Read this twist on Goldilocks and the Three Bears: Dusty Locks and the Three Bears by Susan Lowell. Kindergartners listen, predict, and discuss the story. They then participate in a dramatization of the story and draw a picture...

Weaving is an important part of Navajo culture. Read The Goat in the Rug to your fourth and fifth graders, and give them a glimpse into the process of rug making from the point of view of a goat! They will learn new vocabulary words and...

Model for emergent readers how to write a story by interpreting picture clues. For guided practice a second book is used, and then pupils work independently or with an adult to write their own stories based on illustrations.

Students explore storytelling by participating in an image analysis activity. In this story structure activity, students read the book Cookie's Week by Tomie dePaola and retell the story to their teacher in sequential order. Students...

Alliterative adjective nicknames generate stories inspired by Rosemary Wells' book Noisy Nora (also a thematic complement to any class with children who make a ruckus to get attention). Class members explore basic story elements --...

Second graders use the writing process and submit a story to www.kids.com.  In this story writing instructional activity, 2nd graders choose a topic for a story contest.  Students develop their stories. ...

Young readers use graphic organizers, such as Venn diagrams and story maps, to analyze a variety of folktales and the elements of a story. They use writing, sequencing activities, and creative art to identify the morals learned from a...

Analyzing the sequence of actions in dramatic stories leads to deeper comprehension of story structure. The class identifies the main actions in each section of a story and develops frozen tableau's for the identified actions of the...

Sixth graders conduct a plot diagram for a short story. They identify the problem, the rising action, the climax, the falling action, and the resolution. Students are able to sequence events in a story, and identify the parts of the plot...

Practice sequencing as a comprehension strategy. Have your class listen to The Mitten by Jan Brett and participate in guided practice with sequencing events. Then divide everyone into three groups based on understanding for...

Introduce your middle schoolers to the lives of past Native Americans. First, learners work together to put photographs in a sequence. Then, using their sequence, they create stories to share with the whole class. No matter how old your...

Practice sequencing with your 2nd graders via Patricia Polacco's Civil War book Pink and Say. Begin with a blindfold and a bag of mystery items. Connect their use of clues to identify what they can't see with the skill of making...

Youngsters listen to the story, "There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly." After discussing the story, going over new vocabulary, and repeating the rhymes in the story, they study the parts of a fly. They finish by creating a fly on...

Teach your upper graders how to use an idea web to develop a topic for writing. After reading a variety of stories about friendship (a list of stories with the theme of friendship is included), model using an idea web. Class members...

How do you represent a tragic event? Are stories of tragic events better left untold? After reading chapter two of Maus and studying other representations of the Holocaust (suggestions are included), class members create a representation...

Students, assessing a variety of formatting tools with Microsoft Word, utilize a bank of vocabulary words to make a personal dictionary of nouns. They classify nouns for people, places, things and ideas and separate them into common and...

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...

Third graders create a graphic organizer. They draw illustrations that show the beginning, middle and end of a trip they took to visit a friend or a relative. They write age-appropriate text to accompany each drawing. They tell...

Primary learners grasp sequence of events by discussing morning routines and reviewing the story of Little Red Riding Hood. They explore the necessity of correct order of events. As a class, create a story with a beginning, middle, and...

Fifth graders listen to a story told by their teacher. They have cards of all of the events in the story. They must "jump" into the correct order of events.

Bring Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Mad Libs, and cloze activities to your college class with this lesson. They complete a cloze instruction activity in which the students choose words that would fill in the blanks and create their own...

Read, discuss, and write short stories with your primary class. They read a short story and complete worksheets for the story. They also brainstorm ideas for a class story and choose an idea to write 3 ideas and then write the story as a...

Left-to-right, left-to-right, that's the way we read and write! Watch this short video clip and teach your young learners this chant before they start writing! 

Character development, setting, and plot? Sounds like the makings of a good narrative story. Young authors read and analyze several narrative examples, and then they use what they know to pen an original composition. They work both in...