Figurative Language: I found this lesson to be very informative and interactive for students. The main activity the teacher incorporates is differentiating similes from metaphors, sorting phrases, and practicing their knowledge of figurative language, like hyperboles, personification, alliteration, etc. To modify this lesson, I might include some audio clips of examples in literature of each of the elements. To make it more interactive, the sound clips could be scrambled and the students would have to drag and match the figurative language to the appropriate example.

Making Predictions and Inferences: With this lesson, I liked how simple and straightforward the teacher made the content. They included games and interactive activities where students draw inferences and make predictions. In this example, he has students completing the inference based on the information he has provided. I liked this activity a lot, but the only modification I would make would be to maybe include a video or movie clip where something monumental is about to happen. I would play the video up until that point, and then ask the students what they think might happen next and why they think that based on the information we were given during the video.

Wheel of Fortune: Personally, I was never a Wheel of Fortune fan, but I found this lesson to be very engaging and useful for any discipline. The class would be divided equally into 3 teams, and only the person who answered the question correctly would be able to guess a letter, which I would make a vocabulary word or something relating to what the game questions are based off of pertaining to English Language Arts.

My Bad!: This lesson I loved because it is based off of the board game “Sorry!” Students will click on a number that will then display a question. If they get the question correct, they are allowed to move however many spaces. The class would be divided into 4 teams, and the team who gets all their pawns back to their home base wins. This can be used as a review game for any subject. I would modify it to accommodate to English Language Arts.

Virtual Tour of Shakespearian England: Who has time for field trips when you can show a virtual tour to your students? With this lesson, students are able to see historic England back in Shakespeare’s time. I loved this idea because students can see for themselves how England looked, how the people dressed, and the culture of that time. They can observe the Globe theater and really get a feel for the time period. This would otherwise be impossible to do, and is something I wish was available during my high school English classes while learning Shakespeare. The only modification I would make would be to use a resource like Google Earth to show the students how Shakespeare’s England compares to modern day England.

Classic Scrabble: Who doesn’t love a classic game of scrabble? It’s not words with friends, but it’ll do. This can help the students not only with their spelling, but with their vocabulary as well. Before a test, this lesson would be extremely useful for students to practice and study.

Literary Elements: I liked this lesson on literary elements because it gives the students a solid lesson in it, and then provides activities where the students can practice. The example below shows one activity where students drag the emotion to the appropriate category on the chart to reflect a writer’s tone. The only modification I would make to this would be to have multiple excerpts from a text and have the students match the tone to the excerpt. This way, students are using real examples in literature and apply what they know about tone to distinguish the author’s mood.

Punctuation: This lesson on punctuation was one that I would use in my own instruction. Students can see for themselves how critical punctuation is and how a sentence can completely change meaning based on its punctuation. This activity provides students with the opportunity to edit the paragraph with the right punctuation so it makes the most sense. The only change I would make would be to have students create their own botched paragraph and have a classmate edit and revise it. This can be a fun activity for them because they’re supposed to make mistakes, and they can incorporate humor to learn grammar, since it’s not the most thrilling subject.

Talking Trash: This exercise is very basic, but nevertheless interactive and engaging for students to learn their parts of speech. However, instead of “trashing” the adjectives, like in the example below, I would have students trash everything BESIDES the adjectives. If the students are trashing the ones they believe are the adjectives, they won’t be able to collectively see them all at the end of the activity when the teacher reviews the adjectives because they’re in the trashcan.

“The Most Dangerous Game” I found this lesson to be one of my favorites. It is all about learning story elements (falling action, climax, rising action, etc.) Students can click and drag the terms to where they belong on the story map. This creates a visual at the end that students can see and understand after they have completed it. The only modification I would make would be to make an interactive timeline of all the events within a story that depict each element.