Zora Neal Hurston, Toni Morrison, and Maya Angelou are featured in a guided inquiry unit. High schoolers research the lives and works of these and other Black women writers and craft an argument, using evidence from their research, to...

Every writer knows how terrible writer's block can feel. Use these five writer's block-busting techniques to help young writers get out of their rut and into a better state of mind.

Writers learn about using sensory details as they revise bland sentences with more vivid language. Next, they begin writing the first drafts of their children's books, completing storyboards to effectively plan their writing. 

Fourth-grade writers applaud their historical narrative writing pieces through a Writer's Gallery. First, they read an assigned classmate's work and leave a positive comment on a sticky note. Once learners have read a couple of people's...

Hear ye, hear ye, it's time for a writer's roundtable! Scholars clarify their thinking about their narrative writing project by engaging in a fishbowl discussion about their plans. As members within the inner circle discuss the topic,...

All the tools (and directions) you’ll need  to build an essay are included in a resource designed for learners and educators. The packet can be given to class members or divided into sections and used as part of a series of lesson...

Should primary graders have their own computers? Should animals be kept in captivity? Young writers learn how to develop and support a claim in this short unit on persuasive writing.

Strengthen your high schoolers' writing with a series of steps for writing successfully. With sections on organizing an essay, choosing a topic, crafting a thesis statement, and revising a draft, the lesson encourages your class to...

"The Dinner Party" is the anchor text in a lesson designed to encourage writers to use sensory details in their stories. After brainstorming descriptive words and phrases for the five senses, class members read Mona Gardner's...

Plagiarism is the theft of intellectual property. To avoid this crime, class members learn how to create a works cited page and how to craft in-text citations. After examining a high-performance model paragraph and an example of a works...

The 11th resource in a 12-part poetry unit is a bonus lesson comprised of poems, activities, and resources that review the essential concepts of the unit.

Track instances of foreshadowing in any text with a straightforward graphic organizer. In one column, learners note down the events that happened, and in the other they list the clues that indicated that those events would happen. Some...

Get your writers started on their personal essay with a worksheet that gently guides them into formulating some ideas they might use. Strengths, weaknesses, major experiences, influential individuals, all offer something that can be a...

How have society's expectations influenced female writers? Pupils explore the topic by reading chapter three of Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own. Scholars complete a Quick Write to analyze how Judith Shakespeare's experiences...

This mini-lesson about informal letter writing is packed with a lot of information about writing a friendly letter. Class members begin by working in pairs to answer questions after reviewing letter models. Then, take part in a grand...

Give young scholars the opportunity to become stellar hand-writers as they trace and write the upper and lowercase letter Q. 

Give young writers a boost in tracing and writing upper and lowercase letters with a instructional activity featuring the letter R. 

After reading the first, second, and third parts of "How Bear Lost His Tail", third grade writers answer questions about the story by completing a series of options, including discussion points. Then, they begin to plan a new narrative...

Challenge young writers to craft original sentences using interjections from a list provided on a colorful activity.

Although the United States observes Daylight Savings Time, many countries decided against it. A free-response question, part of a set of sample questions from the 2010 AP® English Language and Composition exam, has writers consider the...

Have you ever felt left in the dark? Scholars write essays after analyzing two poems pertaining to night and darkness. Pupils also read a passage and write an essay discussing the author's depiction of characters. A third essay allows...

Scholars are challenged to create essays comparing two poems in which the authors discuss fears and concerns about dying and life passing by too quickly. Two other essay questions ask writers to analyze literary elements and characters...

If your students made a list of their favorite things, would writing poetry be on it? After this poetry writing lesson, it might! Young writers make a list of what they like—or what they don't like—before crafting the list into...

A lesson challenges scholars to create a cinquain poem. Writers begin by choosing a topic and brainstorm details, then compose their original poem making sure to count syllables.