Break an article down with a SOAPSTone chart. Class members determine the speaker, occasion, audience, purpose, subject, and tone. The chart includes a question for each of these elements, provides some clarifying text for each, and...

How does an author entertain his or her audience? Read a short fairy tale and find the most evocative passages to discover more about author's purpose in narrative writing.

Hip Hop? Country? Punk? R and B? So many styles. Young song writers consider the emotional effects of various style options before selecting the style best suited to the emotions they want to express in their song. The sixth in a...

Academics turn into storytellers in an engaging activity on activism. The activity focuses on promoting social change in local communities with stories. Young historians plan a storybook to target a specific audience and social issue and...

Small groups brainstorm their roles in the community. Then, individually, complete a community roles web worksheet. Peers share their completed product and extend the conversation to include the feelings and character traits that go...

After a read-aloud of the story Goldielocks and the Three Bears, scholars gather into small groups to answer a series of questions. Peers examine the idea of smart decisions and identify three feelings of characters alongside three...

An eye-catching hook makes a smart analogy between ingredients for a food recipe and ingredients for quality relationships. Scholars discuss and list qualities they feel contribute to positive interactions. Pupils create a recipe card...

If you've ever received bad service or disagreed with a company's decision, writing a letter of complaint might be a good skill to have. Review the format of a letter, author's purpose, and other aspects of persuasive writing with an...

Fourth graders read "Starting a Business" and answer the question: "How could you design an ad to let the community know about the business described in the story?" Then, they illustrate a written ad that could be posted in the...

Fair, balanced, and reputable information? There's an acronym for that! Scholars learn the E.S.C.A.P.E. method for evaluating news sources. Then, pupils work in small groups to read and analyze a news story and discuss the activity to...

C.E.R = Claim + Evidence + Reasoning. That's the framework behind building a solid piece of argument writing. Introduce young writers to this format with an engaging lesson that uses YouTube videos and a PowerPoint to illustrate the...

Readers make personal connections to Saturday Market by Patricia Grossman and answer comprehension questions while reading the book. Comparing and contrasting the different characters in a Venn diagram leads to a kinesthetic...

Help your young writers through the sometimes difficult process of beginning to write. Direct them through how to choose a topic and write to a specific audience. Great refining statements guide them to writing focused, clear essays. 

The activities in this packet are designed to ensure that all class members have the necessary background knowledge to successfully engage in an assessment of advertisement appeals. After examining a series of ads, individuals use the...

Sixth graders examine the purpose of the keelboat used by the Corps of Discovery on the Lewis and Clark expedition. They assess its strengths and weaknesses for navigating different rivers, and describe its overall purpose for the...

To culminate a study of Markus Zusak's The Book Thief, individuals craft a persuasive essay in which they assume the voice of a member of one of the political parties during the early 1920s, and advocate that their party offers the...

Hot off the presses! A perfect instructional activity idea for a journalism class or even a language arts class looking to incorporate some informational texts. Young writers analyze the front pages of various newspapers to determine the...

Introduce young actors to the key elements of performance with this handout that defines key staging terms and activities.

"Ode to la Tortilla" and "Ode to Joy"? Sure! Use Gary Soto's poem to introduce learners to the ode format. After examining the descriptive words Soto uses, class members study a poster of Ludwig van Beethoven, suggest words that describe...

Silly journal and essay prompts may be fun to write, but they don't model the kind of writing needed for college papers and standardized tests. The 15th part in a series of 24 covers the concept of reading to write—during and after...

Reading, writing, and rings! A lesson from NASA combines space science with authentic reading and writing tasks. Included in this lesson are pre-reading activities, four mini informational booklets on Saturn, a structured...

Design an informational brochure to urge people to move to a specific community. The purpose of this activity is to expose pupils to expository writing. After creating the brochure, they write a three-paragraph persuasive or...

Students analyze alcohol and tobacco ads and create parodies of them. The eight lessons in this unit include discussions about why teens smoke or drink, the psychology behind the advertising, and writing persuasive letters to agencies,...

High school writers identify the purpose of both a topic sentence and a transitional statement. They write a topic sentence which denotes the paragraph topic and the author's stand on that topic. Then they write an effective transitional...