English Language Arts — Grade 8

Resources on the web

Memories Matter: "The Giver" and Descriptive Writing Memoirs

Students read The Giver by Lois Lowry, as well as short biographies, autobiographies, and memoirs in order to understand the differences between them. (Learn more)

Format: lesson plan (grade 7–8 English Language Arts)

Provided by: IRA/NCTE

Leading to great places in the middle school classroom

This mini-lesson examines types of leads in prominent young adult literature and challenges students to search for great leads and then write original examples. (Learn more)

Format: lesson plan (grade 6–8 English Language Arts)

Provided by: IRA/NCTE

In the poet's shoes: Performing poetry and building meaning

In this lesson, students participate in a webquest that challenges them to analyze a variety of poets and their poetry by reading and listening to their work. (Learn more)

Format: lesson plan (grade 6–8 English Language Arts)

Provided by: IRA/NCTE

Focusing reader response through vocabulary analysis

After reading The Hobbit, students compile a list of words associated with details about the novel. (Learn more)

Format: lesson plan (grade 6–8 English Language Arts)

Provided by: IRA/NCTE

Finding the science behind science fiction through paired readings

In this lesson, students explore the genre of science fiction, while learning more about the science integrated into the plot of the story using nonfiction texts and resources. (Learn more)

Format: lesson plan (grade 6–8 English Language Arts)

Provided by: IRA/NCTE

Finding figurative language in “The Phantom Tollbooth”

This lesson provides hands-on differentiated instruction by guiding students to search for the literal definitions of figurative language using the Internet. (Learn more)

Format: lesson plan (grade 6–8 English Language Arts)

Provided by: IRA/NCTE

Fairy tale autobiographies

In this lesson from ReadWriteThink, students will work in groups to read and analyze fairy tales, brainstorm for events in their lives that could be changed into fairy tales, and develop setting, characters, and plot for their fairy tale. Students will... (Learn more)

Format: lesson plan (grade 6–8 English Language Arts)

Provided by: ReadWriteThink

Expository escapade-Detective's handbook

In this lesson, students combine reading the detective fiction genre with expository writing. (Learn more)

Format: lesson plan (grade 6–8 English Language Arts)

Provided by: IRA/NCTE

Cooking up descriptive language: Designing restaurant menus

In this lesson students explore the genre of menus by analyzing existing menus from local restaurants and creating their own original menus. (Learn more)

Format: lesson plan (grade 6–8 English Language Arts)

Provided by: IRA/NCTE

Civil War Music

In this lesson, one of a multi-part unit from ARTSEDGE, students use the Internet as a resource to compare and contrast Civil War songs of the North and the South. (Learn more)

Format: lesson plan (grade 5 and 8 English Language Arts, Music Education, and Social Studies)

Provided by: The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts

Choose your own adventure: A Hypertext writing experience

In this lesson students create original “Choose Your Own Adventure” stories and using web-authoring software, develop their own Internet sites with the parts of the story hyperlinked to each other. After a review of setting, character development,... (Learn more)

Format: lesson plan (grade 6–8 Computer/Technology Skills and English Language Arts)

Provided by: ReadWriteThink

Childhood Remembrances: Life and Art Intersect in Nikki Giovanni's "Nikki-Rosa"

Adapted from Carol Jago's Nikki Giovanni in the Classroom, this ReadWriteThink lesson invites students to explore what Jago calls the place "where life and art intersect." Students complete a close reading of Giovanni's poem "Nikki-Rosa" and then... (Learn more)

Format: lesson plan (grade 6–8 English Language Arts)

Provided by: ReadWriteThink

Book report alternative: Creating careers for characters

Students become characters in a novel or short story they have read and find a job for those characters. (Learn more)

Format: lesson plan (grade 8 English Language Arts)

Provided by: IRA/NCTE

Book report alternative: Creating a childhood for a character

In this lesson, students examine the character traits of an adult character in a book they have read, create a childhood for the character, and describe that childhood in the form of a short story, journal entry, or time capsule letter. (Learn more)

Format: lesson plan (grade 6–8 English Language Arts)

Provided by: IRA/NCTE

Battling for liberty: Tecumseh's and Patrick Henry's language of resistance

This lesson extends the study of Patrick Henry's “Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death” speech to demonstrate the ways Native Americans also resisted oppression through rhetoric and action. (Learn more)

Format: lesson plan (grade 8 English Language Arts and Social Studies)

Provided by: IRA/NCTE