson plans designed to spark critical reading and writing skills."

Lesson Plan Library - Language Arts
From MCREL.

Scholastic
Many free lesson plans.

Smithsonian - English and Language Arts Teacher Resources
Another site with many high-quality lesson plans.

Kennedy Center Digital Resources Library
Many reources including lesson plans and activities.

Varsity Tutors
Many lesson plans and resources. Formerly Web English Teacher.

Education World Language Arts
Many FREE high quality lesson plans unique to Education World.

English Language Arts
Standards-aligned ELA resources including 134 lessons for all grade levels from PBS..

Outta' Ray's Head lesson Plans
Excellent source for secondary lesson plans for literature, writing, and poetry.

Language Arts - Reading, Writing, Grammar
Many lesson plans and links from Mr. Donn.

Mrs. G's English Lessons and Links
Good source for secondary English lesson plans.

Language Arts Resources
National Council for Teachers of English
This link goes to their home page. See also the NCTE/IRA Standards for the English Language Arts and their Resources.

Pearson Language Arts
Resources for both students and teachers.

The Ultimate Guide to English Idiomatic Expressions
Explanations of 100+ idioms fro LOI English.

Oxford Dictionaries
See also Longman  Dictionary.

Thesaurus.com
See also Roget's Thesaurus.

Guide to Grammar and Writing
See also Grammar  - Purdue Online Writing Lab.

The Punctuation Guide
See also Purdue Online Writing Lab Punctuation.   

MLA Formatting and Style Guide
From Purdue University. See also APA Formatting and Style Guide.

Spelling Lesson Plans
Scripps National Spelling Bee
Information for teachers.

Spice Up Your Spelling Lessons
Lesson ideas from Education World. See also Spell, Shoot, Score.

Spelling Sample Lessons
Download lesson samples from All About Learning Press.

Dr. Seuss’s Sound Words: Playing with Phonics and Spelling
A K-2 lesson plan.

Spelling Cheerleading: Integrating Movement and Spelling Generalizations
A K-5 lesson plan.

Promote Smart Spelling with Partner Quizzes
Activities for grades 2-6 from Scholastic.  

Third Grade Lesson Plans for Spelling
Two lesson plans from Spelling Words Well.

Sort, Hunt, Write: A Weekly Spelling Program
For grades 3-5 from Read-Write-Think.

Spelling in Parts: Learning to Spell, Write, and Read Polysyllabic Words
A lesson plan for grades 3-5 from  Read-Write-Think. For more lesson plans from this source, see , The Two Voices of the ow Spelling Pattern, and Spelling Patterns "Go Fish" Card Game.

Vocabulary Lesson Plans
Teaching Vocabulary: Lesson Plans and Activities From Scholastic Professional Books
For grades 3-8.

Vocabulary Lesson Plans
Many lessons for all grade levels from Better Lesson.

Vocabulary Lesson Plans
From One Stop English.

MyVocabulary.com
A bunch of free lessons.

Vocabulary in Context
A long list of lesson plans for a variety of grade levels from ReadWoks.org.

Titanic Vocabulary Lesson Plan
A lesson plan on vocabulary related to the Titanic. See tthe vocabulary worksheet to be used with this lesson.

Action ABC's: Learning Vocabulary With Verbs
A K-2 lesson plan. See also "America the Beautiful": Using Music and Art to Develop Vocabulary and Blast Off! Vocabulary Instruction Using a Virtual Moon Trip for another K-2 lesson plans.

Mystery Vocabulary Lesson Plan
For grades 4 and above.

Internalization of Vocabulary Through the Use of a Word Map
A lesson plan for grades 6-8 from Read-Write-Think. See also Acquiring New Vocabulary Through Book Discussion Groups, ABC Bookmaking Builds Vocabulary in the Content Areas, 3-2-1 Vocabulary: Learning Filmmaking Vocabulary by Making Films, and Building Vocabulary: Making Multigenre Glossaries Based on Student Inquiry for some of the other vocabulary lesson plans from Read-Write-Think.

Vocabulary Lesson Plan
A high school lesson plan.

