Third graders access prior knowledge of the monarch butterfly and discuss what they would like to know.  In this Monarch Butterfly instructional activity,students read Monarch Butterfly and discuss the life cycle of the butterfly....

Ninth graders watch the video, 'El Cid.' They participate in teacher-led discussion about the beliefs, customs, goals, and heroes of both Spaniards and Moors. They create and present an artifact to the class showing the results of their...

Students participate in an animal research report. They present a PowerPoint presentation to the class and follow specific instructions when it comes to what to include in the report.

Students use various primary sources on the Internet to travel on the Underground Railroad

Students study the white shark and the red triangle.  In this critical thinking lesson students assess the validity of facts about sharks and create a public service announcement either promoting shark or human protection.

Ninth graders compare ancient and modern technology in water transporting. In this lesson on the evolution of the aqueduct, 9th graders build a working aqueduct model and examine its components. They explain the importance and use of the...

Fifth graders create their own solar panel. They use this experiment to see how the sun can be used as a form of energy.

Fourth graders discover similarities and differences in the lifestyles and geography of Utah and Japan. They use a Venn Diagram to compare and contrast daily life and geography in Utah with daily life and geography in Japan. They make...

This lesson engages students in working with narrative reading and writing. Students will listen to different stories and fill out story maps for them. Then students will plan a personal narrative about a "surprise" on a graphic...

Inspired by the interactive plot ideas here, writers will create an original three-paragraph adventure story. First, each writer will create an original adventurer. Next, each writer will place the adventurer in a brief, organized...

A rubric to use when writing and evaluating a 4th-grade narrative. Essays can receive anywhere from one to four points in each of the following areas: Organization/Progression, Development of Ideas, and Use of Language/Conventions.

[Accessible by TX Educators. Free Registration/Login Required] In this lesson, you will learn how to write an essay that has only one purpose: to tell a story about you. It's called a personal narrative, personal because it is all about...

This lesson is an introduction to a unit on personal narratives including the characteristics of a personal narrative: tells a story, events are in chronological order, and it has characters, setting, and plot. Click next at the bottom...

After reading excerpts in which Buck solves a problem in Jack London's The Call of the Wild, students write their own three-paragraph animal stories imitating London's style and word choice. Teacher and student instructions are provided...

After reading Duck on a Bike by David Shannon, the writer will plan an original story where an animal (other than a duck) finds itself in a human mode of transportation (other than a bike). Three other animals will react to the unusual...

After reading A Single Shard by Linda Sue Park students complete a writing assignments. The writer first completes a graphic organizer about a life-changing experience or an experience from which a lesson has been learned. The retelling...

This series of 12 downloadable activities teach students some basics of story writing, using books or videos from the PBS "Arthur" series as a springboard. Activities include creating story maps, asking questions about characters and...

After organizing their thoughts using a graphic organizer, students write a narrative essay which relates an autobiographical incident. Students present their essays in a slideshow which allows their classmates to practice predicting an...

This Daily Teaching Tools collection provides graphic organizers for writing. Elaborate graphic organizers for the following areas are provided: persuasive essays, expository essays, paragraph writing, fiction pieces, narrative writing,...

This slideshow lesson focuses on organizational structures for narratives including a review of narratives and a list of possible organizational structure types: chronological or sequential order, climactic order, in media, and...

Students read The Wolf Who Cried Boy by Bob Hartman and then write their own fractured fairy tales using first-person point of view and dialogue. Teacher and student instructions are provided along with student writing samples, an...

In this lesson, students organize and design a narrative based on three developing ideas.

In this lesson, teachers will guide the students, as a group, through the process of writing a meaningful story using a story map. First the teacher will review the parts that make up a successful story. Then, the students will be guided...

After reading the picture book Tuesday by David Weisner, students write stories about strange animals and their nighttime adventures. Teacher and student instructions are provided along with student samples, an interactive idea...