An extensive portfolio project encourages your kids to reflect on their personalities with multiple writing assignments. From activities on extended metaphors to writing about an important day in their lives, kids explore the way they...

Have your young television viewers discuss popular shows among their peers. After choosing one show to analyze, middle and high schoolers read about the 2007-2008 network television lineup with the New York Times article "Gauging...

Students determine what grammar is and how they have learned it. In this creative writing lesson plan, students read "Style' Gets New Elements," and respond to the discussion questions. Students then present grammatical rules to one...

Khaled Hosseini’s video “Using Real People and Events” motivates learners to reflect on their own experiences and to use those experiences as the basis of a graphic novel that expresses a universal truth. The richly detailed plan...

Here is a good interdisciplinary project that combines creative and narrative writing with studies of the Holocaust. Your young historians will compose a diary of experiences from the perspective of an individual living during the time...

Students reflect on field trips in writing. In this journal writing lesson, students write about a recent experience by using 4 of their senses to tell what they remember. They turn these into poetry. 

Examine how art and music can be powerful tools for conveying a political or social message. After considering the issues surrounding rapper Paris, students design their own album covers that reflect their political and/or social...

Readers reflect on enjoyable stories they know, brainstorm criteria that make a story "good," analyze a New York Times article about innovative children's performances, re-envision classics on their own, and peer edit drafts. Use this as...

The New York Times article “Online Diary,” launches this study of websites and how to assess them. Richly detailed, the lesson plan includes warm-up activities, procedures, journal prompts, discussion questions, and links to valuable...

What is your idea of paradise? Middle and high schoolers share their visions of paradise on earth in this lesson, in which they view a video segment about Shangri-La. Your high schoolers can discuss and then write about their ideas in a...

Do you have a class set PDAs? Seventh graders use the Note Pad function on their PDAs to brainstorm writing prompts. After three minutes of listing their favorite foods, class members use the Note Pad Eraser to reduce their list to the...

Students write on a variety of topics, maximize creative and expository writing skills, develop focused writing, organize ideas, incorporate detail in writing, and exhibit varied and precise word choice.

Second graders practice their reading comprehension by analyzing stories they read in class. In this children's literature instructional activity, 2nd graders are assigned to read a book for 20 minutes each day in class and also reflect...

Have your class create keepsake books about themselves. This activity is a presented as a basic idea with minimal justifications or classroom applications. However, with a little effort, this could become a full lesson. Add a rubric,...

Show your pupils how to use guiding questions to help them focus their research into a topic. Using the framework provided by these questions, researchers explore a topic, collect interesting facts, and prepare a PowerPoint presentation...

Students create exhibits about patriotic symbols for a living museum. They write reflective essays exploring the themes and symbols of independence and their influences on social responsibility.

Learners read a New York Times review of the Museum of the African Diaspora in San Francisco. They discuss the roles and responsibilities of a cultural critic, and prepare for a visit to a local museum in order to write their own reviews.

Create a blog spot for your classroom and promote online discussions. There are several blogging websites listed here, and you can create one specific to each class or one collective site. Teach your learners how to post on the blog, and...

Prompt your class to interact with Jack London's Call of the Wild. By analyzing the events in the novel, middle schoolers discover how human experiences create who a person becomes. They critique and analyze the reading, focusing on...

students read the Ghost of Caesar scene and use prompt books to stage the scene. In this Shakespeare lesson, students read the scene and then stage the scene. Students make prompt books for the staging activity and then perform the scenes.

From play pumps that provide clean water to shoes made from trash, innovators change the world one invention at a time. After researching various inventions, young entrepreneurs develop their own. Extension opportunities include prompts...

Young scholars create movements that illustrate opposites.  In this opposites lesson, students discuss what opposites do for writing and relate to dance.  Young scholars make movements based on their opposites.

Fifth graders write or dance a simile to show the relationship between two unlike nouns. In this simile and grammar activity, 5th graders explore dance movements and identify smooth and sharp energy examples. Students...

Students generate world maps that act as creative writing prompts. The prompts reflect on the cultures and history of the past through their own experiences. Students create an original writing sample.