Curated OER
Same Setting, Different Moods: Voice and Word Choice Using Lord of the Flies
Whether it's dark, delightful, or somber, set the mood with William Golding's Lord of the Flies. High-schoolers practice descriptive writing by creating the appropriate mood for an original scene, starring one of the book's main...
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Lesson Plan 8: Setting and Mood
What mood does this story evoke? How are setting and mood linked? Young novelists explore the different emotions brought about by writing, starting by journaling things that inspire their own feelings. Examine the word mood, looking into...
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A Hurricane Blowing In
Students write a scene. For this creative writing lesson, students read The Lightning Thief and discuss the sentence fluency and word choice in the writing. Students complete a writing assignment where they create an...
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With Your Own Two Hands: Are You Changing the World or "Waiting for the World to Change"?
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...
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Poetry Passport
Passport photos are notoriously unflattering but here's an activity that encourages youngsters to create a poetic picture of themselves using each category on the passport as a prompt for a poem.
Pace University
Short Stories
A reading of Kevin Lamb's short story "Lost in the Woods" launches a study of how writers use elements such as foreshadowing, mood, character development, setting, and conflict to engage readers. Class members then demonstrate what they...
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Character Impressions
Whether you are planning a unit on F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, or simply want to improve your pupils' descriptive writing, this lesson could be a good addition to your class. Using the Six-Trait Writing process, pupils...
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Color My World Grey and Blue
Can colors help to convey a mood in writing? Explore this question with your class using the songs "Grey Street" by the Dave Matthews Band and "Blu is a Mood" by Blu Cantrell. After analyzing the effect of the color words in these songs...
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Is Perception Reality? Writing Paradoxes in Poetry
Explore the paradox of the universe - or, at least, of popular music - with this lesson. Using the songs "Inaudible Melodies" by Jack Johnson and "She" by Green Day, your class will complete a graphic organizer to help them understand...
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Mad-Libbing Your Way Into Modern Poetry
Use a Mad-Libs like activity to create modern poetry! Writers will identify different words and their parts of speech and study "The Red Wheelbarrow" by Williams Carlos Williams. Then, use the sheets attached to craft your own poem! An...
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Scripting The Great Train Robbery
Take writing prompts to another level in this activity, which allows pupils to create scenes of dialogue based on the 1903 silent film, The Great Train Robbery. Useful for a language arts/history cross-curricular activity, the...
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It Was a Dark and Stormy Night
Using Alpha Smarts, 3rd graders write a "Story-in-the-Round". The end result of this project is one story for every student in the class that has been written by the entire class. Students create a PowerPoint presentation with a...
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Reading and Activity Suggestions for The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Middle schoolers learn about characterization techniques in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. In this Adventures of Tom Sawyerlesson, students write a description of one character through the eyes of another character and identify...
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Unit Plan for Mark Twain and American Humor
Students create brochures about the humor of Mark Twain. In this literature-analysis lesson plan, students read "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" and other short stories by Twain. Students write analytical paragraphs and...
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1984 by George Orwell
Readers of Nineteen Eighty-Four engage in a close reading exercise that directs their focus to the key details Orwell provides in the opening paragraphs to introduce his dystopian society. The included worksheeet is divided into three...
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China: Dim Sum: Writer's Workshop Mini Lesson: Dominant Impression: Writing a Descriptive Paragraph Lesson
Students write and illustrate a descriptive paragraph entitled "My Favorite Place" highlighting a dominate impression or dominant feeling in their paragraph.
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"Dr. Xargle's Book of Earthlets"
Young scholars examine the expressive and descriptive language used in the books "Dr. Xargle's Book of Earthlets" and "Planet of the Robots." In pairs they take notes about each other's physical appearance and conduct interviews,...
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Fall Similes and Metaphors
Students interpret what a similies and metaphors are. They give examples of similies and metaphors. Pupils write different similies and metaphors using fall or autumn descriptive words. Students base their comparisons on facts, once they...
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What is Drawing?
Students examine different types of drawings. In this art lesson, students experiment with different tools for drawing and view many examples of what can be created with each type of tool. Students also experiment with how certain words...
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Bud, Not Buddy: Guided Imagery Exercise
Develop readers’ awareness of the visual power of language with a guided imagery exercise. Set the stage and create the mood with dim lights, soft music and potpourri. Then read the provided section of Bud, Not Buddy. Next, invite...
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Perceiving Place
Learners observe how color creates the mood of a place, and generate sketches and drawings that capture their observations.
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Lesson 8: Settings that Reinforce Characters
The best way to be a good writer is to read good writing. Learners read and discuss an excerpt from a book that will help them comprehend the relationship between setting and character. They will use what they've gleaned from discussion...
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Flying Freudian Fun: A Look At Ethical Decision Making
There are not many more apt examples of ethics gone awry than William Golding's Lord of the Flies.. Ninth graders focus the ethics of decision making with the examples provided in the plot. They focus on the...
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Half Man, Half Limping Rabbit
Read your class a folk tale from Romania then discuss it. As they listen they discover how the author sets the mood using English conventions such as foreshadowing, magical elements, and they look for descriptive language while looking...