Young scholars write letters to the editor. In this written communication instructional activity, students read sample letters to the editor and use the active voice to compose letters to the editor about issues in which they are...

Students explore American social movements. In this writing skills lesson plan, students read Orwell's "Politics and the English." Students then apply the rules for writing that are included in the piece. Students follow-up by completing...

Students write letters to the editor. In this written communication lesson, students read sample letters to the editor and use the active voice to compose letters to the editor about issues they are interested in.

Put together an English language arts unit on the six traits of writing with this helpful collection of resources. From fun songs to differentiated writing exercises reinforcing each of the traits, great ideas are provided for...

Home in on the quote on this page to explore setting, the author's and character's voices, and plot in Willa Cather's My Antonia. Pupils draw a picture of what is described in the quote, discuss the content, and make connections to their...

Do your young writers need a little help varying their sentence structure? Have them work on common errors, sentence fluency, and writing patterns with a series of language arts activities. The resource includes reading passages as well...

Use a presentation on dialogue tags in a narrative writing unit or a literature lesson. The first two pages of the resource detail the information and examples in the following slide show, making it a good reference page for your...

After watching West of the West's documentary The Lone Woman of San Nicolas Island, class members imagine how Juana Maria/Karana may have felt about living alone on the island for 18 years and craft a blackout poem or a narrative in...

Students, after being introduced to poetry in the language arts class, prepare to produce a product by identifying and writing a variety of different types of poetry. They utilize digital cameras, camcorders, computers and the multimedia...

Fifth graders write poetry using imagery and practice poetry presentation. In this poetry lesson, 5th graders listen as the teacher reads a humorous poem using different voice modulations and presentation techniques. They discuss the...

Students discuss the war in Iraq, Adam Michnik's essay "We, the Traitors," and the notion that we bear a collective responsibility to rise up against oppression, within a modern geo-political context. They each write a research report on...

Why did Vietnam POWs and their families receive more media attention than POWs in previous wars?  To answer this question, class members view artifacts, read articles, and engage in class discussion. Individuals then assume the...

Students write letters of complaint. In this written communication lesson, students use the active voice to compose letters of complaint to selected audiences. 

High schoolers complete a variety of discussion and writing activities that highlight the concepts of time and narrative voice of Benjy by iam Faulkner.

To celebrate National Poetry Month, young writers focus on the role letter writing has played in the development of poets. They begin by journaling three to five associations to a writing prompt that requires them to identify their...

Pupils walk through the process of writing essays for their final assessment of Unbroken. They begin by reviewing the rubric using Rubric Criteria strips that assign a portion of the rubric to each pair of learners. They then participate...

As part of their study of Things Fall Apart, class members conduct a close reading of a section of Chinua Achebe's essay, "An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness." Jigsaw groups then compare the voice in the essay...

The National Women's History Museum provides a plan designed to accompany their online CyberExhibit, Chinese American Women; a History of Resilience and Resistance. After examining a series of primary and secondary source documents,...

Sixth graders read the short story "Eleven". They write a narrative composition focusing on the use of voice. Students use a computer to create a pre-writing graphic organizer and type their final draft.

In this passive voice verb worksheet, they rewrite 5 sentence using a passive verbs, rewrite 4 sentences to maintain meaning, change 10 sentences to the passive form, and change 10 passive sentences into the active form.

Can your pupils change the world? Explore this question with Ben Harper's song "With My Own Two Hands" and John Mayer's "Waiting for the World to Change." After listening to the songs, they discuss the tools at their disposal for...

Young writers craft letters to the government stating their opinion on different topics. They pick an environmental or ocean issue, research it, and craft their formal persuasive letter. Ensure your learners include supporting facts and...

After reading Love That Dog by Sharon Creech (and possibly shedding a few tears), middle schoolers work on their own sixteen-word poems with a Six Trait writing activity. They focus on word choice in this activity to capture an...

Put your class in the shoes of someone - or something - else with this lesson, which encourages writers to keep a diary from the perspective of a living creature or an abstraction. Use Doreen Cronin's Diary of a Worm and the Six Trait...