Putting together an interesting story can be hard, but this set of worksheets will guide your writers into the depths of their own creativity as they characterize both their main character and villain. Using humor to keep learners...

Where would Harry Potter be without Ron Weasley? Where would Holmes be without Watson? Where would a good narrative be without an interesting supporting character? Encourage character analysis with this resource, which includes six...

Young artists will respond to reading children's literature, by engaging in original storytelling and representing their own images through the visual arts. Then they orally describe details of people, places, and things in their stories...

Demonstrate gift giving as an act of caring about someone versus gifts for show (or gifts from the purse). Elementary learners practice giving gifts from the heart by creating a poem for someone special to them.

Students study animal characters. For this language arts lesson, students analyze animal characters from a variety of books and create a story using animal characters.

Third graders identify super human powers and their uses found in comic and cartoon characters, identify use of visual elements such as line, shape, and color, and create drawings of an original super character with at least two extra...

In this literature instructional activity, students read the Jeff Brown book Flat Stanley and collaborate to create claymation characters from the story. Students create a claymation video and discuss using word cards during hte movie.

Learn about animal habitats, characteristics, and writing in a different perspective. The class composes a narrative from the perspective of a fresh water animal, they include a problem and the animal's reaction to the problem. The...

Students study the success of video games by reading an online article. They work in groups to design settings, storylines, characters and technical features for their own fantasy video games. Finally, they write scripts for previews of...

What do Robert Downey Jr., Basil Rathbone, Jeremy Brett, Fritz Weaver, Roger Moore, Benedict Cumberbatch, and Daffy Duck have in common? Why, it’s elementary, my dear Watson! They all have portrayed Sherlock Holmes. Literary detectives...

The guiding question for this instructional activity is "Do computers and their contents shape who we are?" Open with a selection of Apple's commercials to introduce stereotypes and people's relationships with their computers. Then, read...

Kids love to pretend. Use this imaginative energy to develop their understanding of characterization. Class members dress up as a character from their novel-writing project and sit for a filmed interview. In responding to questions about...

Young scholars describe a pretend animal. They read "The After School Monster." Students read other books and discuss whether or not the characters are real. Young scholars make a drawing of a pretend animal and of a real animal. They...

Students participate in a computer game which helps them develop their hand-eye coordination and imagination. They can use this activity before doing writing activities or show and tell.

Students create a greeting card from one character to another after finishing a novel. Individually, they use their imagination to write the paragraph using the text to support their ideas. They share their greeting card with the class...

Learners develop characters and role-play. In this character portrayal lesson, students analyze the importance of body language, develop a character to portray and interview another learners character.

Poems by O. Henry, Marion Dane Bauer, Monty Roberts, and Langston Hughes provide the text for a study of symbolism, hyperbole, and imagery. Employing the “think-pair-share” strategy learners generate definitions of these terms and locate...

 Students describe the sensory experience of a character's journey in an essay.  In this precise details writing lesson plan, students explain the effects on the senses of weather, time of day, landscape, and other...

Students enjoy Leo Lionni's illustrations in Frederick and watching how Frederick uses his imagination. In this Frederick lesson plan, students practice dramatic techniques as they retell traditional literature.

Learners imagine characters in The Scarlett Letter beyond the ending of the novel. For this literature lesson, students examine the character Pearl and imagine her life at the ages of 14 and 18.

Such an ambitious lesson! Third graders with special needs listen to an audio recording of the novel, Moby Dick. They stop often to discuss each of the main characters and analyze their actions in the story. They then make puppets of one...

After reading Where the Lilies Bloom and researching the wildflowers and herbs mentioned in the novel, class members create a mural that reflects the setting of the novel. Groups design the background, the houses of the characters, the...

Imagine how the wolf would tell the tale of Little Red Riding Hood or The Three Little Pigs. Young writers re-imagine classic tales by adopting the point of view of another character in the story. After reading models like The True Story...

Whether it's dark, delightful, or somber, set the mood with William Golding's Lord of the Flies. High-schoolers practice descriptive writing by creating the appropriate mood for an original scene, starring one of the book's main...