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...

Middle schoolers work with themes in this lesson plan, which is based on Fox by Margaret Wild. Because the book has multiple themes, it is a great way to transition into exploring literary analysis and writing stories. A Six Trait...

What a pair! Older pupils interview younger ones and use what they learn to write a short, illustrated storybook that features the youngster as the main character. The youngster responds with a thank-you note in which they identify their...

Through a series of activities, learners are exposed to how artists use symbolic imagery to create the narrative of a subject’s life. They study The Birth of Alexander and some manuscripts kept at J. Paul Getty Museum. They then draft...

Have your older students assist young children with writing in this community service and literacy lesson. Middle schoolers become partners with a local elementary school. They assist the grade school children in writing a pattern book...

What on earth is that jar for? It was an ancient incense burner used by the Maya, that was inspired by the myth of the sun god. Young analysts hear the story of the Mayan sun god, analyze the story through the artistry in the jar, and...

Learners combine creativity with the rigor of careful editing by adding music to their story. It forces them to focus on how they communicate the meaning of their story to the listener.

Review story elements with your class. They will use examples from a story to develop critical-thinking questions. Then they use a graphic organizer to describe the setting, character, and plot of the story, focusing on how they...

Help your middle-schoolers expand their writing skills with this lesson on episodic writing, which focuses on story details, idea development, and organization. After reading "The Eighth Picture: End of Summer" from Patricia Reilly...

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...

The fifth installment in a writing unit that culminates with a Hyperstudio illustrated group story project, this plan is ripe with ideas for ways to design group writing projects for elementary writers. Use the whole unit as a base from...

Using Movie Maker, sixth graders make an eight frame movie based on a story they have written. They choose music clips, select pictures from PowerPoint, and make their movie. The instructional activity should take about ten days to...

A superb interdisciplinary approach highlights this instructional activity which incorporates space science knowledge and narrative skills. After reading The Magic School Bus, two excellent poems, and watching a video, all about our...

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...

Write a story as a class.  In this writing lesson, each person takes turns writing one to two sentences onto the paragraph given about Kim the Kiwi bird, including characters and events.  Altogether, brainstorm a title for the...

Have young writers compose stories that add detail to the moments captured in personal photographs and create an annotated photo album. Rather than sending every member of the class home for the weekend with a digital camera, you might...

How can you get others to agree with your point of view? This packet focuses on employing persuasive strategies and how to write descriptively. There's a writing sample provided, and a great graphic organizer. Use these tools to help...

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...

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...

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...

Writing a paragraph from details found directly in a text is the central focus of this thorough and explicit lesson plan. Using the stories Nasreen's Secret School and Rain School, third graders are lead step-by-step...

There are so many ways to tell a story! Develop visual storytelling skills while facilitating an understanding of Greek art and culture. Learners design Greek style images to tell a story through art. They add their designs to Styrofoam...

After searching Google for YouTube videos, pupils will create a Google Search Story. The process of creating these stories will provide practice using narrative elements such as, plot, characters, setting, and conflict. Note: Resource...

Sometimes it's okay to text in school. Young computer scientists work in the Scratch program to write a text message conversation among friends. They use different sprites within the program to represent each side of the conversation to...