Is history "little more than a relic," as one of the characters in "The Palace Thief" contends? Has Hundert's love of antiquity kept him from changing with the times? Readers consider how the author uses these conflicting views to...

Whether the planks hide the beating of a hideous heart or they break away to the madness beneath, their presence makes itself known in the final instructional activity of a literary analysis unit. Having gathered textual evidence from...

Rid yourself of unsupported analytic writing forever with a mid-unit assessment focused on Edgar Allan Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart." As ninth graders formulate an essay based on evidence from the first seven lessons in the unit, they...

Ninth graders demonstrate their understanding of a central idea in Oedipus the King with a mid-unit writing assessment. Writers formulate a claim about the connection between prophecy and Oedipus's actions and craft an in-class essay...

Class members examine examples that model how to develop and maintain a formal style and an objective tone in informative/explanatory writing. They also engage in a peer review activity and revise their work based on the feedback.

The eighth lesson in the editing process focuses on flow and cohesiveness in the entire research paper. Class members examine color-coded pre- and post-revision model paragraphs and then work in pairs to revise and peer-review their papers.

Writers review the provided essay rubric, edit and rewrite if necessary, polish their work, and then submit their argument essay.

As writers continue to revise their argument essays, the focus shifts to editing grammatical conventions, parallel structure, and varying syntax to add interest. After examining model sentences that demonstrate sentence variety, writers...

Who bears the most responsibility for ensuring that goods are ethically produced? Using evidence drawn from Sugar Changed the World: A Story of Magic, Spice, Slavery, Freedom, and Science, the unit's central text, and from the...

Preparation is the key to success. With the help of an informative resource, scholars complete a writing improvement tracker to identify their writing strengths and challenges. They also meet with partners to plan an argumentative essay...

Students examine several narratives exploring attitudes to World War II involvement at the time. They develop their own opinions and write a fictional personal narrative to record their observations.

Students draft and edit a letter regarding human rights. They work in groups to select a cause, follow basic letter writing guidelines and draft a persuasive letter expressing their concerns. Students can also send the letters to a...

Students revise a recent draft of writing to make the content more specific. They trace their hands on a large sheet of paper. Students, in the palms of their traced hand print, write in the general topic of the writing draft. On the...

In this question response worksheet, students respond to a question about their favorite food. They tell what their favorite food is and why. They read an example answer, write a rough draft, and a final draft of their answer.

Students explore storytelling by conceptualizing a story with classmates. In this publishing lesson, students identify the idea development process and discuss word choice when writing a story. Students utilize a graphic organizer to...

In this writing template learning exercise, students write a rough and final draft of their paragraphs on the lines provided. No writing prompt is given. Grading rubric is present on final draft template.

Third graders have fun using descriptive words in an expository format to describe a food that they hate. They utilize a planning worksheet that's imbedded in this plan before they begin their drafts.

Students create a collage from magazines, and the internet that is reflective of themselves and write a friendly letter via email to a pen pal. They take their letters through the writing process and write their final draft on Microsoft...

Twelfth graders are introduced to and produce several types of technical writing. They watch a crime video and write a police report, explore websites and draft summary sentences, write a personal vision quest based on "Siddhartha" and...

Students brainstorm adjectives that describe people, discuss different ways of comparing and/or finding contrast in describing a person, and write drafts of their descriptions.

Students browse through and take notes from the "How Stuff Works" website and choose a topic to describe in writing. They draft a summary of the text and present their writing for feedback. They revise their writing based on feedback given.

Students examine the motivating factors that prompted Lincoln to draft the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863. They examine Lincoln's social and political beliefs, particularly as they pertained to slavery and race in the United States.

Students read and discuss the Declaration of Independence and the Declaration of Sentiments. They discuss how the rights of the colonists and women were being violated. Students write about their own personal rights and how their rights...

Students create greeting cards. They listen to verses from various cards and evaluate each one. They research websites of greeting card makers and complete a chart. They discuss themes and ideas in greeting cards and edit their free...