Family and friendship are two very important themes of the historical fiction novel The Orphan of Ellis Island by Elvira Woodruff. From video clips and writing prompts to reader's theater and family interviews, this resource...

As the culminating activity in a unit study of science fiction, young writers demonstrate their understanding of the genre by producing their own graphic novel. After deciding on the main elements of their story, individuals use a comic...

If your ESL pupils love talking about movies, here is an activity ideal for providing practice with both informational reading and elements of a story. Given fictional movie posters, they decipher the information and put it into a...

Identifying themes in literature is the focus of the language arts lesson plan presented here. Learners read short pieces of fiction and practice the skill of identifying the themes present in each one. The bulk of the lesson consists of...

Clichés, paradoxes, and equivocations are detailed in a short, animated video that defines and illustrates these writing traps. The resource also includes a quiz and the transcript for the video. Users can register to access free course...

Fourth graders use a four-square graphic organizer to plan a paragraph writing about a wheelwright. Using gathered research from the previous unit, young writers discover how to organize a plot in preparation for writing a historical...

Narrative essay writing is the focus of a series of exercises that model for learners how to not only read a narrative, but how to also examine the techniques fiction writers use to create a setting, develop their characters, represent...

Who are we and what shapes our identities? Seventh graders work to answer this question as they learn how to write a memoir. Full of non-print resources and supplemental texts that range from fiction to non-fiction, scholars write their...

This resource contains summaries of the stories featured, but limited procedural detail. Readers compare Chopin's stories' use of situational irony and foreshadowing. High interest content (questionable paternity, missing persons) for...

Delve into Esperanza Rising by Pam Muñoz Ryan with close reading and evidence-based, text-dependent questions. Part of a unit series, this well-sequenced, Common Core designed instructional activity draws on material from the...