Have your class take a look at this picture of a knight, ladies, and a castle to get ideas for a fairy tale. Learners can discuss their ideas for a story based on this prompt, write them down, and then craft their own stories. This...

A reading of Panic in Paris launches a review of the elements of narrative writing. Class members work in groups to find narrative devices in the book and record their findings on a provided worksheet. Using the completed pages,...

Class members take a break from discussing The Autobiography of Malcolm X to focus on their personal narrative essays. Before working on their drafts, they review what they have learned from their study of Haley's narrative about...

Once again, class groups examine two model paragraphs and, using the provided rubric, evaluate how effectively the writers use structural techniques to sequence events so that they build a specific tone. Individuals then use what they...

Where to begin? This lesson plan, part of a series designed to help seniors compose a narrative response to a prompt found on the college Common Application, focuses on the techniques writers employ to craft an engaging introduction to...

For this first activity of the unit, class members continue to work on their draft of a narrative essay response to a prompt found on the college Common Application.

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...

Scholars discuss a reading selection in Unbroken by writing to a partner about text selection. After completing the writing, learners revisit the use of active and passive sentences by reviewing a second Active and Passive Sentences...

Students research that a narrative film tells a story using camera movement, sound, lighting, editing and other film making techniques. The audience must be taken into consideration when making a film. They explore what makes their hero...

Students read slave narratives and retell the stories to the class, identifying sensory details. For this slavery lesson, students discuss the importance of sensory details, then read the slave narratives looking for specific examples. ...

It is impossible to know whether one has reached a goal without first knowing the goal. Help your sixth graders reach all the Common Core writing standards by giving them a checklist written in language they will understand. As you teach...

Combining visual and language arts, here is a resource that prompts middle schoolers to write stories based on pictures of their surroundings. They use digital cameras to take pictures of favorite areas in the school. Next, they choose...

Character development, setting, and plot? Sounds like the makings of a good narrative story. Young authors read and analyze several narrative examples, and then they use what they know to pen an original composition. They work both in...

Collective story writing is a great way to reinforce the concept of story elements and collaborative learning. Young writers discuss story elements such as, setting, character, action, climax, conclusion, foreshadowing, dialogue, and...

Students create narrative cartoons based on the activities of the Peace Corps. In this narrative cartoons lesson plan, students create comic strips where they draw and write about various activities that the Peace Corps is involved in.

Bring writing to life with this lesson in which elementary and middle schoolers create a display of the imagery they identify in a series of Gary Paulsen books. They read the suggested materials, identify imagery and descriptive...

After making predictions about Janell Cannon's story Verdi, middle schoolers read through the book and make a new list of descriptions, personality traits, etc. They select an animal and write a narrative story about the animal, paying...

In this creative writing instructional activity, pupils listen to the song "It Ain't Gonna Rain No More", read the book adaptation titled I Ain't Gonna Paint No More!, and pay close attention to the rhyming scheme, punctuation and...

The March on Washington takes center stage in the discussion of chapter 15 of The Autobiography of Malcolm X; however, class members are presented with an entirely different view of the march from the ones they have previously studied....

Excerpts from John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath and from John Fante's Ask the Dust, as well as a variety of primary source documents provide the background for an examination of the migrant experience from 1920-1945.

There are many ways to tell a story; Richard Patterson's three-dimensional painting If serves as the inspiration for some creative storytelling for elementary school writers. They watch a clip from Toy Story (you'll need to...

Discovering the creative process can be done through critical analysis. Upper graders examine a hand -carved Shinto Deity, discussing purpose, technique, and artistic expression. They then read a poem about the creative process. and...

The blanket being analyzed here seems simple and plain, but it reflects the culture and geography of the people who made it. Learners critically examine the influence geography and culture had on the creation of the blanket and on...

Eighth graders are introduced to authors in the conservation community. As a class, they describe a personal experience they have had with nature. They identify examples of an author's descriptive writing techniques and answer questions...