Curated OER
Noisy Nora, Studious Students: Story Elements
Alliterative adjective nicknames generate stories inspired by Rosemary Wells' book Noisy Nora (also a thematic complement to any class with children who make a ruckus to get attention). Class members explore basic story elements --...
Curated OER
Sequencing
Are you looking for a way to teach sequence of events in your narrative writing unit? Bring this lesson to your middle school class, as it prompts young writers to create a narrative sequence map of events that have happened at school...
Curated OER
Lesson Plan 17: Novel, Take 2
It's all about using peer resources in this writing process lesson, which includes a fantastic novel revision worksheet packet. Learners have read a partner's story draft the night before, and groups have a "lightning round of praise"...
Curated OER
Goldilocks Live!!!
Study story elements with your young learners. Read Goldilocks and the Three Bears and discuss the order of events by making a story panel out of butcher paper. Sentences are given as suggestions for the panel, though you may compose...
Curated OER
Summer Shorts
Want to use sequence maps in your narrative writing unit? Young writers work to create personal narratives about their summer vacation. They write a narrative of their vacation and create a display using summer clothing shapes made from...
Curated OER
Joining Sentences
Sentence combining meets multiple objectives for writers, and they are all available in this informational text exercise. Learners read a mixed-up excerpt about the history of chess, putting 15 sentences into logical order. Have a...
Tell City Schools
The Cay
Support your instruction of The Cay by Theodore Taylor with this extensive unit of materials. Provided here are prereading activities, worksheets and discussion questions for the entire book, and reading quizzes that you can use to check...
Curated OER
Primary Sources and Protagonists: A Native American Literature Unit
Introduce your middle schoolers to the lives of past Native Americans. First, learners work together to put photographs in a sequence. Then, using their sequence, they create stories to share with the whole class. No matter how old your...
Curated OER
Story Sequencing Lesson Plans That Promote Creativity
Explore new ways to enhance students' comprehension skills with creative story sequencing lesson plans.
Curated OER
A Mirror into History
Are we really all that different from people in the past? First, learners of all ages write an autobiographical poem. Then, they research the lives of historical figures. They use the same format that they used to write their own poem to...
Media Smarts
How to Analyze the News
Teach kids how to watch television, specifically the news, with this creative idea for learners of all ages from the Media Awareness Network. The elementary school plan focuses on presenting news as a story and uses Jon Scieszka's story...
Curated OER
60-Second Pitch
In this sequencing instructional activity, students put lines of a paragraph in order. In this fill in the blank instructional activity, students write sixteen answers.
Curated OER
What Did You Do?
English learners practice using the past tense by participating in a time description activity. They identify the differences between verbs when they are used to describe current events or past events. Students answer questions using...
Lakeshorelearning
Read and Write about It
Reading informational text is a skill that transcends subjects and grade levels. Practice reading about different topics in various formats with a language arts lesson that includes opportunities for writing and research as well.
Curated OER
Nasreddin and the Smell of Soup
In this online interactive story building worksheet, learners recognize the sequence of events. Students click on the sentence that will come next in the order of story events. Learners complete all sentences in order to correctly finish...
Curated OER
What Happens Next?
Fifth graders complete activities to help them sequence events in a story. In this sequencing lesson, 5th graders read a story and work in groups to retell the story by creating a flowchart of events to reconstruct. Students create their...
Curated OER
A Soldier's View of the American Civil War
Study and research the American Civil War in this explanatory writing instructional activity. Middle schoolers complete six activities to learn about the American Civil War and soldiers' views of the war. The instructional activity...
Student Handouts
Process Steps
A straightforward graphic organizer is a great way to outline steps for any subject. Kids fill out 10 steps to describe a process or brainstorm writing, with small arrows indicating that one step leads to the next.
Curated OER
Historical Events of the Civil War
Fifth graders research the Civil War through the use of primary documents. In this historical events of the Civil War lesson, 5th graders write about the information gotten from the primary document. Students answer critical thinking...
Curated OER
Great Basin Tribes- Use of Land for Sustenance
Young scholars explore four Native American tribes from Nevada. In this Native American history instructional activity, students identify and generate important corresponding attributes of the Southern Paiute, Northern Paiute, Washoe,...
Curated OER
Acrostic Book Report
Young scholars read the story Wild Horse Winter and construct acrostic poems. In this poetry lesson, students use adjectives and events in the text to develop an acrostic poem.
Curated OER
CLIFFORD AT THE CIRCUS
In this vocabulary and story sequencing worksheet based on Norman Bridwell's Clifford at the Circus, students are asked to unscramble vocabulary words, perform a vocabulary word search, complete sentences, sequence story events, complete...
Curated OER
Planning and Drafting a Personal Narrative
Bring your learners together to write a class narrative about the first day of school. Start off by teaching them about sequence with a quick oral activity. Then, work together to fill out a story map. Finally, compose the class...
Curated OER
Episodic Writing Using Pictures of Hollis Woods by Patricia Reilly Giff
Help your middle-schoolers expand their writing skills with this lesson on episodic writing, which focuses on story details, idea development, and organization. After reading "The Eighth Picture: End of Summer" from Patricia Reilly...