Curated OER
Character Traits and People in Black History
Third graders, after reading a one-page biographical essay, write in paragraph form how an African American has demonstrated a certain character trait.
Curated OER
Language Arts: Laws of Life
Students participate in the iEARN Project by completing a questionnaire about values and lessons they have learned. They read sample essays by other students in the project about their views on the laws of life. They then write and post...
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Free Enterprise System
What are the benefits of a having a free enterprise system. In groups, your young entrepreneurs create a new business concept and brochure, then work independently to write a brief essay on business freedoms. This a fun and motivating...
Virginia Department of Education
The Writing Process for Expository Writing
Struggling on what steps to take in your expository essay lesson plan? Or confused on what to include for your scribes? This exercise in the process of expository writing provides concepts and structure for the educator on what the...
Curated OER
The Class Garden Essay
Fifth graders use a class garden as inspiration for a specific writing assignment. They conduct research into different types of flowers in photo images taken with a digital camera. Students write a creative essay and draw a picture to...
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Geographically Speaking
Students play a matching game to reinforce the retention of vocabulary words. In this geography lesson, students watch a PowerPoint to define vocabulary words associated with geography, play a memory game with the words, and write an...
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Web It!
Looking for a way to bring prewriting into your informative writing unit? Use this lesson plan to reinforce writing skills in your eighth grade language arts class. Young writers use a web graphic organizer as a prewriting tool for...
Curated OER
It’s Your Birthday! – Conventions: Revision and Proofreading
Happy birthday! Celebrate everyone's birthday with this writing activity, which prompts seventh graders to research historical events in a country at the time of their birth to create an essay. Working in pairs, they proofread each...
Curated OER
Symbiotic Relationships
Seventh graders research types of symbiotic relationships on the Internet and explain what the effects would be in one of the species disappears. In this investigative activity students use the Internet to do research then participate...
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Benjamin Franklin: the Scientist / Inventor
In this Ben Franklin worksheet, students read a five paragraph text about the accomplishments of the famous inventor. Students answer two essay questions. Part of the worksheet appears to be missing as the questions are numbered #3 and #4.
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The Civil War Era
Fifth graders explore both the causes of and the actual events of the Civil War. They write essays and descriptive paragraphs and explore a variety of websites. They create a series of skits highlighting the key points of the Civil War era.
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U.S. And Global Deforestation
Students analyze graph showing global deforestation, view photograph of deforestation in Brazil's interior rain forest and examine three maps showing deforestation within the United States, describe political, economic, and social...
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Book of the Month - A Technology-Integrated Literacy Project
Students write a paragraph predicting what the book is about after viewing the front cover. They are given a copy of the Story Parts Maps, students are explained each story part. Students are explained that they most take notes on the...
Curated OER
Review of a Novel Project
This review of a novel project is a great way to ensure accountability for independent reading. The assignment sheet, templates, samples, and rubrics are all part of the packet materials.
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Graphic Writing Web
Students discuss and develop graphic writing webs, writing supporting ideas for a given topic.
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Using "Four-Square"
Third graders use a four-square graphic organizer to help a third grade writer organize thoughts and clarify thinking to write a simple expository paragraph, a workshop summary paragraph.
Orange County Department of Education
The Hero: Writing and Responding
Pupils identify heroic character traits that they admire and that inspire trust and result in service to others. They identify the heroic traits of a character of their choosing and defend their reasoning using evidence from the text and...
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East Meets West: Effects of the Crusades
Seventh graders investigate how the Crusades allowed for the spread of cultural practices, products and perspectives between Europe and the Middle East. This lesson contains a brainstorming activity for the pre-assessment, a graphic...
Curated OER
Rainbow Writing
Students examine how to use a rainbow picture as a graphic organizer through the use of color-coding. They produce a writing piece using this graphic organizer. They expand their writing from simple paragraphs to multi-paragraph stories.
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It's Your Birthday! Expository Writing Unit 2
Students create an expository essay. In this writing lesson Students are assigned a country and must conduct research surrounding a historic event that occurred in that country at the time of their birth.
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"How To Build A Snowman" Expository Writing
Fourth graders write a "how to..." or an expository essay on building a snowman. They practice giving directions by explaining how to draw a person using shapes without mentioning that it's a person being drawn. They revise through the...
Curated OER
Developing Student Web Pages for Showcasing Research
Students employ information literacy skills to research topics. They develop topics using a graphic organizer. They draft, revise and edit research projects. They write an expository essay. They create a web page in Microsoft Publisher.
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Greek culture and Aesop's Fables
Tenth graders explain political and social thought during the Greek 6th and 5th centuries B.C. They research five to eight fables, figuring out the moral for each and writing an essay on how Aesop influenced the morals and ideals of...
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Rubric Rating
Learners develop a rubric or scoring guide to assess newpaper articles. They rate the story and write the reasons for the rating. An Essay Scoring Guide is attached for reference.