As the unit on research writing draws to a close, class members continue to revise and edit their papers, this time focusing on grammar, spelling, and punctuation (colon and semicolon).

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "Letter from Birmingham Jail" serves as an exemplar for a mini-lesson on semicolons. Working alone or in small groups, class members first circle all the semicolons in the letter, and then consider how this...

High schoolers review the rules for correct usage of the comma and semicolon. Then, in groups, they complete worksheets, discuss answers, and reference grammar rules that support their usage of commas and semicolons.

Students get up close and personal with Black Bayou Lake. Visiting web sites and taking virtual tours, they write multi-paragraph essays using descriptive words and literary devices.

Fourth graders examine instructions for proofreading activities and develop strategies to use in proofreading. They find and correct errors in grammar, usage, and mechanics in different writing samples.

Students research burial tombs of ancient Egypt. Acting as pharaohs of Egypt, students create burial plans to decide what items they would include in their own tombs and why. They find another student to analyze their plan.

Fifth graders use context clues to help them understand unknown words. In this context clues lesson, 5th graders practice identifying context clues on a worksheet, then work with a peer to write their own story. Stories are peer edited...

Sixth graders get to know their classmates through 'personalized' sentences that feature one student each day, and offer practice in proofreading and peer-editing related to capitalization, punctuation, spelling, and/or grammar rules.

Eleventh graders read The Great Gatsby and explain the jazz age. They use jazz age terms to create their own short story, scene, or letter.

Students listen to and discuss various fables, and identify the moral and central themes. They write their own personal fables and create illustrations to go with them.

Pupils examine examples of poems and identify the prepositions in them. They write original poems using prepositional phrases and create illustrations to go with them.

Students create a one-page family newsletter about a selected person in their family. They bring in a photo or use a digital camera to take a picture of their selected family member, and use a newsletter template to write and publish...

Learners choose a subject for a biographical research paper. They use books, the Internet, encyclopedias and articles to gather information on a determined subject then follow a rubric to write a research paper.

Students create electronic storyboards for younger children about a nearby refuge and lake. After interviewing the younger students about their impressions of the lake, they use Powerpoint to make the storyboard, including the interview,...

Sixth graders create human sentences in this hands-on activity to practice using comas correctly when punctuating dates in sentences.

Young scholars write a five paragraph expository theme. They explain in their theme how the story they read qualifies as science fiction. Students write using all the conventions of English correctly.

This lesson focuses on the roles of all of the punctuation marks; it provides a video, small practices in various sections, and a punctuation self-check.