Curated OER
Multimedia Storytelling
Experiment with multimedia storytelling. After watching a segment of American Family, first, middle and high schoolers tell a story about their families, clarifying the setting, characters, and script. They work on setting...
Curated OER
Let's Go Exploring!
Use a Courbet painting of a cave or tunnel opening to reinforce the importance of descriptive writing. Writers of all ages use sensory details to describe what the scene depicts as they pretend to be in the painting. Then they imagine...
Curated OER
Scriptwriting Skill Module: Dialogue
What is dialogue? What must it contain? Use this plan to discuss dialogue with your emerging writers. They write a dialogue in script form to dramatize a conversation. Dialogue examples are included.
Curated OER
My Alphabetical Autobiography
Design a pictorial autobiography using the letters of the alphabet. For each letter, writers select visual images that represent life events and interests. Younger writers add words or sentences of explanation while older writers narrate...
Curated OER
Oliver Twist Goes to Hollywood
How does Oliver Twist, the novel written by Charles Dickens, compare with its screenplay adaptation? Although the activity doesn't require learners to have read the novel, the similarities and differences of the highlighted passages...
Curated OER
The Pearl: Problematic Situation
Is money the root of all evil, or the answer to everyone's dreams? Analyze the role of money in John Steinbeck's The Pearl with a writing prompt where kids imagine that they have won the lottery, and must think about the ways it will...
Curated OER
Show, Don't Tell: The First Rule of Writing
Model for young writers how to create pictures in the minds of readers with a series of slides that demonstrate how sensory appeals enliven writing. The presentation includes opportunities for viewers to practice showing writing.
Curated OER
Shakespeare 2000
Young thespians can try their hand at writing a script and acting out a scene, while gaining a deeper understanding of the universal topics presented in Shakespeare's wide array of plays. Begin the lesson by conducting a compare and...
Curated OER
Narrative Nuts and Bolts
After viewing slides and reading about child labor, young authors compose an original narrative story. They practice note-taking skills and work to effectively engage a reader by incorporating plot, logical order, complex characters,...
National Endowment for the Humanities
Thirteen Ways of Reading a Modernist Poem
High schoolers analyze modernist poetry and the role of speaker in example poems. Learners study modernist poems from the Romanticism and Victorian periods as well as Wallace Stevens' "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird." Using a...
Curated OER
Video Biographies
Who was Alexander The Great? How did Abraham Lincoln’s early life influence his political life? Learners select a historical figure to use for video biography. After developing research questions and collecting information, pupils search...
Curated OER
Ancient Cultures News Broadcast
How does geography influence daily life? Guided by an essential question, class groups select and then research an ancient culture, and develop a news broadcast about the geographical setting and its impact on the culture. Teams...
![Ga Virtual Learning: Nonfiction and Research: Creating and Using Outlines [Pdf] Unit Plan](https://d15y2dacu3jp90.cloudfront.net/images/attachment_defaults/resource/large/FPO-knovation.png "Ga Virtual Learning: Nonfiction and Research: Creating and Using Outlines [Pdf] Unit Plan")
Georgia Department of Education
Ga Virtual Learning: Nonfiction and Research: Creating and Using Outlines [Pdf]
This is the three-page PDF The Quality Writing Center: "Creating and Using Outlines." It explains and provides examples of what to do before starting the outline, working thesis, defining purpose, the types of outlines, creating the...
Writing Fix
Writing Fix: Showing Creative Problem Solving
After reading excerpts in which Buck solves a problem in Jack London's The Call of the Wild, students write their own three-paragraph animal stories imitating London's style and word choice. Teacher and student instructions are provided...
Other
Sonic Storytelling: Writing Method for Radio Drama
This article is filled with tips for beginners on how to write radio drama sketches or adapt stories into radio plays. You'll see examples of sketches as well as tips on writing well. W.9-10.3, 3a, 3b Narratives, W.11-12.3, 3a, 3b...
Other
Writing for Audio Theatre: Radio Drama Script Template
Great site if you want to learn how to write a radio drama sketch. The site offers lots of examples and pointers for the beginner. W.9-10.3a Narrative Intro, W.11-12.3a Narratives
ReadWriteThink
Read Write Think: Oral Storytelling and Dramatization
Students begin this lesson by discussing what makes a good, vivid story and creating a working checklist of the criteria for a good story. They explore background information about the Mercury Theatre production of the "War of the...
Sophia Learning
Sophia: I've Been Assigned a Paper, Now What?
This tutorial focuses on selecting and narrowing a topic for a literary paper. It offers a flow chart of the writing process and two videos brainstorming topics using a web-style graphic organizer for each of two novels: "To Kill a...
Sophia Learning
Sophia: Outlines
This lesson focuses on outlining; it defines outlining and the two types, topic and sentence. It provides two slideshows: the first focuses on creating the outline including the 4 steps, structure, and importance of flexibility; the...
Sophia Learning
Sophia: Topic Sentences: Map Your Way to Writing One
This tutorial on writing topic sentences includes 2 videos, 2 slide shows, and an audio clip. The first YouTube video explains the 4 parts of a topic sentence and tells where topic sentences belong. The 2 slide shows focus on the MAP...
Peace Corps
Peace Corps: Narrative Cartoons
Using the communicative means of cartooning, students examine essays from various Peace Corps volunteers and recount them by writing their own cartoons.
Texas Education Agency
Texas Gateway:writing an Engaging Story With Literary Strategies to Enhance Plot
You will be able to use various literary strategies and devices, including dialogue and suspense, to enhance the plot in a short story. W.11-12.3b Narratives
Texas Education Agency
Texas Gateway: Writing to a Particular Audience and Purpose English Iii Writing
[Accessible by TX Educators. Free Registration/Login Required] You will learn various rhetorical strategies you can use in writing for a particular audience and purpose.
New York Times
New York Times: 650 Prompts for Narrative and Personal Writing [Pdf]
A wonderful collection of 650 writing prompts organized into categories and issues, e.g., role models, family, memories, race, gender, sexuality, social media, etc. Each prompt is linked to an article on that topic. W.9-10.10 Write...