Discover the impact and importance of data releases about current economic conditions in the United States. Your class members will learn about data revision and the GDP, and how these figures can alter people's views on the economy.

What's the difference between summarizing and paraphrasing? Show class members how to find the main ideas from informational text and condense it, restate it, or quote it directly with a series of educational activities based...

Use photographs to trigger memories. Writers use a personal photograph as a starting point for an autobiographical writing exercise. They complete brainstorming activities that have them study their photograph before actually putting pen...

Examine conflicting viewpoints in this lesson, in which middle schoolers write their own proposal for including a Bill of Rights in the Constitution. As a class, they discover how the Bill of Rights was not a planned document to be...

How does one use a graphic organizer to plan writing? Introduce your writers to different types of graphic organizers by dividing the class into groups and assigning each group a particular organizer. Then, as they research chocolate...

Class groups are challenged to solve the school’s parking problem. Each team must establish ground rules for their discussion, determine criteria that must be met, and brainstorm possible solutions. Next, they agree on one solution and...

Persuade your writers that crafting arguments is not that difficult. They only need to follow the steps outlined in this resource.

Students, after brainstorming possible problem solving activities, choose from one of the many and write what the problem is and a solution to solve it.

Personal narrative writing is usually a favorite form of writing for youngsters because they get to write about a personal experience. The lesson here asks pupils to take a piece of narrative writing and improve it by following...

After reading and discussing several personal narratives written by women in the 1920's, class members write a personal narrative of their own about a time in their lives they felt controlled. Sample narratives can be accessed through...

Need a template for a narrative peer editing worksheet? Reviewers use this worksheet to record their responses to a classmate’s story, commenting on the effectiveness of the story’s introduction, conflict, character development, etc.

Young scholars conduct interviews and write about the interview. The information from these interviews is used to create a webpage on Netscape Composer. Students cite Internet sources for any images downloaded from the web. Young...

Young scholars write a news feature about the changes of the SAT and how students can best cope with them. Young scholars respond to several questions addressing the new SAT. Students research about the changes in the test, and young...

In this parallel structure activity, learners read about parallel structure within sentences and between sentences, then complete a practice sheet of exercising, rewriting sentences. An answer key is given.

Ask your learners this question as a quickwrite: why do you write? This prompt can begin a unit on writing and open up a dialogue about the motivations writers have. Tap into your scholars' reasons for writing and make the activity more...

Students clearly identify commonalities and differences between dance and other disciplines with regard to fundamental concepts such as materials, elements, and ways of communicating meaning.

Students select a cartoon to present to the class. They study it for a few minutes, write a list of questions about the cartoon. Students answer each others' questions and change the questions to declarative statements which are used as...

Work on using transition words in context by prompting elementary and middle schoolers to write their own persuasive essays using transition words. They explore new forms of transition words and examine how they are used in an editorial...

In this sea turtle alphabet activity activity, students examine the 9 words pertaining to sea turtles and list them in alphabetical order on the lines provided.

Encourage your writers to use sob instead of cry loudly to trade in adverbs for strong verbs. Improve your middle and high schoolers' writing with this humorously written lesson plan which demonstrates how to remove excessive adverbs. 

A standard peer editing activity, young writers get into groups and pass their papers to each of their peers in turn; each person checking their peer's paper for spelling, punctuation, and grammar mistakes. In a fun twist, your class...

Supplement instruction on sentence patterns and types by providing this reference sheet for your class members. Included on this page are definitions of many different sentence patterns and an example of each. A useful item for pupils to...

Students engage in the various steps involved in the writing process. The lesson plan is written as a guide for the teacher to write more in depth lesson plans for specific activities. This is a good model plan to follow.