Synonyms/Antonyms/Homonyms Lesson Plans
Euphemisms
A lesson plan for grades 7-9.

In Other Words: Using a Thesaurus
A lesson plan from Education World that is adaptable for use in grades 3-8.

It's Opposite Day
A lesson plan for grades 3-8 from Visual Thesaurus.

What’s Another Word For...? What’s the Opposite Of...?
Teaching ideas from Scholastic.

Learning Antonyms, Synonyms and More
ESL help from Bright Hub Education.

A Horse is a Hoarse, Of Course, Of Coarse
An intermediate-grade lesson plan using cooperative learning to teach about homonyms. See also Homonym Worksheet; Synonyms, Antonyms, Homonyms, and Homographs (another worksheet); and A Feast of Homonyms (an online game).  For a comprehensive homonym list, see An English Homophone Dictionary.

Homonym Baseball
A 6th-grade lesson plan.

Self-Study Homonym Quizzes
More than 50m quizzes!

Mythology Lesson Plans
MythologyTeacher.com
A site "designed as an aid to teachers teaching mythology." Use the index at the yop of the page to find teacher materials, webquests, videos, and other resources.

Mythweb
A site devoted to the heroes, gods, and monsters of Greek Mythology.

THEOI Greek Mythology
A good resource that "profiles each deity on a separate page."

Myth Lesson Plans
A booklet in pdf format.

Mythology Grades 9-12
A unit from the Ewing Public Schools.

Mythology, Folklore, and the Hero's Journey
More links to lesson plans. See also Classical Mythology.

Ancient Greece for Kids and Teachers    
From Mr. Donn's site. Scroll down the page to find the mythology lesson.

The Role of Myths
A 4th-grade lesson plan from Adprima.    

Learning Myths, Writing Myths
A unit for grades 6-8 from Scholastic.

An Introduction to Greek Mythology
An upper elementary lesson plan from Mensa for Kids.

It Came from Greek Mythology
A high-quality elementary lesson plan from EDSITEment.

Aztec Mythology
A unit for 4th or 5th-grade gifted and talented students.

Mythological Soaps
An introductory mythology unit designed for ESL students in grades 6-12. It could easily be adapted for other student groups.

In Search of Myths and Heroes
A Teacher's Guide with four lesson plans for grades 7-12 from PBS.

The Odyssey
A high school lesson plan from the Discovery Education. See also The Odysssey by Homer for many lesson plans fro\m the NY Times.

Weaving the Old into the New: Pairing The Odyssey with Contemporary Works
A lesson plan for grades 9-12 from Read-Write-Think.

Homer's Odyssey
An study guide. See also The Odyssey Teacher's Guide.

The Iliad: A Practical Approach
Ideas for a curriculum unit.

Troy: Activities for Homer's Iliad
An assignment with 16 activity choices.e.

Roman & Greek Mythology Lesson
A lesson plan from The Collaborative Numismatics Project.

Perseus Digital Library
A digital library of resources for the study of the ancient world and beyond.

Greek Mythology Link
An excellent resource featuring biographies, places and people, images, and indices of mythical characters and names, as well as a new collection of the Greek myths written on line.

Encyclopedia Mythica
An encyclopedia of mythology, folklore, and legend


Teaching Writing
academichelp.net
FREE English writing guides and samples.

Writing Lessons from Outta Ray's Head
Another set of wiring lesson plans.

12 Basic Lesson plans for Teachign Writing to Secondary Students
From Literacy Planet.

Super Easy Story Telling
Four lesson plans for writing stories.

Creative Writing
A lesson plans from the NY Times. See also 10 Ways to Develop Expository Writing Skills with the NY Times, and 10 Ways to Promote Writing for an Authentic Audience.

The Elements of a Short Story Lesson Plan
See also  Write a Short Story in One Class!

Introducing the Biography Genre
A lesson plan for grades 3-5 from Scholastic. See also The Biography Maker for an excellent resource for helping students write biographies.

A Step-by-Step Plan for Teaching Narrative Writing
A unit plan.

