Fourth graders analyze the use of transitions in text. In this transitions lesson, 4th graders determine how and why a transition is used at a specific time in a piece of writing. They show transitions by using movements before...

Lisa Trumbauer's big book, Spinning a Web, provides kids with an opportunity to practice word sequencing, to use correct punctuation, and to develop comprehension skills with a cloze reading evercise.

A basic lesson on personal narrative writing is here for you. In it, learners are asked to imagine they're going to share an experience of their own with someone who did not participate in that experience. They verbally tell the story to...

Reinforce the importance of the writing process with this publication lesson. Elementary and middle schoolers compose a parts of speech book which includes one page each for nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions,...

Students read and discuss The Black Cat and The Tell-Tale Heart. In this poetry lesson, students construct a Venn diagram to compare and contrast two pieces of literature.

Gather your first graders and read Franklin's New Friend. First, show the book's cover and title. What can your youngsters infer from these along? Then read through the comprehension questions you created and start reading the...

Personal narrative writing is usually a favorite form of writing for youngsters because they get to write about a personal experience. The lesson here asks pupils to take a piece of narrative writing and improve it by following...

Seventh graders need to be able to distinguish between major and minor characters and need to have read the novel Bearstone and be familiar with the sequence of events as well as the qualities displayed by each character over the course...

Upper graders explore equality by writing an essay. They read the story Pink and Say by Patricia Polacco, and discuss the meaning of the story and its relevance to Civil War events. Learners investigate the five writing process steps and...

Assess your kids' reading skills with a straightforward reading comprehension exercise. Pupils read a story and answer 12 multiple choice questions about the story. Each question is labeled with one of 12 reading strategies, such as...

Emerging writers identify an informational piece of writing. They are provided with examples of informational writing and view a PowerPoint on narrative writing. Then, they design their own informational writing with a brochure,...

Imagine a day in the life of a child who has to work 12-14 hours a day, seven days a week. After viewing images and reading stories of child laborers, class members select an image and write a richly detailed narrative about a typical...

Students explore the environment by reading a story in class. In this water formation instructional activity, students define environmental terms such as rivers, streams, gulf, oceans and lakes. Students read the story A River Ran Wild...

High schoolers use their Life Map to write a strong introduction for an autobiography. They apply the Life Map to a written sequence, use guided imagery to visualize the writing process and experience peer editing.

Young scholars watch various interpretations of Shakespeare's Macbeth in film. In groups, they examine the setting, characters, music and sequence. They compare and contrast the various films and discuss the differences. They write an...

Students investigate the life of an animal and how it responds to winter. The lesson's focus is on reading and research skills using pictures to assist in the understanding of the information presented.

C.S. Lewis’s That Hideous Strength provides the model for using dreams in narrative writing. After a discussion of the purpose of dreams in Lewis’s tale, class members craft a story in which their dreams play an essential role.

Students create an art project and write a process paper  as a response to literature.  In this literature response lesson, students listen to Lynn Ehlert's, Snowballs before decorating a construction paper snowman. They write...

The lessons that come from reading the novel Buddy by Nigel Hinton might be masked by how much you have just enjoyed the story, but don’t let an opportunity for learning pass you by. Let this learning scheme bring clarity to the ideas...

Students explore the concept of A-B and A-B-B patterns, and show this by creating a pattern with concrete objects and on the Kid Pix Deluxe computer program.

Students read folktales and identify the plot of the story by making a mobile. In this inventive and colorful lesson plan, students listen to a variety of famous folktales, and practice identifying the plot. Then, they work together to...

Learners are read the book "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie" and develop their own story. They use a literature wheel to determine what the mouse will want next. They share their wheels with a friend.

Students use prior knowledge, the title, cover, and illustrations to make predictions about a story. They record their predictions on a Story Impression Worksheet, listen to the story, and check their predictions.

For this making predictions worksheet, students read a newspaper article, locate the "Five Ws and the H," and then make logical predictions on the content that they read and then analyze those predictions based on a rubric.