Jump back into expository writing and analysis at the start of a new school year! Start with a review of an authors' stylistic choices in diction, syntax, treatment of subject matter, and figurative language. Writers choose a text to...

Practice expository and creative writing with your class. Pupils use magazines to find pictures, cut them out, and create a collage. This work of art is then used as a writing prompt. They describe the collage in either a creative or...

Inspire thoughtful journal entries with these detailed journal writing prompts. The resource includes 24 prompts that require learners to write expository, persuasive, and sometimes creative journal entires.

Elementary schoolers are charged with writing an article for their peers. A class discussion yields topics about which learners consider themselves to be an expert. The teacher models how to construct an article by using facts he or she...

Imagine four pages of writing prompts. Although designed specifically for eighth graders, the topics could be used for upper-elementary and high school writers as well.

Come up with a list of requirements for this expository essay on Esperanza's character in Esperanza Rising as a class and use the list to guide class writing. Here, learners will complete the first paragraph, discuss their notes for the...

As your class reaches the end of the book Bullfrog at Magnolia Circle, the seventh lesson in this literary unit helps third graders transition from reading narrative to expository writing. Scholars develop their note-taking skills...

Rome wasn't built in a day, but researchers can be with proper scaffolding. This writing unit has scholars write a research paper through scaffolding of various parts of the process. Learners begin with identifying a topic and crafting a...

In instructional activity 13 of this unit on colonial trade, young researchers learn about apprentices as they prepare to write help-wanted ads for the specific trade they have been researching. To begin, the class listens closely as the...

Whether preparing your second graders for an expository writing proficiency assessment or just planning on introducing the writing process, this 37-page packet is for you. The unit has everything you need from scripted lessons to...

After reading an excerpt from Amelia Earhart's autobiography, The Fun of It, learners explore various nonfiction resources about her life and write a short newspaper article on a specific event. They then develop a longer piece of...

How can you foster a thoughtful learning community for your class? First, the class brainstorms a list of behaviors that will help make the classroom a great place to learn. Then learners group similar ideas together and come up with...

Students, after reading Fahrenheit 451, brainstorm inventions that could have been in the novel. They present their invention to the class and writing an expository essay about their creation.

Scholars examine the first Thanksgiving through books and interviews while they complete a KWL chart. Pretending they are part of the feast, learners craft a scrapbook page that features images related to their experience. Pupils reflect...

Werner Herzog's film, Lessons of Darkness is the topic of this lesson on art, politics, and culture. Learners discuss the concepts of utopia, dystopia, detournment, and Scorched Earth then compose a paper which describes dystopian reality.

After reading "The Pied Piper of Hamelin," scholars discuss the emotions the events provoked in its characters. In pairs, writers compose a letter depending on the topic and style of their choice then reply to their own or a peer's...

Here is an excellent set of five short lessons and activities intended to help learners not only gain an understand of current issues in Africa, but build critical thinking, synthesis, analysis, expository writing, research, and...

The Renaissance is the theme of a five-week unit designed to boost reading comprehension, spelling, vocabulary, and expository writing skills. Scholars listen to and discuss daily readings and engage in skills practice activities...

Celebrate inventions such as lightning rods, bifocals, and stoves with a Ben Franklin Day. Young historians conduct research and write a paragraph about an accomplishment of Benjamin Franklin including an illustration...

Use the Internet, write an expository text, and have young scholars share their knowledge of the planets in our solar system. They compose an expository writing piece and publish it to a web page.

Consider various aspects of world hunger in this writing instructional activity. After taking a pre-test, middle and high schoolers play a map game, analyze and discuss world statistics, and write a report on an assigned country. The...

To conclude their study of Ethan Canin’s short story “The Palace Thief,” class members use their notes and annotations to craft an expository essay response to the prompt, "Analyze how the interactions between Hundert and the Bells...

Are you working on an autobiographical or narrative writing unit? Bring this instructional activity to your class, as it takes young writers through the process of drafting and sequencing an autobiography. After observing and...