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A New Point of View
Analyze point of view and how it affects a literary work with this lesson. Middle schoolers create a written piece that focuses on point of view. They review the literary term "point of view," and explore examples of the term in text....
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Locational Writing
Students go outside to the playground and write a piece in the style of beat poets based on what they see and hear outside.
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Every Dog Has Its Day
Students explore the use of imagery in writing. In this writing lesson, students create a writing piece that features sensory images without resorting to the use of clichés.
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Reliving History through Slave Narratives
Helpful for an American literature or history unit, this lesson prompts middle schoolers to examine slavery in the United States. They read slave narratives that were part of the Federal Writers' Project and then conduct their own...
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Describe a Journey
Students describe the sensory experience of a character's journey in an essay. For this precise details writing lesson, students explain the effects on the senses of weather, time of day, landscape, and other experiences. Students use...
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Dear Diary
Students analyze a piece of writing by creating diary entries based on a character. In this reading comprehension lesson, students read an assigned book with their classmates and create a sketch of what they believe the main character...
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Sense Poetry
Access your young poets' senses and emotions with this activity, which guides them through the process of writing a "sense poem." After working on a sense poem as a class and modeling the procedure, individuals work on their own poems...
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Poetry: What's on Your Plate?
Students create original poetry on the subject of food. For this poetry writing lesson, students use sensory details about a food item to create a class poem. Students then write short poems with one sensory detail and add another...
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Describing Paintings: Calm or Stormy
Young writers use nouns, verbs, and adjectives to describe details in two paintings. One depicts a sunny landscape, and the other shows a cloudier view. They write a narrative inspired by the paintings, paying attention to transitional...
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Multi-sensory Writing
Students use their senses to help describe special place they have been. They write short sensory-image essay that incorporate all five of their senses, and identify sensory language while reading different pieces of literature.
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Accentuate the Expositive: Unit 2 Expository Writing
Middle schoolers analyze narrative passages in order to improve their writing skills. For this narrative writing lesson students use the same style of writing that they have analyzed in their own narrative passage.
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The Personal Narrative - Part One
Read to write! The class lists sensory details based on the plot of a story they have recently read. They create a drawing of a bracelet and use the bracelet's jewels or charms to list sensory details included in the story. They then use...
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Writing Descriptions of "My Favorite Place"
Students write a descriptive writing piece. In this writing activity, students use a visualization exercise to add more descriptions to their writing.
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Enhancing Poetry with American Memories
Students explore poetry using American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers' Project. They compose their own unque "found poetry" based on the stories found in the collection.
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Imagery: Show, Don't Tell
A vampire, the beach, a bedroom, the school cafeteria. Writers are encouraged to add sensory details (sight, touch, taste, smell, sound) to bring these things to life.
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Nudging Questions
Students choose one topic to write about. They brainstorm ideas about their topic or incident. They use sensory details to visualize their topic. They answer a variety of teacher directored nudging question to help them describe their...
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Poetry: What's on Your Plate (Part 2)
Students write a short paragraph using strong descriptions. For this using modifiers lesson, students define modifier, adjective, adverb, metaphor, and simile. Students then write a journal entry in which they write about a favorite...
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Teaching Selected Poems from Jim Wayne Miller's the Brier Poems
Students explore the basic elements of poetry through Appalachian life poetry. In this poetry lesson, students read seven poems from Jim Wayne Miller's the Brier Poems and complete poetry analysis activities for each poem.
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The Words that Surround Us
Students investigate writing that we read daily by analyzing advertisements and articles. In this language arts lesson plan, students discuss the images and writing they see daily, where it comes from, and what it represents. Students...
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Analyze Your Handwriting
Students explore the science of graphology. In this graphology activity, students analyze a writing sample using the letter slope, line slope, and pressure to determine the personality characteristics of the writer. Students also analyze...
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Interview! Magazine
Students interview a subject and write a biographical sketch for a fictional magazine. In this interview lesson, students choose a person to interview and create two sets of questions. Students conduct the interview. Students then write...
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Building Believable Characters
Students use descriptive strategies such as physical descriptions, background, and comparison of characters when writing narratives. They develop the topic with supporting details and precise diction to paint a visual image in the...
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What's On Your Plate?
Learners keep running record of the activities they engage in and the food they eat. In this lesson on healthy living, students discuss the dangers of anorexia and bulimia, record their activity level and food consumption over the course...
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Show! Don't Tell!
Students write a descriptive paragraph. In this writing activity, students define elaboration and discuss the characteristics of an elaborate paragraph. Students write a paragraph that contains vivid adjectives, strong verbs and exact...