Writer's workshop is an idea that's been around for years. Students write, read, and comment on each others writing in an authentic and thoughtful way. Here is a 21st century twist, 6th graders will use the class blog to create a...

Knock, knock, knock...Creep out your class with a critical thinking lesson focused on word relationships in Edgar Allen Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart." They investigate  the relationship between word choice, mood, and interpretation of...

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...

Women's voices are becoming more prominent in the world of literature, but for centuries, this wasn't the case. Young historians research a woman whose writings are considered to be lost, out of print, or forgotten. They develop an oral...

Write and work with authors on the Scholastic Website to promote the recognition of various genres.  Young writers will participate in activities based on the type of writing such as biography, descriptive, folktales, mystery, news,...

Help your class find their writing voices with this lesson which uses the work of Ralph Fletcher to guide a "Prompt in Reverse" activity. Using the chapter "First Pen" from Fletcher's Marshfield Dreams, learners decipher what they...

Evaluating a variety of narrative texts can help build strong writers. Pupils identify plot elements and their relation to personal experience, then apply what they gleaned from the class discussion to create their own narratives.

Looking for a good social media instructional activity for your class? Then, this instructional activity is for you! They study various written reviews, then must choose an item to review of their choice. They can choose from: a book,...

Do your young authors suffer from writer's block when they try to write short stories? Access their natural creativity with C-Gor, the writing monster! The instructional activity takes aspiring authors through a new writing process...

First graders practice visualization. In this reading and listening comprehension strategy visualization lesson, 1st graders close their eyes and listen to the teacher describe a familiar place, then draw what they visualized in their...

Students research the roles of individuals, groups, and institutions in sports history. They create fictional sports magazines to demonstrate an awareness of the uniqueness of individuals and appreciation of themselves as athletes....

Students engage in a lesson that presents strategies to overcome the hurdles that discourage writers under pressure. They develop a paragraph of narrative text in response to a quote, motto or poem.

Support your writers! Clear procedures and appropriate support make this a superb resource for elementary writing instruction. Ready your class to compose original descriptive paragraphs inspired by the episode in Roald Dahl's James and...

Supporting characters need detail and characteristics just like a main character. Keep your budding authors entrenched in detail as they write their novels. This lesson focuses on developing supporting characters using personal...

Use hypertext to make a multimedia choose-your-own adventure story! Young writers incorporate knowledge of story writing elements to write their own stories, and rewrite the adventure with various scenarios and endings. Use technology to...

To better understand the cultural achievements of the Harlem Renaissance and become familiar with its major figures, class members examine a painting by Aaron Douglas and a poem by Langston Hughes and compare how the artists develop...

Middle schoolers go on an information gathering hunt on the Internet to study West African empires. They work in teams; meteorologists, bankers, writers, and archaeologists. They collect data on all sorts of topics related to West...

Young writers design and publish a newsletter with articles that demonstrate knowledge of mathematical concepts. They explain mathematical procedures and basic operations in a news article format. Next, they compile several articles to...

It's all about using peer resources in this writing process lesson plan, which includes a fantastic novel revision worksheet packet. Learners have read a partner's story draft the night before, and groups have a "lightning round of...

Improve writing skills using methods from Robert Gay's Writing Through Reading; Gay espouses reproducing the work of successful writers to build the ability to convey original ideas effectively. Young writers transcribe, paraphrase,...

Young writers examine the writings of Raymond Carver to investigate editing skills. They will develop original sentences. Then read the work of Raymond Carver to edit and analyze the ending. They revise and ending of their original...

Middle and high schoolers remember their most memorable experiences, and then connect their own narrative with an exposition about the topic associated with their experience. This New York Times lesson would be a great addition to...

A reading of a New York Times review of the movie Beloved launches research into how the Civil War affected the lives of people living during this period. Creative thinkers select a person from an included list of historical figures and...

Upper grade and middle school writers study the art of parody. For this language arts lesson, learners study the work of Lewis Carroll, read and discuss parodies from the book, Alice in Wonderland, and construct their own parody based on...