How-To Writing: Motivating Students to Write for a Real Purpose
A lesson plan for grades 3-5 from Read-Write-Think. See also Persuasive Writing, Technical Reading and Writing Using Board Games, and Get Cooking With Words! Creating a Recipe Using Procedural Writing for three other elementary lesson plans from this source.  

Empowered Fiction Writers: Generating and Organizing Ideas for Story Writing
A lesson plan for grades 6-8 from Read-Write-Think. See Cut up, Cover up, and Come Away with Ideas for Writing!

Writing Technical Instructions
A high school lesson plan from Read-Write-Think. See Beyond “What I Did on Vacation”: Exploring the Genre of Travel Writing and Persuading an Audience: Writing Effective Letters to the Editor for two other high school lesson plans from this source.

Writing to Explain: Creating How-to Scripts and Demonstrations
A lesson plan from the NY Times.

English Writing Lesson : The Paragraph
Lesson plan complete with printables.

Essay: A Write It Activity
A lesson plan for grades 6-12 from Scholastic.

Essay Exchange Unit
A unit for grades 10-12 in which students write position papers, then transmit them via e-mail to other schools and educators who, in turn, will provide criticisms, comments, and additional sources of information for further research.

The Personal Touch: A Lesson in Expository Writing
A lesson plan for middle and high school

Guide to Writing a Basic Essay
On-line tutorial for essay writing.

Lear, Limericks, and Literature: Creative Writing Lesson Plans
Lesson plans for grades 5 and up designed to help "introduce reading and creative writing activities in a fun way."

Free Mystery Writing Lesson Plans and Units
A lesson plan for grade 4 and above from Mysterynet.com.

Young Writer's Anthology
Poems, stories, and reviews written by kids and teens.

Rubrics for Writing
Kathy Schrock's Guide to Everything: Assessment and Rubrics
Information and examples of various types of rubrics, including ones for student web projects, cooperative learning activities, labs, group participation, multimedia presentations, oral presentations, portfolio exhibits, and research papers.

Rubric for a Well-Written Partagraph

Five Paragraph Essay Writing Rubric

Writing to Inform
From Scholastic

Expository Essay Rubric
Also from Scholastic.

Persuasive Letter Rubric

Six Traits Writing Rubric
From Better Lesson.

Compare and Contrast Runric
A rubric for comparison papers.

Creative Writing Rubric
See also Rubric for Creative Writing Assignment: Against the Odds.

Rubrics for Assessing Students' Technical Writing Skills
See also Technical Writing and Technical Report Evaluation Rubric.

Grammar/Parts of Speech/Punctuation
Five Grammar Activities
From Education World.

Grammar Lesson Plans and Worksheets
Organized for topic for ESL.

Grammar Lesson Plans
From Teachnology.

Parts of Speech Fix-Up
A 3rd-grade unit.

Parts of Speech Song
Show the video in your class!

Describing Words: A lesson Plan on Adjectives
Six hours of lessons for elementary grades.

Analyzing Grammar Pet Peeves
A high school lesson plan from Read-Write-Think. See also What’s My Subject? A Subject-Verb Agreement Mini-lesson and Manipulating Sentences to Reinforce Grammar Skills for other secondary activities from this source.  

The English Tutor
On-line writing help plus quizzes for grammar, idioms, verbs, etc.

Guide to Grammar and Writing
An excellent, interactive resource.

Crash and Contract
A 2nd-grade lesson plan on contractions.

Topic Sentences
A 7th-grade lesson plan. See also Catchy Topic Sentences and How to End.

Using Commas and Semi-Colons Correctly
A high school lesson plan based on an activity I use with my college students.

Every Punctuation Mark Matters
A mini-lesson on semi-colons using MLK Jr.'s "Letter from Birmingham Jail" from Read-Write-Think. See also The Passion of Punctuation for another lesson from this same source.

Perfect Punctuation
An elementary lesson plan from Crayola.  

Punctuation Party
An elementary-grade lesson plan.

Inside or Outside
A mini-lesson on quotation marks and more.

Making a Successful Punctuation Lesson
An article from the National Writing Project.

