Curated OER
Writing Strategies
Young writers complete a unit of activities to learn and use writing strategies. They will complete 8 activities to prewrite, use descriptive words, asking and telling sentences, and correct spelling within their writing. Then they watch...
Conneticut Department of Education
Instructional Strategies That Facilitate Learning Across Content Areas
Imagine 28 instructional strategies, appropriate for all subject areas and all grade levels. Directed Reading-Thinking Activities (DRTA), Question-Answer Relationship (QAR) activities, KWL charts, comparison matrixes, classification...
Curated OER
Effective Writing Prompts: Getting Beyond the Dark and Stormy Night
Help struggling writers with strategies to reach different learning styles and reduce anxiety.
Novelinks
Touching Spirit Bear: Question Answer Response Strategy
What types of questions help readers learn the most? Sixth, seventh, and eighth graders learn how to ask four types of questions from the Question Answer Response (QAR) reading strategy to help grow their comprehension of Touching Spirit...
EngageNY
Writing: Drafting Body Paragraphs and Revising for Language
Begin the drafting phase of the writing process with a lesson plan focused on logically writing three body paragraphs. Then, revise the writing to make it more formal after a teacher-directed mini-lesson plan. Each paragraph highlights...
Curated OER
From Photo to Printed Word: Getting Second-Graders to Write
Use photographs to entice your children to write! In this digital storytelling lesson, young scholars study the functions of digital cameras. They review their sentence-writing skills, then take digital photos and write sentences that...
Curated OER
My Antonia: Biopoem Writing Strategy
Explore the characters in My Antonia by Willa Cather with a biopoem assignment. Pupils use the provided format to write their poems about any character from the book.
Michigan Association of Intermediate School Administrators
Persuasive Essay: Grade 5
Improve your fifth graders' persuasive writing skills in four weeks. Working independently, in peer editing groups, and with instruction, writers work over the 17 sessions to craft an argumentative essay. They craft a well-organized...
Novelinks
Nightjohn: List-Group-Label Strategy
Encourage readers of Nightjohn, Gary Paulsen's young adult novel about slavery set shortly before the Civil War, to develop their categorization and organizational skills with a strategy that asks them to list all the words they can...
Jefferson County Schools
Teaching Persuasive Reading and Writing
With the increasing emphasis on persuasive and argumentative writing, the lessons and strategies in the sample unit are sure to prove valuable—whether you are new to or an experienced pro at teaching persuasive reading and writing.
Fluence Learning
Writing About Literary Text: Wise or Foolish?
A three-part assessment promotes reading comprehension skills. Class members read literary texts and take notes to discuss their findings, answer comprehension questions, write summaries, and complete charts.
EngageNY
Planning for Writing: Introduction and Conclusion of a Literary Argument Essay
After completing three body paragraphs of an argument essay about life's rules to live by from Bud, Not Buddy Christopher Paul Curtis, it's time to begin writing the introduction and conclusion. Independently, pupils draft the final two...
Novelinks
Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry: Question Answer Response Strategy
Readers of Mildred D. Taylor's Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry are introduced to the Question Answer Response Strategy (QAR) as a way to increase their engagement in and comprehension of the novel.
Maine Content Literacy Project
Processes of Writing and Speaking
As this short story unit comes to a close, provide a day for a full examination of theme and allow some time in class for individuals to work on their various assessments. This final instructional activity before presenting iMovies and...
Curated OER
Phineas Gage: Notecard Vocabulary Strategy
Understanding the vocabulary in a text, especially a text like Phineas Gage: A Gruesome but True Story About Brain Science that includes quite a few technical terms, can be the key to understanding the text as a whole. Learners focus on...
Fluence Learning
Writing an Opinion: Student Council
A three-part assessment challenges scholars to write opinion essays covering the topic of the student council. After reading three passages, writers complete a chart, work with peers to complete a mini-research project, answer...
Fluence Learning
Writing an Argument: Persuasive Speeches to Students
Powerful orators make their messages compelling with a combination of factors. Learn how to be an inspirational speaker with a reading assessment activity that presents a list of persuasive speaking techniques, as well as two speeches...
Blogger
Problem Solving Strategies
Eight mini-posters remind your math class of strategies to try when attacking a problem. Print each one on a different brightly colored piece of paper, laminate, and post in your classroom for year-long reference. Strategies...
Teachers.net
How to Write a Movie Review from a Pet's Perspective
When would two paws up denote a blockbuster film in your classroom? Only when young writers create movie reviews from a pet's perspective in this imaginative expository writing practice. This engaging topic begins with a class discussion...
Curated OER
Briefly Noted: Practicing Useful Annotation Strategies
Post-It notes, highlighting, underlining. Sam Anderson’s New York Times Magazine article, “What I Really Want Is Someone Rolling Around in the Text,” launches a study of “marginalia,” or writing thoughts in the margins of a text. After...
Blinn College
The Writing Process
Lead your learners through the different stages of the writing process. Show them this presentation as they work through a writing assignment, breaking it up over several days of work. You might also post this on a class website as a...
Literacy Design Collaborative
Rhetorical Analysis for Pre-AP English
Scholars closely analyze the use of rhetorical strategies in several model texts. They work in groups to annotate the text identifying rhetorical elements, and to complete a Rhetorical Analysis chart and guided reading worksheet....
Curated OER
The Outsiders: Question Answer Relationships Strategy
Kids learn best when asking questions about what they have read. Encourage active reading with a comprehension activity based on S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders, in which kids read passages from the beginning of the book and identify...
Illustrative Mathematics
Many Ways to Do Addition
A great aspect of teaching math is that children have the freedom to solve problems using a variety of different strategies. The focus of this lesson is for young mathematicians to become aware of many ways of answering addition...