Using chapter 1 of Jerry Spinelli's Milkweed, middle schoolers write a personal memoir based on Spinelli's style and a Six Trait writing activity. The lesson suggests several ways to activate prior knowledge, including a picture book and...

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...

Here are some cross-curricular activities whil should help your kids understnad weight measurements and grammar. In this grammar and math lesson, students read the book Skittles Riddles and practice counting and balancing skittles. They...

What's the best way to start a story? Learners write a memoir using effective openings. They research the process and work through a list of hooks to use in their writing. They use at least two hooks to begin their personal memoir. A...

Honk if you love bumper stickers! Long used as a persuasive tool, bumper stickers are used to launch this study of persuasive writing. Each class member is given a bumper sticker and asked to formulate three questions the strip might...

Teams select a society to investigate and create a chart comparing and contrasting the status of girls in that society with their own. They then craft and illustrate a personal narrative written from the point of view of a girl living in...

If you are planning a unit on memoir and autobiographical narrative, you should consider this resource. Using Internet research skills, pupils review works by James Frey and Henry David Thoreau. In response to these works, learners...

Beyond Paul Bunyan and his blue ox, tall tales can be a great way to teach young writers about word choice and voice in their writing. Using Jerry Spinelli's Maniac Magee  and the Six-Trait Writing process, they begin to write...

Students explore language arts by creating their own stories in class. In this book making lesson, students read the story City Pig in class and create storyboard illustrations in order to analyze the story. Students utilize these...

One photograph can represent so much more than the images on the film. Eighth graders select a photograph from the Civil War era and conduct additional research based on the subject matter from the picture. Once they complete the...

Get your pupils outside and teach them about peace at the same time! Scholars create a list describing peace, hike outside, add to that list, and later create poems. The exercises support differentiation for your individual classes as...

Students research that a narrative film tells a story using camera movement, sound, lighting, editing and other film making techniques. The audience must be taken into consideration when making a film. They explore what makes their hero...

Young writers engage in a fun writing activity. They write three different sentences on three strips of paper. Then they get into groups of three, and take a look at all nine sentences that have been written. Their task is to write a...

Learners examine the procedures that writers utilize to obtain and develop ideas for writing. Journal writing is fostered as a primary step in the writing process. Learners are encouraged to pay careful attention to using complete...

Students navigate through an online interactive virtual zoo to create imaginary animals by combining different parts of real animals. They write a short story about their combination creature.

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...

Dr. Seuss and Walter Dean Myers team up to cover the topic of prejudice. Using The Sneeches (about the culture clash between star-bellied and bare-bellied Sneetches) and The Glory Fields (about a boy coming to America on a slave ship),...

Does your class love reading cartoons? Use their talents and interests to examine the process of writing a story they wish to tell through a cartoon. They develop the beginning, middle, and end of a story based on their original...

Read a Hans Wilhelm story and complete creative writing activities. Start by reading Tyrone, the Horrible and discuss the behavior in the book. Then split your class into groups to create a "bully" situation and discuss possible...

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...

Students work in groups to write an original fairy tale in Italian. They research the components of a fairy tale, compare and contrast fairy tales with myths and follow an outline to write a complete, 15-20 page fairy tale.

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...

Students discover effective writing techniques to create persuasive essays. In this writing lesson, students investigate ways to express facts and points of view through persuasive essays. Finally, the students write their own persuasive...

Students create narrative cartoons based on the activities of the Peace Corps. In this narrative cartoons lesson plan, students create comic strips where they draw and write about various activities that the Peace Corps is involved in.