English Language Arts Grades 7-9

An animated teacher teaches his class about adjectives using a short music video

Homework Zone. Teacher Wynne gives viewers tips on better understanding the difference between adjectives and adverbs.

This is a collection of short, engaging videos that explain various punctuation concepts. Topics include hyphenation, colons, semicolons and commas. The videos are primarily directed to elementary students.

Free writing curriculum for teachers to engage students through modeling, scaffolding, practice, and feedback. Note: A free teacher account is required.

Teacher Wynne demonstrates how a sentence can change using different punctuations.

Teacher Wynne show how to break up 'run on' sentences with good punctuation.

It isn't easy holding complex sentences together (just ask a conjunction or a subordinate), but the clever little comma can help lighten the load. But how to tell when help is really needed? Related Lesson

It may seem like the semicolon is struggling with an identity crisis. It looks like a comma crossed with a period and we’re confused about how to use them properly. Emma Bryce clarifies best practices for the semi-confusing semicolon.

It’s possessive. It’s often followed by S’s. And it’s sometimes tricky when it comes to its usage. Laura McClure gives a refresher on when to use apostrophes in writing. Related Lesson

In this collection of videos from Khan Academy, you’ll hear from Pixar directors and story artists about how they got their start and what stories inspire them.

Use this list of real-world contests to get your students excited about writing and an authentic purpose or audience for composition.

Teacher Wynne show four different ways to present your book report to your class and teacher.

A great guide for students to learn about how to create an awesome poster presentation.

As you play, 20 grains of rice are donated to a person in need for each correct answer. Move beyond vocabulary; change subjects if your specialty is math, literature or geography.

Jack Gantos, shares creative writing tips to help middle school students become authors. Grade 7 is especially enthralled with his humor in this mentor text video.

Students can test their spelling skills with this activity. They listen to the sentence and spell the word that should appear in the box.

This post offers a brief biographies of authors along with their writing advice for students. Some authors write a paragraph, others write a page; explore the writing style of each author with these mini-lesson ideas.

Teacher Wynne gives viewers tips on how to give a great oral presentation.

Teacher Wynne shows us what makes a good "hamburger" paragraph.

Teachers Shahana and Erika explain how to write a paragraph with supporting details.

Discover how point of view can transform a story, and find out how to choose between first, second, and third person in your writing.

How many different verb tenses are there in English? It isn't as simple as past, present and future. This video explains grammatical aspect and how each of those time periods actually divides further.

An earwig is neither an ear nor a wig; it's an insect. This video explains how folklore gave this bug its name, combining entomology with etymology.

Here's a short animated video detailing the history of the word "pants", from the 4th Century Roman Saint Panaleon to its modern use in print.

Why is it essential that you know the setting of a piece of literature that you are reading? Does this add to the plot? Does it change what you think about the characters?

Skip to the 3rd page of this guide for a fun way to embed grammar and figurative language in your students' creative writing. This guide offers a lesson idea with an exemplar.

Resources and lesson plans from Blackgold school district that are focused on reading and writing organizers. If you click the links, there is a sign-in prompt -- but you can bypass the sign-in by clicking the image instead and will be able to access all the Google slides associated with that image

Resources and lesson plans from Blackgold school district that are focused on reading and writing organizers. If you click the links, there is a sign-in prompt -- but you can bypass the sign-in by clicking the image instead and will be able to access all the Google slides associated with that image

Resources and lesson plans from Blackgold school district that are focused on reading and writing organizers. If you click the links, there is a sign-in prompt -- but you can bypass the sign-in by clicking the image instead and will be able to access all the Google slides associated with that image