Why is it important to use precise language? Participants explore this question in the fourth activity in a series of 15 on effective instruction. Perfect for all content areas, the activity promotes appropriate language choice through...

How can opinions slant facts? Workshop participants learn how to examine primary and secondary sources and identify the author's point of view. They also examine how visual art impacts the meaning and rhetoric of sources. Full of...

Often, we ask students to find the main idea in the story- this helps when re-telling. Why not apply this idea to writing? Find the main idea and introduce your writing with that idea; just like with a book, it helps with re-telling!...

[Free Registration/Login Required] Students comprehension will be reinforced as they reading first and last sentences of paragraphs. Direct teaching, guided practice, and independent worksheets are available for this third grade lesson.

This Dartmouth College writing lab tutorial teaches students how to develop a thesis statement.

The most effective vocabulary instruction teaches word meanings as concepts; it connects the words being taught with their context and with the students' prior knowledge. Six techniques have proven especially effective: Concept...

This PDF lesson, POWER PARAGRAPH, focuses on analysis and will also help learners to understand structure in a paragraph. The "power" concept teaches the students to organize their sentences according to different levels of importance....

After taking a joyride with his friends and crashing the car, Miles is the one arrested. He works off his sentence through community service with a car enthusiast. After helping his mentor with his vintage car, it is stolen by Miles'...

Students will take a previously created paragraph and edit it to make it better by adding details, definitions, a topic sentence, or a closure to an informational paragraph. Resources include a PowerPoint presentation and pictures and...

For this lesson, third through fifth graders learn to organize their writing to form a cohesive paragraph. They began by making an art project such as a drawing; then they write sentences describing their art, and write an organized...

Check out this comprehensive website featuring ideas for teaching writing based on the six trait analytic writing model.