Journalism/Media/Communication Lesson Plans
School Journalism
A large number of lesson plans.

News Literacy Resource Library
Lesson plans, activities, quizzes, etc.

The Write Site
Journalism information and activities.

Media Smarts
Many lesson plans and activities for media topics.

Sports Journalism Lesson Plan
 A high school lesson plan.

Magazine Ads and You, the Teenager
A mass media unit for grade 8.

Student Newspaper Project
Ten lesson plans for grades 4-6. See also Newspapers for Classrooms. Scroll down the page to find ideas for creating classroom newspapers and using newspapers in the classroom.

School Newspaper Unit
A unit  for intermediate to high school grades in which students research and write articles that will be published in an electronic newspaper.

Bias in News Sources
A high school lesson plan.

Facing TV Violence
A lesson plan for grades 1-4. See also facing TV Violence -  Rewriting the Script.

Speech Lesson Plans
Freedom of Speech and Automatic Language: Examining the Pledge of Allegiance
A high school lesson plan.

Giving a Persuasive Speech
A high school lesson plan.

Persuasive Speech Unit: Martin Luther King's "I Have  Dream" Speech
A 10th-grade unit.

Analyze Famous Speeches as Arguments
A high school lesson plan from Read-Write-Think.

Presidential Speeches
A lesson plan for grades 6-12.   

Address America: Your Six-Word Stump Speech
Another lesson plan for grades 6-12.

Impromptu and Extemporaneous Speeches
A high school unit with two lesson plans from Scholastic.

Speech Rubric
See also Persuasive Speech Rubric and Rubric for Public Speaking.

Indispensable Listening Skills
A high school lesson plan.

Active/Reflective Listening Skills
A lesson plan from the Utah Education Network.

Novice Lincoln Douglas Debate Curriculum
Fourteen lesson plans from the National Forensic League.

Teacher's Guide to Introducing Debate
A free download. See also Guide to Introducing Speech and Debate in the Classroom.

Debate Rubric

Role Play Lesson Plan: Who Should Have the Power
From the Noisy Classroom. See their other debate resources and lesson plans.

The Bill of Rights: Debating the Amendments
A lesson plan for grades 6-12 from the Library of Congress.

Public Forum Debate Lesson Plans
Ten lesson plans from the National Speech & Debate Association.

Middle School Debate
Lesson plans and teaching materials.

Copyright Infringement or Not? The Debate over Downloading Music
A high school lesson plan from Read-Write-Think.

Cool Jobs - A Debate Lesson Plan
A lesson plan appropriate for pre-intermediate and intermediate ESL/EFL students. It would be a suitable activity for using with career vocabulary or with comparative adjectives and nouns.

The Three Rival Brothers Debate Lesson Plan
An elementary lesson plan involving a debate based on the story, "The Three Rival Brothers" from the book African Myths by Carter Godwin Woodson.

Drama/Storytelling/Theater Lesson Plans
Theater
Lesson plans from PBS.

BYU Theater Education Data Base
Several units and lesson plans.

Magical Morphing Theatre Lesson Plan Exchange
An excellent source for lesson plans, warm-ups, and links to other theater sites.

Arts Toolkit: Drama
Resources from KET Education.

Creative Drama Lesson Plans
Many lesson plans from Child Drama.

Sociology Through Five Plays
A high school unit examining the sociological aspects of five plays: “A Raisin in the Sun,” “The Blood Knot,” “Death of a Salesman,” “The Glass Menagerie,” and “The Oxcart.”

Drama for Those Who Don't Like Drama
A high school unit including plays such as Death of Salesman and The Land Beyond the River.

The Glass Menagerie
A Teacher's Study Guide from LA Theater Works.

Understanding Set Design
Ten lesson plans from BYU Theatre Education.

Story Arts Online
Excellent story-telling resource. Click on the site below to access a long list of lesson plans from Story Arts.

Storytelling Lesson Plans and Activities
Activities, story telling across the curriculum, folktales themes, and links to other story telling sites.

Storytelling Lesson Plan
This lesson plan for grades 4-5 is from American Folklore. See their folklore lesson plans and other teacher resources.

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