English Language Arts — Grade 2

Love Letters: Using imagery to convey feelings

After listening to Arnold Adoff's Love Letters, students will write and share their own love letters. This lesson is especially fun around Valentine's Day.

Format: lesson plan (grade 2–4 English Language Arts)

By Jennifer Reid.

Rules and Reasons

Through active participation in a game without rules, students will discover the reason for rules and laws in our neighborhood and community. They will design a poster and write a story about rules.

Format: lesson plan (grade 2 English Language Arts, Visual Arts Education, and Social Studies)

By Jeannette Renas.

Similes

"The Talking Eggs" by Robert San Souci is used to introduce and illustrate an author's use of language to paint a picture in the reader's mind. Students will draw a picture to show what this author meant, create similes to describe themselves, and finally use a simile in their next story in Writer's Workshop.

Format: lesson plan (grade 1–3 English Language Arts)

By jennifer lettieri.

Lesson plans on the web

Acrostic poems: All about me and my favorite things

Introduces students to acrostic poetry. They create poems using their names as a starting point for writing about themselves. (Learn more)

Format: lesson plan (grade 1–2 English Language Arts)

Provider: IRA/NCTE

Action ABC's: Learning vocabulary with verbs

Students review the definition of a verb and then expand their vocabulary by using verbs they already know in sentences. (Learn more)

Format: lesson plan (grade K–2 English Language Arts)

Provider: IRA/NCTE

Alphabetizing with original stories

In this lesson, students write original stories using alphabetical order. (Learn more)

Format: lesson plan (grade 1–2 English Language Arts)

Provider: IRA/NCTE

As slippery as an eel: An ocean unit exploring simile and metaphor

Students explore simile and metaphor in fiction and nonfiction ocean books. (Learn more)

Format: lesson plan (grade K–2 English Language Arts)

Provider: IRA/NCTE

Collaborative stories 2: Revising

Engages students in a group-revising activity. (Learn more)

Format: lesson plan (grade 2–3 English Language Arts)

Provider: IRA/NCTE

Deeper reading response: A template for teachers

Details the five expressive and performative engagements for responding to text, as identified by Lawrence R. Sipe. (Learn more)

Format: lesson plan (grade K–2 English Language Arts)

Provider: IRA/NCTE

Descriptive writing and the 100th day of school

Students write descriptions of 100th day bottles they create at home. Then students write clues about their bottles for a guessing game, practice descriptive writing, and create a class book. (Learn more)

Format: lesson plan (grade K–2 English Language Arts and Mathematics)

Provider: IRA/NCTE

Draw a story: Stepping from pictures to writing

Students draw a series of pictures that tell a simple story that includes character action, problem and solution. (Learn more)

Format: lesson plan (grade 2 English Language Arts)

Provider: IRA/NCTE

Fairy tales around the world

This lesson introduces literary structures through fairy tales. (Learn more)

Format: lesson plan (grade 2 English Language Arts)

Provider: National Endowment for the Humanities

Going on a shape hunt: Integrating math and literacy

Students learn shape names, locate shapes in their environment, practice spelling out the names of items and shapes they locate, and reflect, in writing, on the process. (Learn more)

Format: lesson plan (grade K–2 English Language Arts and Mathematics)

Provider: IRA/NCTE

Have Journal...Will Travel: Promoting Family Involvement in Literacy

Engages families in shared literacy activities. (Learn more)

Format: lesson plan (grade K–2 English Language Arts)

Provider: IRA/NCTE

Improving fluency through group literary performance

Bill Martin Jr.'s picture books provide opportunities for students to hear fluent reading modeled then to join in the readings through literary performance. (Learn more)

Format: lesson plan (grade K–2 English Language Arts)

Provider: IRA/NCTE

A journal for Corduroy: Responding to literature

This lesson from ReadWriteThink leads first-grade students to reflect on and respond to literature through journal writing. Students read books in the Corduroy record their own adventures with Corduroy, share their stories with the class, and create a class book using the computer. (Learn more)

Format: lesson plan (grade 1–2 English Language Arts)

Provider: IRA/NCTE

Launching family message journals

Introduces Family Message Journals, a tool for encouraging family involvement and supporting writing to reflect and learn. (Learn more)

Format: lesson plan (grade K–2 English Language Arts)

Provider: IRA/NCTE

Leatherback sea turtles and their special compasses

Students learn basic information about leatherback sea turtles and hypothesize why individual leatherbacks were able to find their way from Costa Rica to the Galapagos Islands without any obvious navigational aids. (Learn more)

Format: lesson plan (grade K–2 English Language Arts and Visual Arts Education)

Provider: National Geographic

Masks and Aesop's fables

Students learn on of Aesop's fables, make simple masks, and retell the fable as part of a Greek chorus using masks. (Learn more)

Format: lesson plan (grade K–4 English Language Arts, Theatre Arts Education, and Visual Arts Education)

Provider: The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts

Note writing in the primary classroom

Invites students to write short everyday notes, to remind, plan, request, or compliment, providing many natural opportunities for meaningful writing and lots of practice in encoding/decoding written text. (Learn more)

Format: lesson plan (grade K–2 English Language Arts)

Provider: IRA/NCTE