Word Choice Lesson Plans

Third graders practice replacing words in a sentence to make it more interesting. In this word choice lesson plan, 3rd graders listen to the story The Hard-Times Jar by Ethel Smothers and discuss the author's word choice. Students then practice making sentences more interesting by changing a single word.

First graders explore language arts by participating in an activity where they describe items. In this word choice lesson, 1st graders examine an item from their house, placed in a mystery bag, to conduct a class guessing game. Students choose interesting words to give clues about their item without saying what it is.

Fifth graders examine how to use a variety of word choices when writing. They discuss how using more descriptive words leads to a more varied word choice, watch a teacher-created PowerPoint presentation, and using a Thesaurus replace words in sentences.

Ninth graders examine the importance of word choice when writing. They discuss how to use a thesaurus, read a short scary story that has un-exciting words, and revise the scary story for word choice.

Motivate your class using this activity on word choice! Learners discuss how word choice affects a story, listen to Shrek! by William Steig, and write a paragraph using descriptive language. This resource could be followed by an activity in which each person brings in his favorite book and shares descriptive sentences.

Pupils explore the traits of word choice and organization. In this 6 traits of writing lesson plan, students analyze the text of Listen to the Rain by Bill Martin, Jr. and then choose words from a variety of texts that create the mood of a wind storm.

Study the importance of word choice in informational text with this lesson. Middle and high schoolers locate such words and phrases in newspaper articles of their choosing, and use online word sites to explore the definitions and histories of each. They finish the activity by creating illustrated vocabulary posters incorporating this information in a fun way.

Study word choice in informational text with this lesson, in which readers examine negative campaign ads from the 2006 mid-term election. They read and discuss an article and analyze a campaign of any candidate they choose. They develop storyboards for postive campaigns to complete the lesson. This is a good opportunity to work on connotation of certain words, and the effects they can have.

How can word choice affect a political speech? Middle and high schoolers examine the text of the 1999 State of the Union Address, and then determine how a newspaper articles and television reports describe and analyze the event. Use this activity to examine conflicting evidence and viewpoints in informational text, or to focus on evaulating a speaker's argument.

Students draw pictures of alliteration sentences. For this six-traits lesson plan on word choice, students create illustrations of alliteration sentences using their name that were created with teacher assistance. The book, Potluck by Anne Shelby, is featured in this lesson.