After identifying the parts of a persuasive piece of writing, young writers explore different prewriting activities for the persuasive essay. They have the option to write a news article, personal narrative, or persuasive essay to...

Mean girls and bully packs are favorite topic for films and TV shows that focus on the destructive power of cliques. High school freshmen are asked to reflect on both the positive and negative aspects of cliques by reading a short...

The brother-sister pair Carlos and Clarita need your class's help in developing their new pet sitting business. Through a variety of scenarios and concerns presented to the siblings, the learners thoroughly explore systems of equations...

Many regard John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath as the great American novel. The lesson plan combines a variety of strategies, including partner work, independent practice, creative writing, grammar instruction, and small group...

Difficulties with brain injuries still continue today. After reading Phineas Gage: A Gruesome but True Story About Brain Science, class members read a series of modern personal essays about brain injuries and choose an essay to compare...

Extend learning through summer with these activity ideas! Individuals can choose one or all nine of the activities, which range from a summer reading goal to an examination of local insects (with accompanying story prompt). See the...

A child lawyer is exactly what people need ... not! With the novel study for John Grisham's Theodore Boone: Kid Lawyer, pupils use their imaginations to create their own examples of sarcasm. They also research a chosen famous lawyer and...

How do novels differ from plays? Explore with your class the text features of fiction and drama by reading The Hidden One: Native American Legend and then performing a reader’s theater script based on the story. Class members create a...

Track the progress of your fourth graders' reading and writing skills with this practice Common Core assessment. Based on a collection of six reading passages that include narrative stories, poetry, and a series of...

Check in on the development of your fifth graders' reading and writing skills with this Common Core-designed assessment. Given a series of six reading passages ranging from narrative stories to informational texts, young...

Pupils create stories with better structure when they are able to focus on its characters, setting, and plot. Teacher creates settings, character, and problem cartons with information written on strips of paper.

Third graders explore a variety of ways to represent text. They represent text in story maps while on the playground. Students depict the elements of a story on a story map. They create a poster for character, setting, problem, and the...

Students examine story writing. In this writing lesson, students discuss the structure of a story and create a story using suspense and character description with dialogue.

Ninth graders listen to a read aloud of two short stories focusing on literary devices. The write about the settings and realism of the stories, and decide each main character handles the conflict he faces with nature.

Students explore language arts by completing a graphic organizer in class. In this story structure lesson, students read the poem "Sick" by Shel Silverstein and discuss the different elements in the piece which make it an effective...

Fifth graders use text to identify the elements of a story. They compare and contrast the elements and explain them to the class. They discover why each element is needed to make a good story.

Students read a short selection of a story individually or as a class. On their own, they create a story pyramid for the selection and write a one page summary. They use text from the story for their supporting details. To end the...

Students review the story writing process and the elements such as prewriting, drafting, editing, revising, publishing, and assessment. Next students write a science fiction story that contains a title, the requested number of...

Students examine short stories to determine how clues are planted in story stories of the mystery genre. They look at how Edgar Allan Poe planted clues in "The Purloined Letter." They write an original short story in which they plant...

Ninth graders examine a character from the short story, John Steinbeck's, "Flight." students respond to questions about the story and illustrate the character's journey.

These questions are designed to accompany Ray Bradbury's "A Sound of Thunder," and could be used to guide and focus readers or as an assessment of reading skill and knowledge of the elements of a story. Page one focuses on questions of...

Introduce your class to drama! You cast each pupil as a different character from a story you have read. They are given a general outline of the scene, act out the scene multiple times, then discuss the weak and strong aspects of each...

Young readers compare two stories/cultures, identifying how they are alike and different. They share their own version of a well-known story and adapt it to another culture. They explain their adaptations.

What are the characteristics of a good piece of writing? What makes a story interesting? Give your pupils a chance to define the qualities of good novels and what they see as the qualities of bad novels. Class members record these...