Curated OER
Writing: Stamp of Approval
Students write a good title and edit their essay. In this writing lesson, students examine several examples of good titles and discuss what makes them effective. Students relate this to the sign on a building and discuss ways...
National Park Service
Petrified Forest National Park
Poetry Soup, a reading and writing unit constructed by the Petrified Forest National Park, will have scholars hungry to learn about nature. The cross-content unit contains topics related to history, science, and language arts. Content...
Curated OER
Expanding Journal Writing Entries For Beginning Writers
First graders through a variety of strategies assess how to write in journals openly and effectively. Those strategies include integration of technology, story telling, group and team work, performance-based assessment/rubrics, visual...
Curated OER
Marvelous Mysteries
Fifth graders explore mystery stories. In this reading and writing lesson, 5th graders complete a planning guide for an original mystery. Students use the writing process to create a mystery story.
Curated OER
The Mail Race
Students create friendly letters and surveys to other schools. In this letter writing lesson, students format friendly letters to other school and request a reply. Students chart the replies on a map and share information from the...
Curated OER
Editing to Eliminate Fragments
Learners practice their writing skills. In this writing revision lesson, students read the provided writing samples and make corrections to the sentence fragments that are evident in each of them.
Curated OER
Writing a Personal Narrative
Students learn characteristics of an effective personal narrative. In this personal narrative instructional activity, students discover ways to show rather than tell, adding richness and detail to their writing. Students...
Curated OER
Cattle Drive
Students explore cattle drives. In this United States history and letter writing lesson, students write a letter to their family predicting possible problems that were encountered by participants in cattle drives. Students design brands,...
Curated OER
Journal Writing Idea - Pets
Carve out some time for your youngsters to write in their journal. Today, they write a story about pets. They learn the value of a journal and how to keep up with it, and they enhance story development by planning their story before...
Clark County School District
Owl Moon by Jane Yolen
A thorough lesson plan takes your first grade class through Jane Yolen's beautiful Owl Moon. It crafts the unit with clear objectives, high-level guiding questions, cloze activities and sentence frames, and extension...
MENSA Education & Research Foundation
It’s Greek to Me: Greek Mythology
It's no myth: this packet on Greek mythology is an excellent addition to your social studies curriculum. With writing activities, such as short answer responses and biopoems, and reading activities, which include creation stories and...
Trinity University
I Didn’t Know that was Poetry
Poetry or prose? That is the question facing middle schoolers as they begin a month-long poetry unit by examining the characteristics that differentiate poetry and prose writing. Pupils learn about poetic devices and different types of...
Curated OER
Exploring Descriptive Language With Different Parts of Speech
Students practice experiencing writing with appropriate language and incorporating the eight parts of speech. They assess that many words have multiple functions when used in different contexts. Each student free writes in response to a...
Curated OER
Writing Strategies: Descriptive Words
Students discover the importance of using descriptive words in good writing. They brainstorm words to describe elephants and dogs then watch a video that describes different items. Each student writes a paragraph using descriptive words...
Curated OER
Writing with Writers
Pupils participate in Writing with Writer's, a step-by-step set of directions aimed at improving different genres of student writing. They identify the characteristics of different genres and follow a specified writing process to produce...
Curated OER
Zooming In, Zooming Out
Students develop their writing skills. In this writing lesson, students play a word game to help them formulate a plan to write descriptions of people or objects using descriptive words.
Curated OER
Reflecting/Writing after a field trip or other experience
Young scholars reflect on field trips in writing. For this journal writing lesson, students write about a recent experience by using 4 of their senses to tell what they remember. They turn these into poetry.
Curated OER
Describing Characters - Cloud Grows
Students complete descriptive writing about the appearance and actions of a horse. In this descriptive writing lesson, students use the 'Cloud Grows Character' to chart the horse as they watch videos of his growth stages. Students also...
BBC
Starship English and Math - Online Lesson Plans
Two online lessons, one in math and one in language arts, are here for you. In them, learners play online games which reinforce important skills in literacy and numeracy. The thing I like about both of these lessons is that they get the...
EngageNY
Summarizing Notes: Planning a Graphic Novelette Part 1: The Invention of Television
What's the story? Learners create the first of four storyboards about the invention of the television, incorporating narrative techniques and descriptive details. Next, they offer and receive feedback by participating in a peer critique...
Curated OER
Global Warming: Writing and Editing a Research Report
Bring environmental issues into your classroom! Practice writing and peer editing research reports on global warming and the greenhouse effect. Middle schoolers can work on their research skills, their writing skills, and how to...
Curated OER
Our Poetic Planet - Writing Poems about the Earth
As a way to combine language arts and science, try this lesson on writing cloud poetry. Begin by showing a PowerPoint presentation and images of cloud types. Take meteorology masters outdoors to explore the sky using the provided "Cloud...
National Park Service
The Poet's Toolbox
If you need a lesson for your poetry unit, use two poems by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow ("Rain in Summer" and "The Slave in the Dismal Swamp") and a resource on Elements of Poetry. The lesson plan guides you through activities...
Ohio Literacy Resource Center
Arguing with Aristotle Ethos, Pathos, Logos
Introduce your classes to the Art of Rhetoric with a lesson that focuses on Aristotle's persuasive appeals and how they have been used, both ethically and unethically, to influence opinion.