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Express Yourself Lesson Seed 6 Close Reading
Look back at the third chapter of The Cay with your class. Pupils will conduct a close reading, taking a second look at a chunk of text and responding to a series of text-dependent questions. Wrap up with an analytical writing prompt...
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Express Yourself Lesson Seed 11: Setting
Encourage your learners to examine the setting in Theodore Taylor's The Cay. Pupils work in small groups to put together a description of the setting before reading two more chapters of the book. They use their double-entry journals to...
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Express Yourself Lesson Seed 13: Character Development 2
Building upon prior lessons in the series, this reading and writing exercise requires pupils to look back at their own writing, track character development in the novel The Cay, and analyze how Phillip has changed. The reading focus is...
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Writing a Letter of Inquiry!
Students examine and discuss brevity of business letters, create focused and catchy letters, and publish a typed letter that is suitable for mailing.
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Teacher of the Year
Now is the time to identify the great teachers in your school! Discuss the characteristics of persuasive writing and analyze an example. Then, each pupil chooses a teacher who they feel should be named teacher of the year. They plan and...
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The Black Snowman
Sixth graders write a paper. In this writing and retelling lesson, 6th graders read the book The Black Snowman and answer comprehension questions. Students learn how to write good paragraphs and how to retell a story. Students write a 3...
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Writing an Original Fable
Students discover how to write fables. In this writing skill lesson, students review the literary elements of fables and take all of the steps in the writing process to create their own fables.
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Show You Care
Young scholars construct a four-line poem to be used on the inside of a Valentine's Day card. They use a digital camera to show themselves to their "buddies" (local nursing home patients) who receive the cards on Valentine's Day.
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Egyptian Burial
Students research burial tombs of ancient Egypt. Acting as pharaohs of Egypt, students create burial plans to decide what items they would include in their own tombs and why. They find another student to analyze their plan.
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Beatrix Potter and Alliteration
In this creative writing worksheet, students utilize a variety of strategies to creatively write alliterations, tongue twisters, similes and finally an acrostic poem.
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Autobiographical Writing
In this unique lesson on autobiographical writing, students compare and contrast three types of writing: narrative, poetry and newspaper. Students prepare to produce a short autobiographical writing based on the framework of one of the...
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Sidewalks to Success in Middle School
Students write a brochure that educates incoming middle school students on how to succeed.
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First Class Mail
Students read The Witch of Blackbird Pond, and write a friendly letter to Elizabeth George Speare, the author, discussing their points of interest in the novel with her.
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Crazy Critters Teach Parts of Speech
Pupils create pieces of writing about a creature they have created. They examine the parts of speech and how they are used in their writing to see how they can write more specifically.
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Studying Anchor Papers
Students examine the Florida Writes! Rubric and discuss the basic elements of the scoring system. In small groups, they use the rubric to discuss and score several student essays.
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News View
Students read and analyze three different news sources that describe the same event. They compare/contrast the similarities and differences of the news sources, and write an essay describing the main event.
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Round Robin Suspense
Students, in groups, write suspense stories. At the end of a timed period, they pass the story to the next student to continue it. At the last writing session, the papers are returned to the originators and they share the stories with...
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What About Us? Women in the Civil War
Students research the role of women in the Civil War. In this Civil War unit, students research the role women played during the war. This unit includes eight different activities including vocabulary, writing prompts and a literature...
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How do we write a report?
Students write a report on a word processing program. In this report lesson, students write about what qualities a hero possesses. They type it on a word processing program and proofread for spelling, grammar, punctuation and more.
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My Wilderness Adventure
Learners use a story starter and given questions to continue their adventure. They use the Internet and books to research about winter survival skills, how to find food, water and shelter in the snowy mountains and discover information...
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Small Group Shared Writing
Students discuss elements of effective writing in small groups. They work together to critique individual and group writing focusing on including supporting details.
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Top Ten Facts
Learners, in pairs, complete research about an assigned person. One student does research in the library and the other on the Internet. They come back together, compare their research, and compile a list of 10 main facts about their person.
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Streamlining Your Writing
In this writing skills learning exercise, learners improve their writing by completing the three exercises. Students improve wordy phrases, add possessive nouns, and then write a description of a dramatic weather event.
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Suspense-Around
Students participate in round-robin cooperative writing groups to develop a variety of possible stories around a single prompt.