Teams select a society to investigate and create a chart comparing and contrasting the status of girls in that society with their own. They then craft and illustrate a personal narrative written from the point of view of a girl living in...

Giving gifts has been a part of the human experience since modern man walked the earth. Upper graders explore the culture of gift giving in Mayan times through an artistic analysis. They analyze gift giving and palace life as seen on an...

How do your pupils want to change the world? Find out with this writing prompt, inspired by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s well-known speech. The resource provides the prompt and lines for writing.

The students create a personal narrative on their experiences with immigration. In this lesson, students are asked to read and understand examples of narrative writing as well as evaluate lyrics from Ben Folds Five to determine elements...

Inspire your class to write about role models and personal heroes with this resource from The Learning Network. Class members read a New York Times article excerpt about basketball star Jeremy Lin and how he inspired the author. After...

Help your middle schoolers identify personal experience narratives in their own lives through telling stories themselves and from family members or other adults. They study personal experience narratives in Swapping Stories and compare...

Helpful for an American literature or history unit, this lesson prompts middle schoolers to examine slavery in the United States. They read slave narratives that were part of the Federal Writers' Project and then conduct their own...

Young historians use their planning graphic organizer to prepare a personal narrative draft on expert trades. Since the instructional activity is considered the mid-unit assessment, learners respond to a writing prompt related to the...

A reading of a New York Times review of the movie Beloved launches research into how the Civil War affected the lives of people living during this period. Creative thinkers select a person from an included list of historical figures and...

Approach the topic of popularity with this resource from the New York Times and their Learning Network series. The article is about Alexandra Robbins' "Quirk Theory." Learners respond to the article excerpt either on paper or...

Conduct a classroom conversation about communication using this resource as a jumping-off point. For this The Learning Network activity, learners read an excerpt from The New York Times opinion piece, "The Flight From Conversation," and...

Students examine the slave perspective and how it differs from stories we hear in text books. In this slave narrative lesson, students use primary source narratives to compare how slave life was expressed by the slaves to how slave life...

Students read slave narratives and retell the stories to the class, identifying sensory details. In this slavery instructional activity, students discuss the importance of sensory details, then read the slave narratives looking for...

Students examine their lives. In this autobiography lesson plan, students write about their lives. They examine their past, and present lives and imagine their futures. They end the lesson plan sharing their personal narrative.

Learners discover journalism by writing about themselves.  In this non-fiction writing instructional activity, students discuss the outline of a personal narrative and write a paper about an experience they've had.  Learners...

Learners access oral histories that contain slave narratives from the Library of Congress. They describe the lives of former slaves, sample varied individual experiences and make generalizations about their research in journal entries.

Students create scripts about California settlers. The document reflects the settlers' fears, expectations, and realizations.

Students design Career Character Poster, research occupations of interest, write about their future career choices, and present a first-person narrative about their chosen occupation.

Discover the lovely story of Raimundo Arruda Sobrinho with your class. Over the course of the lesson, pupils practice descriptive writing, write short narratives, collaborate in small groups, watch a powerful short film about Raimundo,...

Bring a time machine into your classroom with this writing lesson, in which young writers project themselves back in time and have a variety of choices from that point forward. They either write a conversation with a historical figure,...

The firsthand accounts of what it was like to be an enslaved person in the mid-1800s riveted a nation and the issue ultimately led to civil war. Using excerpts from Frederick Douglass's autobiography, budding historians examine what it...

Fourth graders read various stories in their literature books about families. Individually, they make a timeline showing the most important events in their lives. They bring in one artifact from their lives and write a paper about it...

On July 1, 1863 the Army of Northern Virginia, under the command of General Robert E. Lee met the Army of the Potomac, under the leadership of Major General George Meade. Considered the turning point of the war, the Battle of Gettysburg...

Students research World War II primary source documents and write first person historical point of view stories.