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,...

Academics take turns as actors in an engaging poetry cafe. Elementary learners work in small groups to create original poems or stories addressing community issues and read their work in front of a live audience. Scholars also reflect...

Explore the folklore of Asia and the South Pacific with this language arts lesson series. Complementing a reading of Catching the Sun: Tales from Asia by Jan M. Mike, this resource supports learners with understanding cause and...

Class members discuss Chapter 13 of The Autobiography of Malcolm X and use evidence from their character development worksheet to support an analysis of how Malcolm X and attitudes toward him and his teachings are changing.

Make your classroom into a place of kindness and compassion with E.B White's Charlotte's Web. The first four pages of the lesson plan guide you through several steps and projects, including discussions on Charlotte and Wilbur's...

Second graders discuss what antonyms are and read the book, Quick as a Cricket.  In this antonym lesson, 2nd graders write a short story by describing themselves. 

Learners add details to their narratives. In this narrative writing lesson, students look at a simple four sentence narrative and add adjectives and adverbs to make it more descriptive. They do this activity whole class, in partners and...

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...

High schoolers compose business letters. In this writing skills lesson, students use the business letter format as they note cause and effect relationships between the weight epidemic in the United States and changing menus in American...

Students read the story I Know a Lady by Charlotte Zolotow. They discuss the details from the story. Students draw an illustration of what they expect their Thanksgiving dinner table will look like. They list details that describe their...

Decimals are quite often confusing for young mathematicians. Pupils engage in three activities: writing decimal names, understanding place value, and comparing decimals to thousandths. At the end of the lesson, there is a motivating game...

Talk about technology in the classroom. This plan has all the resources needed to create a non-linear or branching story. Included is a step-by-step tutorial that walks middle schoolers through the project description, a model of a...

Foster community in your classroom and encourage learners to get up and get to know each other. Individuals each receive the classmate inventory handout included and use it to fill in information about their fellow scholars. Once they...

Students examine a reading selection. In this descriptive writing lesson, students read an excerpt from "Hello! Anybody Out There?". Students discuss the idea of aliens living on other planets, describe what they think an alien looks...

Students discover the art of writing letters. In this writing lesson, students read letters written by President Harry Truman and then write a series of their own letters that would give insight into the times in which they live.

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.

After listening to the opening description in Of Mice and Men, high schoolers try their hand at writing a short story that includes a mugging. The story should include all five senses. Each of the pupils reads their opening paragraph to...

Introduce your class to the narrative, descriptive and expository forms of writing. In groups, they discuss the personality of the author while graphing the characteristics after reading different examples from the same writer. To end...

Eighth graders are introduced to authors in the conservation community. As a class, they describe a personal experience they have had with nature. They identify examples of an author's descriptive writing techniques and answer questions...

Beyond Paul Bunyan and his blue ox, tall tales can be a great way to teach young writers about word choice and voice in their writing. Using Jerry Spinelli's Maniac Magee  and the Six-Trait Writing process, they begin to write...

Readers write a formal letter to an author offering an alternative ending to a story the author has written. First, the class reads a story or novel. Upon finishing the reading, they are introduced to the format of a formal letter. They...

Explore fantasy as a genre. After working in small groups to identify literary elements in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis, class members share their work and then use the presentations to help them prepare to write...

Students practice descriptive writing. In this unique writing lesson, students hear a story about a mitten. Then three grade levels come together to first, create a mitten on KidPix; second, describe the designed mitten; and third, try...