Louisa May Alcott's Little Women is a literary masterpiece as well as a timestamp of the formative mid-nineteenth century in America. Using a primary source set of photographs, letters, and portraits, readers discuss the ways...

Promotes collaboration in the classroom with a historical fiction instructional activity. Fourth graders partner up and read the other's narrative, in order to give feedback on vocabulary choice and accuracy of historical information....

Memories of persons, places, and objects provide the seeds for the personal narratives kids craft during a 19-day, personal narrative writing unit. Beautifully crafted and carefully scaffolded so that all writers can be successful, the...

If you're looking to start a unit based around narrative writing, make sure to consider this resource while you're planning. This book covers five topics: writing personal narratives, writing narratives about others, writing narratives...

An extensive portfolio project encourages your kids to reflect on their personalities with multiple writing assignments. From activities on extended metaphors to writing about an important day in their lives, kids explore the way they...

Grow an understanding of short story with a well-sequenced plan built around an Academy Award-winning short film. Class members explore the elements of an effective short story, and practice writing their own. They also watch the short...

Built around a moving short film about second chances and tough choices, this lesson mixes grammar, prediction, and narrative writing. Pupils practice with adjectives and prefixes before moving on to the film. The resource directs you to...

A short film about music is the inspiration for a well-sequenced instructional activity that includes discussion, group work, and writing. After the whole class converses about music, small groups write narratives about a still from the...

Present the class with a slide show that will give them a great head start in writing expository and narrative texts. The information is highlighted for easy note taking, well organized, and presented in a kid-friendly manner. It...

It's the classic scene: Tom Sawyer is whitewashing a fence. Expose your learners to Mark Twain's humor while reinforcing reading comprehension. Eighth graders are encouraged to read and reread, achieving as much exposure to the text as...

Binoculars are used as a metaphor for good descriptive writing. Class members first view a small picture and then an enlarged view of the same image in which the details come into focus. Next, learners examine a paragraph lacking sensory...

Writing can become one-dimensional if authors don't involve all their senses. First, scholars observe a strange object which, ideally, they can touch and even smell. Without using certain words (you can create a list or have the class...

The story Theft is about a stolen purse, compassion, and two misunderstood individuals. Young authors critically read the story to understand the events, details, and techniques used by the author to convey the narrators point of view....

Two narrative excerpts tell the same story from different points of view. In the first excerpt (first person), sequencing words and phrases are bolded and learners write down what the bold type does. The second excerpt is in third...

Help your class find their writing voices with this lesson which uses the work of Ralph Fletcher to guide a "Prompt in Reverse" activity. Using the chapter "First Pen" from Fletcher's Marshfield Dreams, learners decipher what they...

A Six-Trait Writing instructional activity helps your middle schoolers liven up their word choice and shows them how to evaluate their own writing. Class members take a close look at the language used in poems by Shakespeare, Kipling,...

Explore how photographs can represent a whole story to a viewer. Middle schoolers work on narrative writing techniques in this activity, focusing on photographs from the New York Times to write first-person descriptive narratives....

Experience how a story can drastically change when the point of view is altered. Young scholars first read a review of Disney's film Tarzan, focusing on how the point of view in the classic story is important. They then select another...

What do Columbus, Aeneas, Scarlet O’Hara, and Frederick Douglass have in common? How can a hero in one age be a villain in another? Does heroism depend on the context of time and place? Are there traits that all heroes share? After a...

Now that your new novelists have finished their first draft, it's time for them to unleash their inner editors! As part of the National Novel Writing Month program, this worksheet is one of the last of a series guiding writers through...

Peer editing is a big part of the writing process, and this learning exercise will really help guide both editor and writer. Class members read brief editing tips and examine examples of helpful and not-so-helpful comments. (Consider...

How better to get your writers painting a picture with words than to actually have them paint a picture? Well, drawing works just fine in this case, but the idea here is to get budding authors illustrating settings from their novel to...

This activity spans five days and culminates in a role-play where judges consider the arguments of each learners to determine the top five villains or heroes of all time. Learners discuss characterization of heroes and villains, theme,...

Use narrative writing techniques to understand idea development and voice. The class reads Marshfield Dreams by Ralph Fletcher, and then practices authentic writing for standardized tests by writing a personal narrative.