by Laura Randazzo
7th – 10th Grade

I often have students who rely too heavily on the thesaurus as they craft their essays, resulting in overwrought sentences that block, rather than illuminate, the writer’s meaning. Using a little humor, this handout helps students see what happens when one abuses the thesaurus. This handout, which can be completed as a solo or team activity/race/game, requires students to match up a series of well-known proverbs and sayings with their overwritten versions.

Once students have completed the handout, it’s best to review the answers together, as I’ve found that some of my students have not heard of all of these common proverbs/sayings. Non-native English speakers will definitely need special assistance, as the vocabulary is intentionally convoluted and these students probably are not familiar with many of the original sayings. The worksheet provides a valuable exercise to help everyone understand these proverbs and the effect appropriate word choice has on tone and meaning.

When I have extra time, I also assign the students to rewrite the original proverbs/sayings into new language to give them practice on taking a cliched idea and making it fresh.

To add an extra little bit of fun to this lesson, be sure to check out this charming clip from the T.V. show Friends:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1tOqZUNebs

(Special shout-out of thanks to user Katy353 for sharing the link!)

This handout is also works great as part of your emergency sub materials – it’s fun and easy to administer.

If you like this creative lesson idea, be sure to click HERE to check out other free and budget-priced products to entertain and challenge your students.

Thanks for stopping by!

Cover image credit: Pixabay (composite of several images), Public domain

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/FREE-Thesaurus-Abuse-Worksheet-Fun-Brain-Break-Writing-Lesson-Word-Choice-1086629

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by Write with a Point
9th – 12th Grade

Ambrose Bierce’s popular work, “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,” is a common and engaging text used in secondary English classes. Written just ten years before the turn of the century, Bierce’s story addresses themes of time and reality in interesting ways. Indeed, his film has remained popular since its release because of how he tackles these themes–specifically in his twist ending. As far back as 1964, French film director Robert Enrico created an Academy Award winning short film based off this story (which, by the way, is also very popular among students).

This product includes:

1) The full text of Bierce’s short story in a reader friendly, printable edition

Additional Products:

– Set of 30 one-pager templates (that include fall and Halloween themed templates)

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Full-Text-of-An-Occurrence-at-Owl-Creek-Bridge-printable-with-photos-4878052

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by Wise Guys
4th – 7th Grade

The Red Pyramid Comprehension Questions for Chapters 1-10 and answer key. This is a 25-page activity (including an answer key) that focuses on comprehension questions from Chapters 1-10 of The Kane Chronicles: The Red Pyramid by Rick Riordan.

This is perfect to use for guided reading groups or to check student understanding. Reading strategies.

Find our complete Red Pyramid Novel Unit HERE!

Click HERE for Our Custom Novel Units Bundle! You Pick 3!

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Make sure to check out our other novel units!

Novel Unit Custom Bundle That You Make: Pick 5!!

Al Capone Does My Shirts

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

Bridge to Terabithia

Chasing Vermeer

The Devil’s Arithmetic

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

The Lightning Thief

Maniac Magee

The Mostly True Adventures of Homer P. Figg

Mudshark

Number the Stars

One Crazy Summer

On My Honor

The Red Pyramid

Rules

Running Out of Time

Sarah Plain and Tall

A Single Shard

Sideways Stories from Wayside School

Swindle

Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing

The Tiger Rising

Tuck Everlasting

The Whipping Boy

The 39 Clues: The Maze of Bones

And click here for even more novel units like the ones listed above!

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Copyright © Wise Guys. All rights reserved by author. Copying for more than one teacher, classroom, department, school, or school system is prohibited. This product may not be distributed or displayed digitally for public view. Failure to comply is a copyright infringement and a violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Clip art and elements found in this PDF are copyrighted and cannot be extracted and used outside of this file without permission or license. Intended for classroom or personal use ONLY.

Copyright ©Wise Guys. All rights reserved by author. Copying for more than one teacher, classroom, department, school, or school system is prohibited. This product may not be distributed or displayed digitally for public view. Failure to comply is a copyright infringement and a violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Clip art and elements found in this PDF are copyrighted and cannot be extracted and used outside of this file without permission or license. Intended for classroom or personal use ONLY.

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/The-Red-Pyramid-Comprehension-Questions-Activity-84484

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by The Illustrated Classroom
4th – 12th Grade

These flash cards work like traditional flash cards except instead of using plain ol’ text, they use interesting, colorful, funny images and animations to teach your students the meaning of academic word roots.

How does it work?

You show an image or animation to the class, and students mentally connect that image or animation to a Latin root.

For example, you might show a slide with an image of water pouring from a faucet. Students look at the image and think, “Water, …aqu!” They associate the water with the Latin root aqu. A meaningful and lasting mental connection is made.

I’ve used this mnemonic tool many times with middle school English and Science classes. The students enjoy it and it works.

Related Products

This free product is part of a complete mnemonic unit on Greek and Latin roots: The 84 Most Common Greek and Latin Roots Mnemonic Unit – Common Core Aligned

Why is it important?

Latin roots are word parts that have meaning. They are the building blocks of thousands of English words. Benevolent, malicious, amorous, aquifer, magnitude, migration — the list goes on an on — all of these words contain Latin roots.

Knowledge of word roots and their meaning is important and useful for our students because it gives them the ability to decode the meaning of unfamiliar words in a variety of situations.

Why use these flash cards?

There are three, research-proven components to memorization, and this tool covers all three:

1. Teach to multiple sensory modalities.

2. Information is remembered best if it is interesting or useful.

3. New information is easier to remember if it can be linked to something already stored in the memory bank.

These flash cards have a distinct advantage over traditional flash cards in that they are BIG. You can use them with the whole class at once. You can also set them up at a center or classroom computer and have students rotate through individually.

Computer Requirements

(PC Requirements: Microsoft PowerPoint 2002 and above; Mac Requirements: Microsoft PowerPoint 2011 and above)

This bundle covers the following Greek roots.

1. a, an – not, without

2. ab, a, abs – away

3. amat, amor, am – love, loving

4. ambi – both, on both sides

5. ambul, ambulat – walk, move

6. anima – breath

7. ann, enn – year, yearly

8. aqu – water

9. aud, audi – hearing, listening, sound

10. ben – good, well

All of the images used in this product are used in accordance with the terms of use set by their creators. No images were used without permission.

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Latin-Roots-Interactive-Flash-Cards-145286

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