A three-part writing assessment challenges scholars to think critically about schools of the past and present. Learners read informative texts, answer questions to prepare for a discussion, research in small groups, complete a Venn...

After reading The Mitten by Jan Brett, scholars discuss the author's purpose. Small groups compare and contrast a book written to entertain and a book to inform, then create a T-Chart detailing the characteristics of...

In this finishing a story, "Story Opening One" worksheet, students read the writing prompt, use the questions to consider before writing a middle and ending for the story, and complete the story. Students write 2 parts of a story.

Students analyze a graphic from an article and predict what the article might be about. After reading an article, they discover a journalist's experience of traveling across the United States to compare fast food restaurants. They...

Here is a good interdisciplinary project that combines creative and narrative writing with studies of the Holocaust. Your young historians will compose a diary of experiences from the perspective of an individual living during the time...

Should primary graders have their own computers? Should animals be kept in captivity? Young writers learn how to develop and support a claim in this short unit on persuasive writing.

An activity work alongside a narrative text of your choice. With reading comprehension at its focus, readers complete worksheets covering character descriptions.

If you are teaching Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound, you can't afford to miss this source. An extensive list of ideas outlines numerous discussion topics, writing prompts, comprehension questions, oral presentations, and projects. Have class...

King Henry was a very busy man, he had to sign documents and go hunting. Kids are presented with three slides and asked to choose the activities they think Henry engaged in each day. They then read to discover what Henry actually did...

Students determine what grammar is and how they have learned it. In this creative writing lesson, students read "Style' Gets New Elements," and respond to the discussion questions. Students then present grammatical rules to one another...

Twenty prompts, fifteen starters, and ten situations. What more could you ask for from a list of journal ideas?

Two narrative excerpts tell the same story from different points of view. In the first excerpt (first person), sequencing words and phrases are bolded and learners write down what the bold type does. The second excerpt is in third...

Entrance essays are the ultimate sales pitch! Show your seniors how to market themselves in the first of six college and career readiness lesson plans. Pupils discover the do's and don'ts of writing personal statements through research,...

What would happen if you woke up one day and had become a housefly? What kinds of things would you do? Use the facts at the top of a worksheet to write a paragraph or short story about being a housefly.

Use a set of 30 writing bell ringers to get through the month of February. Writers tap into and write about how February makes them feel, what it smells like, and all types of celebrations that occur during the month.

To prepare for drafting their Common Application narrative, class members return to the opening pages of The Autobiography of Malcolm X and examine how Haley engages and orients readers, establishes his narrator and point of view, and...

Are you looking for a way to teach sequence of events in your narrative writing unit? Bring this lesson to your middle school class, as it prompts young writers to create a narrative sequence map of events that have happened at school...

Here's a fresh approach to the dreaded personal narrative required by most college applications. The Autobiography of Malcolm X is the anchor text for a unit that, through modeling and guided practice exercises, encourages the...

Chapter 3 of The Autobiography of Malcolm X discusses how central ideas are developed in a narrative. Readers use the provided annotated bookmark to record evidence of ideas such as racial identity, integration/separation, and systemic...

Living in someone's shadow would be difficult for anyone, including one of the most talented artists of the modern age. Middle schoolers read an excerpt from Vincent Van Gogh: Portrait of an Artist by Jan Greenberg and Sandra Jordan...

Here's a fresh take on a writing prompt. After a reading of Dr. Seuss's If I Ran the Zoo, primary graders imagine a creature for Dr. Seuss's zoo, write a description of their animal, give it a name, explain what it eats, how it...

How do poets convey emotion and represent their views of life? Pupils learn more about Whitman and Dickinson through the unit and analyze their bold reinvention of craft and style for poets to come. Looking at classic pieces such as...

You can't read Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory without craving the rich treats described in Dahl's vivid prose. Young writers try their hands at sensory language with a lesson plan that prompts them to write about...