New York City Department of Education
Grade 5 Literacy in English Language Arts: Should the School Day Be Longer?
Scholars read newspaper articles relating to a longer school day and complete note-taking organizers as they read. They then form opinions and complete outlines before writing essays supporting their point of view.
Curated OER
Introduction to Writing Traits and Writing Strategies
Intended for an audience of teachers, this presentation lays out the six traits of writing, the writing process, and the teaching process for traits and strategies. If you are trying to understand the writing process more fully, you...
Curated OER
Writing Template
Give your writers the chance to organize their thoughts before writing a story with this graphic organizer. Simple and easy to understand, the lines provided prompt elementary learners to write the main characters, main events, and...
Curated OER
Telling Our Stories of Giving - Writing to Persuade
After identifying the parts of a persuasive piece of writing, young writers explore different prewriting activities for the persuasive essay. They have the option to write a news article, personal narrative, or persuasive essay to...
Curated OER
Learning to Organize Writing
Encourage focus and organization in the writing of your second, third, and fourth grade classes. Learners are asked to select a room in their house and narrow in on how it looks, smells, or feels. After writing a short paragraph...
Bright Hub Education
How to Outline, Plan & Write a Memoir
Get to know each individual through a memoir project. The lesson outlined here is a bit vague, but has some promising ideas for graphic organizers to help writers prepare their work. In order to succeed with the lesson, you will need to...
Curated OER
Basic Guide to Writing an Essay
Introducing your class to essay writing? The gentle tone, concise explanations, and clear examples provided by a 17-slide presentation introduces young writers to the expository essay format. All that's missing is a complete essay with...
Curated OER
Writing a Personal Narrative
What is the difference between a news story and a personal narrative? This plan has learners write a personal narrative using the topic of service projects in their community. Consider completing a cross-curricular extension by bringing...
EngageNY
Paragraph Writing Instruction
Writing a paragraph from details found directly in a text is the central focus of this thorough and explicit lesson plan. Using the stories Nasreen's Secret School and Rain School, third graders are lead step-by-step...
Curated OER
Narrative Writing
Binoculars are used as a metaphor for good descriptive writing. Class members first view a small picture and then an enlarged view of the same image in which the details come into focus. Next, learners examine a paragraph lacking sensory...
Curated OER
The Argument
After brainstorming, middle schoolers write an expository essay for a writing project. They focus on supporting points, organization, and writing conventions to develop a well-integrated paper. In addition, they revise, proofread and...
Jefferson County Schools
A Canned Lesson
Follow the steps outlined in an excellent presentation to create graphic organizers and write persuasive essays with your class. The graphic organizer is effective and translates easily into a final written product. The lesson focuses in...
Curated OER
Using a Graphic Organizer to Research a Question
Is Pluto still a planet? Using this popular question, kids are introduced to graphic organizers as a writing tool. As a class, they watch a demonstration on how to use them and work together with a partner to research whether Pluto is a...
Curated OER
Writing Organizers
Eight graphic organizers to choose from? That's right! Each of these organizers relates to writing or reading. From narrowing a writing topic, to responding to literature, to planning a writing project, you'll find many purposes for...
Curriculum
Expository Writing
The beauty of the way this expository writing resource is structured is that the units can be presented as a complete writing workshop or sequenced throughout a course of study
EngageNY
Revising for Organization: Timely Transitions
During the eighth lesson in a historical fiction unit, pupils practice thoughtfully transitioning their ideas sequentially. After the teacher models how to add these transitions using the Wheelwright draft created in a previous lesson,...
Hood River County School District
Text Structure: Features and Organization
Teach learners how to interact with both fiction and non-fiction text with a packet of activities and worksheets. After looking over text structure and the difference in text features between different types of writing,...
University of North Carolina
Literature (Fiction)
An informative installment of the Writing for Specific Fields series helps readers learn how to interpret and write about fiction. The website details nine easy steps for writing a literary analysis—a useful method for all readers!
EngageNY
Revising for Organization and Style: Bold Beginnings
Get young writers thinking about how to write a great beginning for their narratives. After examining examples of solid beginnings in literary text, young writers discuss the criteria for a compelling introduction. Then, independently,...
EngageNY
End of Unit Assessment, Part 1, Continued: Revising Vocabulary and Conventions based on Feedback
Howdy, partner! Scholars partner up to look at the last two rows in the writing rubric. After discussing the details in the rubric about organization and conventions, learners use colored writing tools to circle feedback in their...
EngageNY
Adding to Cascading Consequences and Stakeholders: Industrial Organic Food Chain
Researchers continue determining the effects of the industrial organic food chain that Michael Pollan describes in The Omnivore's Dilemma. In teams, pupils add to their Cascading Consequences charts and complete Stakeholders charts based...
Pinecrest Preparatory Middle and High School
Short Story Planning Guide
A short story is only as strong as its characters, development, and conflicts. Encourage the young authors in your class to plan their stories based on the elements of narrative writing, all provided in brainstorming graphic organizers.
EngageNY
Planning for Writing: Studying Model Writing and Determining a Theme in The Lightning Thief
A theme runs through it. Scholars analyze how a common theme runs through the myths they have read and The Lightning Thief. They complete graphic organizers and view a four paragraph model essay. They analyze the essay for structure and...
Polk Bros Foundation
Common Core Constructed Response Organizer
Get your writers ready to compose a constructed response essay in response to either an informational or fictional text. Pupils note down the big idea they wish to address as well as up to nine examples from the text that they wish to...