Carnegie Library
Creative Writing: Middle School Lesson Plan
Enhance a unit on historical fiction with an engaging writing lesson. Learners bring the Industrial Era to life as they compose their own historical fiction pieces based on primary source images of Pittsburgh steel workers.
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The Language of Deception
Students examine how to distinguish between different uses of language. They explore the difference between the cognitive meaning and the emotional meanings of a word. Each student evaluates the effects of euphemism in altering the...
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The Creative Process
Students demonstrate the steps of the creative writing process. In this creative writing lesson plan, students brainstorm ways to come up with an initial idea and ways to express their ideas. Students write a description of their idea...
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Fractured Fairy Tales
Students use familiar characters, plots, and settings from traditional fairy tales to create "fractured" versions, while experimenting with satire, irony and parody. A fractured fairy tale is designed to be humorous by changing the story...
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Past Tense
Students explore the function of verbs when considering tense. They transform a text from future to past tense. Students read a story and discover it is written in past tense. In groups, students rewrite the verbs in the text to...
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Newsworthy Images
Students examine images from newspapers, the photo cropping process, and create their own photos to tell a story. In this photography analysis instructional activity, students analyze a photograph using the elements of art and analyze...
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Personality Poems
Students create a bio-poem for themselves or characters in stories they have read. They explore common character traits.
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Snow Day
Third graders examine the effects of a snow day on various people in the community. They listen to the book "Snow Day" by Betsy Maestro, complete a graphic organizer of people affected by the snow day, and write a story from the point of...
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Free Form Stencil Drawing
Learners investigate the use of patterns and how they are used with stencils in order to create personal works of art. They write the story that is created with the repeating of a pattern. The final composition must be made from 3...
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Queen Anne's War and Its Impact on Deerfield
Students researchhow Queen Ann's War of Europe affect Native Americans in New England. After reading excerpts from History of Deerfiel by George Sheldon and Nuthatch's Dilemma, a story about a Pocumtuck woman, students are prepared to...
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"Tear him for his bad verses:" Cinna the poet and Shakespeare's Sonnets
Poor Cinna, the poet. His dream of “things unlucky” certainly comes true as the mob tears him apart, at first because they mistake him for Cinna, the conspirator, and then continue to “tear him to pieces for his bad verses.” As part of...
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The Very Hungry Caterpillar
Students study about the stages of metamorphosis of a butterfly and then listen to and participate in the story The Very Hungry Caterpillar. The students then listen to the story in French and translate the French food words to English....
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Alien Visitor's Rewrite
Young scholars role play the role of an alien who analyzes how the media represents the different social groups. In groups, they write their own story in which they add or revise a character to make it non-stereotypical. They share...
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The Outsiders
Ninth graders explore middle section of S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders, and complete eight analytical questions to demonstrate understanding of messages in story. Students then watch portion of movie that coincides with chapters read.
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Quarter Coin Cookies
Students study the historical figures and symbols of U.S.
patriotism depicted on the penny, nickel, dime, and quarter coins. They explore the processes involved in making coins, and how metals canchange in consistency from the...
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Re-telling The Tale
Students retell a fairy tale by writing on the computer. In this writing lesson plan, students draft, revise, edit, and publish their retelling of the story.
California Academy of Science
Carbon Cycle Poster
Humans can have a big impact on the environment, specifically the influence they have on the carbon cycle. First, the class will define and discuss each of the earths four major spheres, the biosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere, and...
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Less is More: How to Write a Six-Word Memoir like Ernest Hemingway
Follow Ernest Hemingway's lead and lead and teach your pupils to write their own six-word memoir!
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Water Sources in Cape Verde and West Africa
Young explorers study the scarcity and importance of a continuous supply of fresh water in Cape Verde. They research the five main ways that fresh water is obtained in these countries. Each research group prepares a presentation, and...
Alabama Learning Exchange
Attitude Determines Altitude
A fabulous instructional activity which combines mathematics with space science. Middle schoolers work in cooperative groups in order to research early astronauts and their accomplishments. They look at a variety of rocket and space...
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Intoxication: In the Arms of Morpheus
A comprehensive lesson that takes a look at psychoactive plants with this one focusing on the opium poppy. Information about the history, culture, use, source and effects are discussed. There are weblinks to reliable sources about drugs...
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Bears and Panthers Aplenty: Early Settlers Make a Home in Arkansas
Young historians research the Southwest Trail, which ran through Arkansas back in the 19th century. Pupils are divided into four groups. Each group researches a pioneer who blazed the Southwest Trail. Then, the group presents an oral or...
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Writing Fables
Students write their own fables. For this writing fables lesson, students use handheld computers to write a fable. The class designs a spreadsheet to organize common elements of fables. Students also edit each others' work.
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KORN-TV Newsroom
Role-play to learn. Writers pretend to be a team of news writers. They research information about genetically engineered corn and the impact of biotech food products. Then create a video, Powerpoint, or oral presentation to present their...