Curated OER
Foreshadowing and Making Predictions
"What happens next?" Using real-life scenarios, movies, images, and other prompts, pupils practice making predictions based on inferences from clues. A SMART board activity takes them from making predictions to writing a prediction...
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Encouraging Students to Embrace Their Inner Author
Everyone is a writer! Youngsters compose an original piece of writing. In this writing lesson plan, they come up with their own idea for a piece of writing, revise it, and then publish it with illustrations. This lesson plan includes...
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Visualizing While Listening
First graders practice visualization. In this reading and listening comprehension strategy visualization lesson, 1st graders close their eyes and listen to the teacher describe a familiar place, then draw what they visualized in their...
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Mood
Young scholars learn how to distinguish between the mood of a piece of writing (how the work makes the reader feel) and the tone (the writer's attitude toward the material) in the sixth instructional activity in a poetry unit. After...
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Using Descriptive Words
Second graders focus on how descriptive words help them see, feel, and hear a story better. They listen to a read aloud of Angela Johnson's, "The Leaving Morning," while giving a thumbs up signal each time they hear a "sense or how"...
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Blogging
A fun, modern twist on journaling! Instead of responding to prompts in their composition notebook, writers use the Internet to complete blog entries. A sample blog (with prompts) is shown here, and writers are assessed on conventions and...
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Descriptive Writing Using the Book Rumpelstiltskin
Use the fairy tale Rumpelstiltskin to teach your third grade class about descriptive writing. Following a teacher read-aloud of the story, the class brainstorms a list of adjectives describing the main character. Students use this list...
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Making Real-Life Connections and Introducing Expository Text
Third graders write directions. In this real-life connections instructional activity, 3rd graders write the steps for making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. After writing, students share their papers and actually make the sandwiches...
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Informative Essay Writing
High schoolers start by drawing Mr. Essay Man, who is supposed to illustrate the different parts of an essay. After discussing what each component should contain, writers start their essay, guided by the teacher and class discussion....
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Persuade Me, Please! Reading a Persuasive Essay and Liking It!
Persuade your writers that crafting arguments is not that difficult. They only need to follow the steps outlined in this resource.
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The Memory Invention
Young writers edit their writing to make sure it shows good meaning and clarity. In this writing instructional activity, learners are given a variety of "What If?" scenarios to choose from as writing prompts. A class discussion ensues,...
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Web It!
Looking for a way to bring prewriting into your informative writing unit? Use this lesson to reinforce writing skills in your eighth grade language arts class. Young writers use a web graphic organizer as a prewriting tool for expository...
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Lesson Plan 2: Good Novel, Bad Novel
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...
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Grab Your Reader: Great Leads
Get your readers' attention with this Six Traits of Writing lesson plan. First, young writers draft ideas in an organized manner utilizing words, sentences, and multiple paragraphs. They also use voice to fit the purpose and audience and...
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Eliminate Weak Verb-Adverb Combinations
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 activity which demonstrates how to remove excessive adverbs.
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Learning Grammar Through Wordplay
Students use wordplay to investigate the grammatical components of a sentence. They read a New York Times article by analyzing the writer's use of nouns and verbs in the article and then constructing original sentences using those words...
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What Does Time Have to Do with it?
Students investigate time. In this investigative lesson, students run through an obstacle course using standard timers. They record the time and apply this knowledge to problems in math. Students record their predictions, and graph...
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Getting Ready to Write
Students watch an online slideshow that shows Cornelia Funke's transition from an illustrator to a writer. They discuss her writing process from the way she gathers ideas to how and where she writes. Next, they work in groups to choose a...
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The Desert is Theirs: Adapting to Our Environment
Students determine how animals and people adapt to the desert environment. In this desert lesson, students review vocabulary about the desert and how humans have to make changes to accommodate their environments. They listen to and...
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Final Topic Selection
Read The Quicksand Book by Tomie dePaola while taking notes about the story. Perform a read-aloud, and work your way through the text with your youngsters. With this plan, learners also write about ideas from a previous day, and detail...
Manchester University
Veteran’s Day
Before honoring courageous veterans, get to know more about who they are and why November 11th is a special day. Scholars obtain such information through a read aloud of Eve Bunting's The Wall, grand conversation, and letter writing...
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Make a Travel Folder
Students select a place in the United States they would like to visit. Then, they need to do some research about the area. After that, they write a travel folder about the place they selected.
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Acting Out as we Go
Fourth graders use motor imaging to remember the definitions of words. In this vocabulary activity, 4th graders work in groups to make a pantomime to help them remember a word. Students document the experience in their notebooks.
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Sequential Order for Holes
In this language arts worksheet, students place events from the book "Holes" into sequential order and answer 7 multiple choice questions about the book. This well-designed worksheet would be an excellent homework assignment or in-class...