Other
Reading Quest: Making Sense of Social Studies
Teaching students to read well in areas other than language arts requires teaching and reinforcing the kinds of reading strategies taught here. There are 27 strategies, ranging from brainstorming to word mapping. The site includes PDF...
SUNY Empire State College
Empire State College: Developing Ideas for Writing
Explains nine methods for developing ideas for writing, including freewriting, brainstorming, clustering/mapping, maintaining a personal journal, responding to a text, maintaining a response journal, responding to a specific assignment,...
Other
Mind Maps
This page includes useful background information about Mind Mapping, as well as a video explanation of it by Tony Buzan. Additional resources are provided as well.
Scholastic
Scholastic: Write It: Memoir
Write It Memoir offers a complete writing workshop to develop your personal story. Search your memory through the brainstorming activities to launch your piece. Draft a map of the memories along with reading other models. As the process...
Better Lesson
Better Lesson: Let's Write About the American Flag
Students will brainstorm adjectives to describe the American Flag and will write two descriptive sentences for homework. Students will also create star art to accompany their writing to show the relationship between words and pictures...
PBS
Pbs Teachers: Story Writing With Arthur
This series of 12 downloadable activities teach students some basics of story writing, using books or videos from the PBS "Arthur" series as a springboard. Activities include creating story maps, asking questions about characters and...
Other
Brain dance.com: Three Step Creative Writing Process
This process seems very involved, but there are good ideas for getting started on your creative writing if you're stuck at the brainstorming stage.
Other
Art Junction: Art Sparkers
Ideas to jump-start imaginations and inspire creative work related to personal understanding and discovery. Ideas include instructions for creating family portraits, community maps, storm scenes, and similar multidisciplinary artworks.
Other
Kim's Korner: Graphic Organizers for Writing and Reading
What are graphic organizers for reading and writing? Use this site to learn more about these learning tools.
Other
Write Design: Graphic Organizers
This site explores what graphic organizers are and why they are such valuable instructional tools. Five main types of organizers are addressed: webs, charts, trees, chains, and sketches.