If you're looking to start a unit based around narrative writing, make sure to consider this resource while you're planning. This book covers five topics: writing personal narratives, writing narratives about others, writing...

What do you imagine when you think of the sea? Put on some ocean sounds, close your eyes, and listen to a guided meditation based on the imagery from The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway. After class members listen to...

Close your eyes and picture a time where you decided to tell the truth to someone. What were you wearing? How did you feel? Such prompts begin a guided imagery activity for Zach's Lie. Directions for creating an environment conducive to...

Instructing learners on how to craft a good paragraph, a skill required of all writers, is the focus of a 23-page packet that includes directions, graphic organizers, exercises, and worksheets for guided practice. 

Sad, depressed, miserable, inconsolable, forlorn: so many synonyms have a lot of variety with their connotations. Through the guided imagery activity, writers explore the use of connotation and its influence on imagery and description by...

For this newsletter activity worksheet, middle schoolers read a book and complete a newsletter activity as a novel analysis project. Students include a newsletter title, advertisements, news story, and obituary.

Revise the organization of your writing to a prompt to make sure the structure is appropriate to the task, purpose, and audience.

Explains nine methods for developing ideas for writing, including freewriting, brainstorming, clustering/mapping, maintaining a personal journal, responding to a text, maintaining a response journal, responding to a specific assignment,...

We will gather and organize evidence from parts one and two of The Joy Luck Club and the excerpts from Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother to prepare to write.

A tip sheet on how to create and outline for a research paper.

Greg Freeman gives an example and explanation of the graphic diagram called "brainstorming web." Includes suggestions for effective use, working strategies, and useful links.

Show students how essential an outline is to writing a paper. This source provides explanations for writing an outline and information about how to create both formal and informal outlines.

This process seems very involved, but there are good ideas for getting started on your creative writing if you're stuck at the brainstorming stage.