In this lesson, students master some of the more interesting and challenging vocabulary words from a New York Times article by analyzing the writer's use of nouns and verbs in the article and then constructing original sentences using those words in different contexts. This lesson has multiple objectives-to teach the grammatical components of a sentence, to help students broaden their vocabularies, and to help students use wordplay as a means of teaching sentence structure.  Continue reading...

In this lesson, students are asked to evaluate particular brand names that were developed from words in the English language. Students are then asked to develop their own original brand names to sell products that they feel have been poorly named.  Continue reading...

In this lesson, students analyze a writer's use of sensory details and descriptive language in a New York Times article reviewing the Apple iPhone. Then, students are asked to write original product reviews which incorporate some of the descriptive writing techniques identified and evaluated in class.  Continue reading...

In this lesson, students are asked to analyze various Shakespearean and contemporary puns and how particular words make these puns possible. They will use the Visual Thesaurus to examine the subjects of this wordplay and to help them create original puns in small groups.  Continue reading...

In this lesson, students are introduced to the basic functions of the Visual Thesaurus by comparing and contrasting the use of a traditional dictionary and the use of the Visual Thesaurus to explore a word's meaning.  Continue reading...

Students explore color terms and related meanings and metaphors in cultural and literary contexts.  Continue reading...

Students expand their knowledge and understanding of scientific language and categorization as related to commonly known plants and animals.  Continue reading...