Bright Hub Education
Using Evidence and Supporting Details in Writing
In expository writing, it is important to back up claims with evidence and details. Help your class to develop their writing with notes on different types of evidence. Once they have the basics down, practice with a sample thesis and...
Digital Education Resource Archive
Narrative Writing Unit
Each one of the learners in your class has a story to tell, so help them learn the most efficient and organized way to tell their tale. A thorough unit on narrative writing addresses the writing process, grammar, story structure,...
Scholastic
A Reading Guide to A Wrinkle in Time
Accompany a reading of Madeleine L'Engle's classic tale, A Wrinkle in Time, with a detailed guide equipped with 15 informative and useful chapters. Scholars discover who the author is, why she wrote the book, and crucial story elements...
John F. Kennedy Center
Writing a Myth
Tap into the imaginative minds of young learners with a creative writing activity. After reading the myth Giants and Mosquitoes, this student guide supports young writers as they brainstorm and develop their very own creation myths....
Learning to Give
Teaching Playwriting in Schools
The world is a stage, and so is your classroom! Hone the skills of the next generation of Tony® award winners with a set of exercises, reference pages, writing prompts, and excerpts from famous plays.
Teach with Movies
Teaching Students to Write a Narrative
Encourage narrative writing with a clever exercise. Class members watch episodes from movies and describe what happened to a character, including details about the setting, plot, and characters. Writers then craft a narrative about a...
Curated OER
Writing a News Article
Join the newspaper business with a series of lessons and exercises focused on elements of journalism. The packet focuses on distinguishing fact from opinion, writing effective headlines, sequencing events, and editing and...
EngageNY
Practice Planning a Historical Narrative: The Wheelwright
Fourth graders use a four-square graphic organizer to plan a paragraph writing about a wheelwright. Using gathered research from the previous unit, young writers discover how to organize a plot in preparation for writing a historical...
Curated OER
Lesson Plan 6: Introducing the Elements of Plot-Part Two
November is National Novel Writing Month, so if your young authors are embarking on this journey, be sure they understand plot elements. This collaborative lesson fits into the context of the larger NaNoWriMo project; however, the ideas...
Core Knowledge Foundation
Unit 5: A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Fifth graders analyze William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, paying close attention to character development, plot, and dialogue. With daily reading and thoughtful discussion, scholars take pen to paper to respond to journal...
Curated OER
Lesson Plan 11: Beginnings
Every good novel needs a solid beginning! Setting the stage can have your budding authors stumped, so use this lesson to get them thinking. After examining the plot rollercoaster image (included) they consider the four places...
Curated OER
Lesson Plan 17: Novel, Take 2
It's all about using peer resources in this writing process instructional activity, which includes a fantastic novel revision worksheet packet. Learners have read a partner's story draft the night before, and groups have a...
National Endowment for the Humanities
Character in Place: Eudora Welty’s “A Worn Path” for the Common Core
How do writers use the interaction between elements like characterization and setting to create meaning? Readers of "A Worn Path" create a series of comic book-style graphics of Eudora Welty's short story and reflect on how Welty...
Penguin Books
A Teacher's Guide to The Gingerbread Man Loose in the School
What if the Gingerbread Man was trying to catch you, rather than the other way around? Pupils can find out what happens by reading the story The Gingerbread Man Loose in the School by Laura Murray and enrich their experience with the...
Lied Center of Kansas
The Ugly Duckling and The Tortoise and the Hare
Both The Ugly Duckling and The Tortoise and the Hare are great additions to an elementary language arts lesson. Young readers focus on the literary elements of each story, including characters and plot development, and apply...
Curated OER
Narrative Writing
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...
Curated OER
The Little Prince: Problematic Situation
Your plane has crashed in the Sahara desert. What do you do? Explore the possibilities with a role-playing activity based on Antoine de Saint Éxupery's The Little Prince. In groups, kids decide whether they would walk to find help...
EngageNY
Planning a Historical Fiction Narrative Based on Expert Trades
Pupils plan for a historical fiction narrative based on their previous research on expert trades from the Colonial Era. Individuals use the four-square graphic organizer to organize the information they want to be detailed in their four...
EngageNY
Analyzing Textual Evidence: Working Conditions in the Mills
Deafening, dusty, debris. Such were the working conditions in the 1800s textile industry as portrayed in Katherine Paterson's novel Lyddie. Scholars watch a short video clip about life and work in the mills. Next, they work...
Weekly Story Book
Folk Tales and Fables
Pages and pages of engaging activities, worksheets, and writing projects on teaching folktales and fables await you! You don't want to miss this incredible resource that not only includes a wide range of topics and graphic...
CC Homestead
Summarize
Designed for third graders but appropriate for older learners as well, this packet of materials underscores the necessity of teaching kids how to summarize, how to identify main ideas and supporting details, and how to ask questions...
Curated OER
Creating an Original Opera
This may be a lot to ask of a high schooler, but then again, who knows? Pupils work in groups to explore, write, and then perform an original opera. They view versions of The Magic Flute and La Traviata, then compose a plot, characters,...
EngageNY
Grade 11 ELA Module 1: Unit 2, Lesson 9
Hamlet has an unusual take on the criminal justice system when he decides to determine his uncle's guilt by staging a play. With the resource, scholars continue analyzing Hamlet's third soliloquy from Act 2.2 of Shakespeare's Hamlet....
Literacy Design Collaborative
The House on Mango Street
After reading Sandra Cisneros' The House on Mango Street, class members craft an essay in which they use evidence from a variety of vignettes to demonstrate how Cisneros develops Esperanza's character.