A unit focuses on prewriting skills. Over 10 days, young scholars practice drawing lines and shapes, use play dough to build shapes, and track from left to right. Pupils put their sense of hearing to the test by listening for words...

Kindergarteners practice prewriting skills in a 10-day unit.  Young scholars blend sounds and syllables, build shapes with playdough, write shapes on paper, and trace their names.

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.

Welcome to the World Café! Readers discuss A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park. They circulate throughout the classroom, stopping at different tables to answer a discussion prompt with their classmates and record their ideas on a chart.

As a class, 7th graders observe examples of brainstorming and then complete brainstorming worksheets themselves. They compose and describe planning strategies. Prior to writing an essay, they identify the purpose and the audience.

The intricate craft of narrative writing can make a happy story feel exuberant or a sad story feel devastating. With 42 extensive lessons that include poignant discussion questions, standards-aligned self-reflections, engaging writing...

If you're looking to start a unit based around narrative writing, make sure to consider this resource while you're planning. This book covers five topics: writing personal narratives, writing narratives about others, writing...

Does Bud use his rules to survive or thrive? That is the driving question of a lesson plan following the reading of Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis. In an argument essay prewriting activity, pupils use textual evidence to...

It's time to make a rule sandwich! After exploring the writing assignment's rubric and analyzing a model essay, learners are guided through the prewriting phase using the sandwich technique. Pupils create their sandwich addressing the...

In a multidisciplinary lesson plan, you will focus your instruction around the West African folktale, Anansi Goes to Lunch by Bobby and Sherry Norfolk while your little learners sing songs, play games, participate in a grand...

Elementary and middle schoolers research animal facts and use them in a fable. First, they pair-share to find animal traits to use in writing a fable. They then complete a prewriting worksheet. After going through the writing process,...

Fill-out a story map to help your scholars with pre-writing. They will use a story map template to pre-write. They also organize their ideas into steps which become the foundation for their first draft. Concrete objects are brought in to...

After reading Elvira Woodruff's George Washington's Socks, young readers and writers embark upon writing their own historically based story, with a focus on developing ideas and details throughout the piece. In small groups, class...

Through grand conversation, help scholars identify issues that harm the Earth and find solutions on how to solve them. After voting—on what your class deems the most important problem—stretch writing muscles with a problem-solution...

Can beautiful words change the world? Literary scholars discover how to paint their visions of change using poetry in a series of three workshops. Each independent topic gives participants a chance to examine their feelings about...

Get the word out about friendship, support, and a safe school community with a media literacy lesson about bullying. Young journalists investigate instances of bullying and take descriptive pictures as they compile a magazine to fight...

In a detailed, creative writing task, potential poets analyze how race, identity, and society categorize and (mis)represent us. The learning begins with an imaginative anticipatory set where students describe unique situations that...

Instructing learners on how to craft a good paragraph, a skill required of all writers, is the focus of a 23-page packet that includes directions, graphic organizers, exercises, and worksheets for guided practice. 

Here is lesson 5 from a 7 lesson unit on using blogging to create a community of writers. The aim of this lesson is to get students writing about what Archaeologists do and how they use material data to study the past. They compose a...

Words, words, words. The function of words in persuasive writing is the focus of a group activity that asks members to analyze how words advertisers use are designed to influence targeted audiences.

Explore the structure of narrative writing with this fun, collaborative lesson. Start by reading aloud a short story, asking small groups of learners to fill in key events on a large story board prepared on the class whiteboard....

Esther Forbes' award-winning Revolutionary War novel, Johnny Tremain and excerpts from Julie Otsuka's When the Emperor Was Divine are used to model how imagery brings alive the setting of a story. The young writers then craft their...

Scholars work in pairs to discuss a film they have both seen by answering 10 questions about the movie. They then individually work on a film review worksheet using a different film than the one previously discussed with a partner. 

Get your junior high writers stimulated with the strategies and ideas available in this activity. Learners discuss and debate controversial subjects, and outline their reasons with an online graphic organizer (link included) that creates...