Have a little fun learning about satire, fallacies, and authors’ purpose with these 3 April Fool’s Day activities for middle school ELA.
April Fool’s Day might seem like just a silly holiday, but in an ELA classroom, it’s actually the perfect opportunity to teach some of the most important literacy skills students need today.
Why? Because April Fool’s is all about:
In other words, author’s purpose, tone, analysis, and media literacy are all major ELA standards.
Today, we’re introducing three April Fool’s–themed activities you can stretch across a week that feel fun but are packed with meaningful learning.
In the first of our April Fool’s Day activities for middle school ELA, we are focusing on the author’s purpose, tone, evaluating credibility, and informational text analysis
This Truth, Trick or Satire activity helps students learn one of the most important modern literacy skills: How do I know if this text is trustworthy?
Step 1 | Gather a Mix of Texts
Choose 3–4 short pieces on a similar topic. Try to get a variety of text types.
Example topic: school rules, animals, weather, food trends, etc.
Step 2 | Students Investigate
Students work in groups and analyze each text using guiding questions:
Create a simple chart with three columns: Truth | Trick | Satire
Groups must decide where each text belongs and defend their reasoning.
Why This Works
This activity is effective because it gives students a chance to review materials, consider the sources, discuss their thoughts, and present their reasons for trusting or not trusting a piece of information.
During this activity, students practice:
This is directly connected to informational reading standards and real-world media literacy.
After reviewing other people’s writings, our next activity is all about doing some writing of our own!
This activity will work on the author’s purpose, tone, word choice, and writing style.
After the first activity, Truth, Trick, or Satire, students should be better at recognizing each type of writing. Now, it’s time to create some satire of their own!
Step 1 | Review What Satire Is
Clarify the important elements of satire.
Step 2 | Give Clear Boundaries
It is easy for students to take satirical writing too far, and they often try to make jokes at others’ expense. To combat this, address what is and isn’t appropriate before you begin creating.
Here are some guidelines to help keep the satire school appropriate.
Step 3 | Provide Prompts
Next, you’ll want to provide some prompts to help students focus and get started with their creations.
Here are a few examples you can use verbatim or use as examples:
For their satire pieces, give students the following checklist to guide their creation. You can expand on these expectations, but remember that this is only intended to be a 1-2 day activity. Don’t go too over the top with your list unless you want to make this a much bigger writing assignment.
Why This Works
This satire writing activity works because it gives students a chance to have some fun, develop their own writing style, and play with tone and purpose.
While writing, they have to work on:
These pieces are hilarious to read, but the skill that goes into creating them is deep!
For the last of our April Fool’s Day activities for middle school ELA, students will be creating some trick ads to sell ridiculous products.
The skills students will use as they work on their ad include persuasive techniques, analyzing rhetoric, and audience awareness.
Students love this one because they get to think like advertisers.
Step 1 | Analyze Real Ads
To set up this activity, show students a few exaggerated or silly advertisements (real or teacher-created).
Ask them to consider the following questions:
If needed, take some time to review fallacies you’ve previously discussed in class, or use this as a way to spiral in this skill. We discuss fallacies in our RI. 8 unit.If you need some help introducing and teaching this topic, be sure to check it out!!
Step 2 | Students Create Their Own
The next step is creating a trick ad of their own!
In pairs or small groups, students design a fake product ad, such as:
Their ad must include the following components:
Each group will put their ad in a class slide show, and the whole class will review the ads and spend some time in discussion. You can also have students present those ads if you want to add a presentational component to this activity (plus, you’ll hit on even more middle school ELA standards/skills).
Step 3 | Class Discussion
After reviewing each ad, give students time to talk in small groups. You can use the questions below as a guide for these discussions.
Why This Works
This activity works because it builds off of the idea of satire and writing with the audience in mind, and students are able to practice multiple skills and hit on several middle school ELA standards including:
April Fool’s Day activities for middle school ELA don’t have to be just silly distractions. When done intentionally, they can serve as a way to practice writing, reading, and speaking standards.
These activities are also highly engaging, so students will remember them and transfer the skills to other learning.
You get the fun. They get the skills. Everybody wins.
