Youngsters write and construct their own autobiographies based on The Hundred Penny Box by Sharon Bell Mathis. They engage in pre-writing steps, narrative writing, and peer editing. This is the second part of a two-part project lesson.

Discuss the importance of a lead in writing with your upper graders. They examine several examples of leads from literature and practice writing leads for pieces of artwork. They then select a topic from a list and write an introductory...

Students construct and analyze paragraphs. In groups, students place given sentences in order to form a paragraph. They determine the main idea of the paragraph. Students perform activities to determine the concept of topic sentence,...

First graders write a descriptive paragraph about a friend.

Get young writers thinking about how to write a great beginning for their narratives. After examining examples of solid beginnings in literary text, young writers discuss the criteria for a compelling introduction. Then, independently,...

Students examine and discuss most appropriate format for giving examples in the American discourse style.

Fourth graders focus on fluency by reading the book Charlotte's Web. In this reading strategies activity, 4th graders partner read, do guided reading, and independent reading to increase fluency. Students use Venn Diagrams, discuss...

Middle schoolers learn to show, not tell, in their narrative writing. A slide show takes them through the process of choosing strong, descriptive words, and then provides writing prompts for them to use as practice. The first two pages...

What could you pack for a trip if you don't know the destination? After writing a list of items they would want to bring, fourth graders learn that the "trip" is to the South Pole - revealing the need to understand all available...

Middle schoolers outline the action in their narrative writing assignments by brainstorming about conflict. In this conflict analysis lesson, students define conflict and discuss the different types of conflict. Middle schoolers...

Students practice descriptive writing in a thank-you note format. For this descriptive writing lesson, students read the example letter and analyze the corrections in the letter. Students read the example thank you notes and focus on the...

Learners explore language arts by participating in a vocabulary usage activity. In this word choice activity, students read examples of great word usage in literature and discuss with the class why some words appear stronger than others....

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.

Fifth graders study how to read fluently. For this reading lesson, 5th graders practice reading and recording any miscues. Students time each other and graph their progress each day.

Fifth graders read "My Side of the Mountain." They create a pantomime using vocabulary words from the story. Students create three questions about the reading. They discuss the passage they read and act out words to help them better...

Students explore the characteristics of a persuasive letter. They label each characteristic and they create a persuasive letter using the correct business letter format. Students recommend a school rule or change of a rule and justify...