If you could build your own world from the ground up, what would you include? Ask your pupils this question, and have them write about their worlds and share with partners. Then, show the short film, which includes some impressive world...

Give your class a tour of London! Before you get started, pupils can brainstorm what they do and do not know about the city and discuss how they think it may have changed over the years. The provided video shows footage from London in...

Add many seconds of beauty to your class with a short film and related project. The resource centers around a competition based on one-second segments of film, and the final compilation that came from the contest. Pupils identify moments...

Much of Robinson Jeffers' poetry is grounded in place. Read three poems with your class ("Carmel Point," "Bixby's Landing," and "Hands") and examine the locations described and language used in the poems. Pupils locate the locations on a...

There is more to descriptive writing that just adjectives. Try out this model to help your writers develop their work. The presentation is designed for teachers and provides student writing samples as well as an exercise to practice...

Help young scientists connect with nature and learn about trees with a fun life science lesson. Heading out into the school yard, children choose a tree to adopt, taking measurements, writing descriptions, and drawing sketches of it in...

You don't have to travel far to learn about rocks, just step outside, pick up a stone, and begin investigating. After taking a class walk around the school grounds collecting rocks, young scientists practice their skills of observation...

Writers tap into the five senses to write excellent descriptions. Learners can fill out this organizer as they prepare to write a paragraph, or after reading one. They first consider subject, purpose, and audience, and then note down...

Teaching young learners about similes is easy as pie with this primary grade language arts lesson. Following a class reading of the children's book, Quick as a Cricket by Audrey Wood, young readers learn the definition of a simile as...

The best stories ever written are those with characters that come to life. The fifth lesson of this narrative writing series teaches young writers how thoughts, feelings, actions, and dialogue add depth to characters. Pause the video at...

Dialogue really brings a story to life and can reveal a lot about its characters, plot, and setting. Explore how this literary technique is used to engage an audience as young writers begin drafting their narrative response to The Story...

Here is a lesson that incorporates music writing, and reading literature. The class reads chapter eight from the C.S. Lewis classic The Magician's Nephew. Then, just like in the story, they use music as inspiration to create (write)...

Pupils can apply the information about characterization on the first page of this resource to the assignment on the second page. Seven tactics for developing characters are detailed and put to practice. Writers choose from a short list...

Setting can affect a story greatly, so it pays off to engage your pupils in writing different types of settings. This resource provides information about the varying functions of setting. Writers choose a boring description from a short...

Help your learners discover a variety of adjectives. After reading a passage as a class, small groups find every adjective and adverb in that passage. Once that task is complete, each group uses a thesaurus to find a synonym for every...

A brief activity on the effect of adjectives in advertising, the lesson provided here could work well as an introduction to persuasion. After a review on types of adjectives, pairs examine menus from local restaurants, marking down...

Improve your youngsters' descriptive writing. They study an object and write about what they see as a warm-up, then they read an excerpt from Paul Guest's memoir, One More Theory about Happiness. The next part of the activity prompts...

Set your class up for success with writing descriptive settings with these two graphic organizers. On the first page, writers note specifc details about their chosen setting and comment on how each character views the setting. The second...

Banish clichés from descriptive writing! Class members listen to and identify the overused phrases in the presentation. An activity is proposed, and a sample poem full of clichés ends the show. Some of the sound effects are distracting,...

This handout may be a useful reference tool for young writers as they work to draft all style of paragraphs. Although this resource is not interactive, nor does it provide any specific skills practice, it does provide a good descprition...

Painting is the inspiration for this presentation on descriptive writing. Promote the use of descriptive adjectives, adverbs, and verbs and show your class the definitions and examples included in this PowerPoint. Give the brief quiz at...

Students determine which animal best represents them write reasons why. This is a nice culminating lesson for students who have been working on descriptive writing.

Students develop "Fear Factor" stunts using descriptive language. In this writing lesson, students watch clips from the show "Fear Factor" and develop their own stunts. Students write and explain the stunts in vivid language.

Students write descriptive paragraphs using adjectives based on the use of their five senses. They use sensory impressions to improve their writing.