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Editing and Publishing: Horror and Suspense
This sequence of slides leads pupils through an editing process designed for horror or suspenseful stories. The prompts tell your class to look at their writing style; including hints such as varying sentence length, using premier...
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Scary Short Story Writing Lesson
There's nothing like the prospect of writing a scary story to get your middle schoolers' writing juices flowing! In the lesson plan presented here, pupils listen to scary short stories read to them by the teacher. Then, a discussion...
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Literature Through Silent Movies
Students watch Charlie Chaplin films and discuss film elements. They select a story written by Edgar Allen Poe to write and produce a movie of. They film scenes, edit, and create a final iMovie project.
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Number the Stars, Lesson 3
Students consider how an author creates a feeling of suspense in a reader's mind. They analyze characters in the story. Students make a character map for Peter. They discuss how suspense unfolds in the novel Number the Stars.
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Literature Through Silent Movies
Students participate in an engaging, alternative assessment activity: making a silent film of an Edgar Allen Poe story. This project offers them an additional way to demonstrate their mastery of the topic.
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Mississippi Trial, 1955: Pre-reading Strategy
Pink and Say, a picture book by Patricia Polacco, and an anticipation guide, set the stage for a reading of Mississippi Trial, 1955, Chris Crowe's novel based on the true story of the murder of Emmett Till. Instructional routines, the...
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Suspense-Around
Young scholars participate in round-robin cooperative writing groups to develop a variety of possible stories around a single prompt.
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Discovering Language Arts-Intermediate Fiction
Explore the elements of science fiction. Students investigate the literary elements present in science fiction and write their own science fiction stories.
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Novel Jeopardy
Play a classroom version of the classic game show Jeopardy, to review and discuss the novel your class has been reading. Questions about plot and other story elements are written on cards and given point values. Divide the class into...
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Lesson Plan 8: Setting and Mood
What mood does this story evoke? How are setting and mood linked? Young novelists explore the different emotions brought about by writing, starting by journaling things that inspire their own feelings. Examine the word mood, looking into...
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Nibble, Nibble, Little Mouse
Learners complete activities to analyze points of view in different texts. For this point of view lesson, students read Hansel and Gretel and The Magic Circle and discuss the points of view. Learners choose a character from the story and...
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Physics -- 24
Students record all of the instances of physics and science they are involved with in a full day. As a class, they complete a KWL chart on physics and read a story about Murphy's Law and the character's experiences. Individually, they...
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The Golden Gate Bridge
In this comprehension activity, students read and respond to five multiple choice questions about the story. Then they explain in a short answer response why there were people who opposed to the building of the Golden Gate Bridge and why.
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The World’s Longest Bridge
In this comprehension worksheet, students read a story and answer the six multiple choice questions that follow. They identify the longest bridge in the world, what happened during construction, and what possible dangers to the bridge...
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Book Trailers
Students develop a list of criteria for a book trailer. In this book trailer lesson, students review book trailers, create storyboards and use Photo Story 3 to create book trailers. Students create a mini-webquest to review copyrights.
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Mystery Writing Lesson Plans
Introduce your class to the genre of mystery. Included is a vocabulary list, a rubric, and a sample mystery story called "Lethal Lesson." There are very limited directions on what to do with these resources, so you will need to plan some...
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The Cliffhangers
In this language arts worksheet, students examine the different parts of the story Number the Stars. They use the graphic organizer to keep track of the thoughts.
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Tall Tales and Urban Legends
In this creative writing worksheet, learners sort through old pictures and discuss the characterization in each. Students create characters, a setting, and their own tall tale or urban legend based on the pictures.
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What Makes a Novel a Novel?
They always say to write what you know. This approach is used to get middle schoolers prepared to write novels of their own. Using a favorite book as a model, potential novelists respond to prompts that ask about characters, plot, main...
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A Novel Study Unit for The Cay
Novelly written questions are perfect for a novel study guide unit on The Cay. The well-rounded resource contains an anticipation guide for scholars to complete before reading, a variety of questions per chapter of the book, and a post...
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Story Plot Terms
This literary terms handout defines introduction, rising action, climax, falling action, and denouement.
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Labor of Love: Teaching Literary Devices
Here are lesson ideas to teach and reinforce various forms of literary devices throughout the school year.
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Lessons from the Holocaust
Students investigate the horrors of World War II by participating in a role-playing activity. In this holocaust lesson, students read handouts describing the atrocities committed against the Jews in Germany during the mass slaughter. ...
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Run-on Sentences
In this grammar worksheet, students rewrite a paragraph, finishing each unfinished sentence by joining it to a finished sentence next to it with a conjunction.