When life brings you lemons .. write about it! Scholars work with partners to complete graphic organizers analyzing two narratives. Next, they develop an outline for their narrative writing assignment about a personal experience with...

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...

A three-part writing assessment challenges scholars to think critically about schools of the past and present. Learners read informative texts, answer questions to prepare for a discussion, research in small groups, complete a Venn...

What does is take to be a role model? Through grand conversation, and the use of books and a graphic organizer, scholars find out and apply the requirements to identify a role model within their family. They then journey through the...

Nine lessons over three weeks explore the human body through read-alouds. Third graders listen to and discuss a reading followed by extension activities, including word work and comprehension practice. Learners draft a narrative essay.

A read-aloud anthology explores our solar system and beyond. Informational texts about astronomy invite pupils to discuss readings. Extension activities examine vocabulary, sayings, and phrases. Scholars work through the writing process...

You will never forget that moment. Scholars read a model narrative and analyze the moment a character became visible again. They compare the narrative to Okubo in Unbroken. Readers also assess the narrative essay according to a rubric...

Personal narratives are powerful things. Whether told from the first-person or third-person point of view, whether in the form of an essay, a short story, novel, or video, whether fiction or fact, they capture readers and give them...

Follow the format of Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles with a journal-writing activity. Readers choose a character and examine the character's life and circumstances through brainstorming, research, and discussion before...

Using their notes developed throughout the unit, class members prepare for the end of the unit assessment by writing a formal essay in which they "analyze how the author of The Autobiography of Malcolm X provides a conclusion that...

In this first activity of the unit, class members continue to work on their draft of a narrative essay response to a prompt found on the college Common Application.

Depending on your perspective, solitude can be lovely or very, very lonely. Kids take a look at the simple landscape illustrated in Antoine de Saint Éxupery's The Little Prince, and write a short journal entry about their...

Equip your high school writers for the rigors of timed persuasive writing by employing the preparatory ideas available in this exercise. Learners use persuasive essays, provided by the educator, to acquire how to identify persuasive...

Conclude your unit on Peter and the Starcatchers with an involved final writing project that requires learners to write persuasive pieces, compose short stories, create brochures about the setting of the novel, and choose from a...

Should primary graders have their own computers? Should animals be kept in captivity? Young writers learn how to develop and support a claim in this short unit on persuasive writing.

The final activity in this narrative writing unit asks class members to craft a multi-paragraph essay reflecting on the structural elements Leslie Marmon Silko employs in her "Yellow Woman and a Beauty of the Spirit."

As a mid-unit assessment, individuals craft an in-class, formal essay response to a prompt that asks them to use textual evidence to identify Haley's purpose, as well as analyze how the structure, style, and content contribute to the...

Working in pairs, class members use the provided narrative writing rubric to assess the effectiveness of dialogue, pacing, and description in two model paragraphs with similar content. Writers then use the insights they have gained from...

As an end-of-unit assessment, class members complete the final drafts of their Common Application narrative essay and then meet in pairs to discuss the independent reading selection.

Follow in Jules Verne's footsteps and take a journey to the center of the earth! Middle schoolers work together to design a trip inside the earth using their knowledge from the previous lessons in the unit.

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...

Readers of Solomon Northup's brutally frank slave narrative Twelve Years a Slave examine passages that support the argument that slavery "undermined and corrupted" the institution of marriage. Background information is...

Katherine Paterson’s young adult novel Lyddie is the foundation of a differentiated instruction unit that not only explores the rise of industrialization and labor but women’s rights issues as well. After learners read the novel, they...

Class members take a break from discussing The Autobiography of Malcolm X to focus on their personal narrative essays. Before working on their drafts, they review what they have learned from their study of Haley's narrative about...