Curated OER
Reading a Classic Novel
Charles Dickens offers an excellent example of sensory writing in this reading comprehension activity. Learners read excerpts from the novel Hard Times in which he describes the New England industrial city of Coketown. They...
Curated OER
Build Mastery: Visualization
What do you see? Young reader tap into the visualization process as they listen to or read a fiction story and fill out a graphic organizer. Model this first with a think-aloud, showing scholars how you visualize a familiar story. For...
Deer Valley Unified School District
Close Reading: Analyzing Mood and Tone
The AP Literature and Composition exam is all about close reading. Test takers are presented with a passage and asked to analyze how an author uses literary devices to create a desired effect. Prepare your students for the exam with a...
Penguin Books
The Curriculum Guide for The Secret Hum of a Daisy by Tracy Holczer
The death of a parent can turn a child's world upside down. A curriculum guide for The Secret Hum of a Daisy explores defining moments in the main character's life, including the loss of her mother. Chapter-by-chapter discussion...
Common Sense Media
The Masque of the Red Death
Poe goes high tech with a lesson that asks high schoolers to use the internet and various apps as they read and analyze "The Masque of the Red Death." In addition to responding to comprehension questions in Quizlet, they use Minecraft to...
Curated OER
Conventions: Adjectives
Investigate adjectives with writers. They define adjectives and create their own sentences describing objects found at home using adjectives correctly. Focus on the five senses and sensory details.
Teacher's Corner
Haiku
The haiku, one of the most popular fixed forms, is the subject of this writing activity, the seventh in a series of ten poetry exercises.
Curated OER
From Ordinary To Extraordinary Writing
High schoolers investigate the quality of writing while focusing on the use of sensory words to convey meaning and ideas. The power of similes and metaphors is emphasized while they create and edit works of writing. The skill of...
Curated OER
Writing a Personal Narrative
Students learn characteristics of an effective personal narrative. For this personal narrative lesson, students discover ways to show rather than tell, adding richness and detail to their writing. Students evaluate a news...
Curated OER
Describe a Journey
Students describe the sensory experience of a character's journey in an essay. In this precise details writing lesson, students explain the effects on the senses of weather, time of day, landscape, and other...
Orange County Department of Education
Poppa's New Pants
Angela Shelf Medearis' Poppa's New Pants provides third graders with an opportunity to stitch together their own narrative filled with sensory details. After reading the story and noting the sensory and concrete details in the tale...
EngageNY
Writing Narratives from First Person Point of View: Imagining Meg Lowman’s Rainforest Journal
I spy with my little eye! Learners observe page 23 in The Most Beautiful Roof in the World and practice what they would add to a field journal. They discuss how details from the text help add to their thoughts. To finish,...
Curated OER
Interactive Student Notebook for Middle School ELA
Encourage creative, independent, and reflective thinking and writing throughout the school year by having your class members keep Interactive Student Notebooks (ISN). Here you'll find a presentation designed to...
August House
The Stolen Smell
Some smells are better than others! Explore your sense of smell with a series of activities based on the Peruvian folktale, The Stolen Smell. With exercises about phonics, counting, cooking, art, and drama, the lesson is a...
Curated OER
Come To Your Senses
Write narratives that include ideas, observations, or memories of an event or experience, and be sure to use concrete sensory details! Groups utilize a few of the famous I Spy books in order to create narratives that utilize sensory...
Curated OER
Oceans: A Sensory Haiku
Young scholars create an ocean haiku. In this haiku lesson plan, students use their five senses to write a haiku. Young scholars watch videos about the ocean, make a sensory portrait, and create a class haiku.
Curated OER
Reflecting/Writing after a field trip or other experience
Young scholars reflect on field trips in writing. For this journal writing lesson, students write about a recent experience by using 4 of their senses to tell what they remember. They turn these into poetry.
Curated OER
Crafting Poetry: A Sensory Journey
Tenth graders experiment with poetry devices to write poems. In this poetry lesson, 10th graders participate in learning stations. Students create a word pool and select a word from the list to create a line of poetry. Students complete...
Curated OER
A Thanksgiving Language Lesson!
Sixth graders, in groups, create restaurants, menus, and advertisements to attract Thanksgiving Day customers.
Curated OER
We Write to Read
Students are introduced to cursive handwriting as a symbolic language system. For this cursive handwriting lesson, students apply the Peterson sequence approach and practice gross motor patterning and action word rhythm. Students...
Curated OER
Writing to describe
Students examine descriptive writing. In this writing lesson, students listen to an audio version of the diary of Lt. Polly Hatchard and her expedition to the South Pole. Students explore the components of descriptive writing and...
Leicestershire County Council
Developing Handwriting Skills for Individuals with Autistic Spectrum Disorder
Here is a resource packed with strategies to help individuals with ASD improve their handwriting skills. Intended for the teacher or specialist, the resource provides background information on reasons learners with ASD have difficulty...
Curated OER
Narratives
Add to the narrative writing experience. Elementary or middle school writers listen to the teacher read a descriptive passage, then reread the same passage silently. They highlight sensory details and figurative language, then orally...
Curated OER
Narrative Nuts and Bolts
After viewing slides and reading about child labor, young authors compose an original narrative story. They practice note-taking skills and work to effectively engage a reader by incorporating plot, logical order, complex characters,...