Curated OER
Five Minute Quickies
Challenge your class to take just five minutes to complete the tasks in each slide. The end result will be a short story. Each text includes writing a certain element of a story: opener, ending, characters, and more. After completing...
EngageNY
Grade 9 ELA Module 1, Unit 1, Lesson 2
How can you read a character's tone? What about a narrator's tone? Analyze Karen Russell's "St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves" with a lesson that focuses on how word choice can change tone and how tone can affect the development...
Curated OER
Tell Me a Story
Tenth graders read short story, "The Storyteller" by Saki, and expand on concept of stories for students by reading and evaluating several popular students's stories as well as writing their own original students's stories.
Curated OER
Scene Writing
Eighth graders create an original scene or short one-act play within specified guidelines. Assessment is based upon the performance of student-created scenes during class time. Rubrics for assessment and connection to state standards...
Curated OER
Military Families
Tenth graders recognize and define vocabulary words. In this Military families instructional activity, 10th graders participate in a shoot n spell game. Students write the vocabulary in sentences, read words in text, and...
Learning Station
Writing Playscripts
In this writing worksheet, students read a short description of a play script. Then, students read a fable and write a play script of the fable.
Curated OER
Comic and Film Strip Writing
Students write a funny story and illustrate it in a comic strip. In this comic strip lesson, students study comic strips and determine the plot of each story. Students then write a short story and illustrate it using a comic strip...
Curated OER
Short Stories and Sitcoms
Students compare 19th Century short stories to 20th Century sitcoms. They address seven questions as the watch a sitcom for homework and create a web to use for further comparison.
Curated OER
Comparing Characters Across Two Short Stories
Ninth graders listen to a read aloud of two short stories focusing on literary devices. The write about the settings and realism of the stories, and decide each main character handles the conflict he faces with nature.
Curated OER
Improvise a Short Story through Jazz
Learners evaluate jazz music and a jazz music performance. They collaborate and create an improvised group short story. They improvise a musical piece on found objects.
Curated OER
Learning about Editing
Students compose their own short story, and bring the stories with them to class the next day. In this editing instructional activity, students exchange stories with another classmate, and they edit that classmates writing. Students are...
Curated OER
Massive Resistance and School Integration
Fourth graders write a short story that shows their feelings on a chosen historical perspective on school integration of the past. In this school integration lesson plan, 4th graders learn about Separate But Equal, resistance to change,...
Curated OER
Writing a Short Story -History
Students write a short story set in a selected period of history. They conduct research on a selected period of history, write and edit a rough draft of their short story, and submit a final draft of their story that includes details...
Curated OER
Buddy Stories
Students write and illustrate short stories. They read their original stories to younger Buddy Readers.
Curated OER
The Magic in Writing
Pupils watch a portion of a familiar film and write responses to a series of questions. They apply their observations to short stories.
Curated OER
Write a Story 2
In this creative writing activity, students use the picture to generate ideas for a story. Students also incorporate the elements about the plot and setting for their story.
Maine Content Literacy Project
Process of Reading
Assist your pupils with literary analysis by discussing and exploring theme. This plan, the twelfth in a series of fourteen, builds in some time to explore theme as a class. Learners also blog about the main event in their stories and...
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...
Curated OER
Writings on a River
Students identify words that can be used to describe Mark Twain's character Tom Sawyer. Students explore stage production of "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" by reading and discussing "An Older (and Calmer) Tom Sawyer". They develop their...
Curated OER
Justice for All
A reading of Roald Dahl’s Lamb to the Slaughter opens a discussion of justice and fairness. Using a Venn diagram and an Idea Wheel graphic organizer, class members consider the similarities and differences in these two terms. They then...
Curated OER
So Much Depends Upon...Sixteen-Word Imagery Poems Inspired by Love that Dog by Sharon Creech
After reading Love That Dog by Sharon Creech (and possibly shedding a few tears), middle schoolers work on their own sixteen-word poems with a Six Trait writing activity. They focus on word choice in this activity to capture an...
Benjamin Franklin Tercentenary
Benjamin Franklin and Learning a Lesson
Examine stories with a moral in a character development instructional activity. The class reads a short story written by Benjamin Franklin in which he pays too much for a toy whistle. Individuals then make text-to-self connections and...
Curated OER
"I Never Knew That!"
Incorporating To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, narrative writing, and friendly letters, this lesson plan is ideal for any number of units in your classroom. First, read chapter 10 of the novel, noting Scout and Jem's reactions to...
Curated OER
A New Point of View
Analyze point of view and how it affects a literary work with this lesson plan. Middle schoolers create a written piece that focuses on point of view. They review the literary term "point of view," and explore examples of the term in...