Inspired by the Broadway musical "Cats" and by T. S. Eliot's collection of poems, "Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats," this language arts teaching unit for seventh grade includes a variety of activities using the poems and musical as focal points. Activity types include the following: (1) reading, listening, and singing activities in which students sing along with songs from "Cats" and read Eliot's poems aloud; (2) writing cat limericks; (3) compiling a cat spelling and vocabulary list, which can be reinforced using sentence dictation, sentence combining, and sentence composing activities; (4) working in groups to compile lists of cat items and then writing an essay centered on the topic of the list; (5) composing humorous cat anecdotes; (6) writing an expository essay after brainstorming or engaging in library research on a cat-related topic; and (7) compiling a booklet of cat poetry from both published sources and student writing. The guide then suggests additional activities such as original poetry writing and creating parodies of Eliot's style, cautions that it is possible to overdo a theme unit like this one, and warns teachers of cat haters to remind students that writing condemning cats can be as appropriate as praise. (SKC)