Activity
College Board

Evaluating Sources: How Credible Are They?

For Teachers 7th Standards
How can learners evaluate research sources for authority, accuracy, and credibility? By completing readings, discussions, and graphic organizers, scholars learn how to properly evaluate sources to find credible information. Additionally,...
Lesson Plan
Better Lesson

Better Lesson: Audience, Tone, and Style in Informative Text

For Teachers 7th - 9th Standards
Students will read samples of informative writing and highlight examples of how tone and style are used by the authors. Students will then apply this knowledge by writing their own informative text. Multiple examples of student work and...
Lesson Plan
Better Lesson

Better Lesson: A Storm of Ideas

For Teachers 3rd - 4th Standards
The first step in writing an informational text on the topic of learners' choice is helping the student choose a topic of interest. Students will brainstorm ideas that will be possible final topics.
Lesson Plan
Better Lesson

Better Lesson: Writing an Opinion Based on Facts From a Text

For Teachers 1st - 2nd Standards
Students will plan a paragraph that states their opinion and cites evidence to justify their opinion about an informational text. This lesson uses biographies since students can easily be able to write down factual information from the...
Website
PBS

Pbs Teachers: Story Writing With Arthur

For Teachers Pre-K - 1st Standards
This series of 12 downloadable activities teach students some basics of story writing, using books or videos from the PBS "Arthur" series as a springboard. Activities include creating story maps, asking questions about characters and...
Lesson Plan
Better Lesson

Better Lesson: Revise and Revisit: Butterflies

For Teachers K - 1st Standards
Students will take a previously created paragraph and edit it to make it better by adding details, definitions, a topic sentence, or a closure to an informational paragraph. Resources include a PowerPoint presentation and pictures and...
Lesson Plan
Writing Fix

Writing Fix: The Who/what/where/when Game: Wild Weather Sentences

For Teachers 3rd - 8th Standards
In this lesson plan, Teaching Grammar in Context by Constance Weaver provides foundational information for this lesson plan. Brave Irene, written by William Steig, is used as the mentor text of this lesson plan. Students will develop...
Graphic
ReadWriteThink

Read Write Think: Venn Diagram, 2 Circles

For Students K - 1st Standards
A printable Venn diagram to use when comparing and contrasting two things or topics. Directions on how to use this graphic organizer as well as lists of teaching ideas and related resources are also provided.
Unit Plan
Reading Rockets

Reading Rockets: Reading 101: A Guide to Teaching Reading and Writing

For Teachers K - 1st
Reading 101 is a self-paced professional development course for K-3 teachers. It presents some of the core information that teachers need to help young children learn to read and write well and to support the children who struggle. The...
Professional Doc
Texas Education Agency

Texas Gateway: Teaching Expository & Persuasive Texts: Writing Expository Essays

For Teachers 9th - 10th Standards
In an expository essay, a type of informational text, the writer clarifies or explains something by using facts, details, and examples in a clear and concise way. To write an effective expository essay, students need a basic...
Lesson Plan
TES Global

Tes: Non Fiction Unit 4 Formal/impersonal Writing: Tourists

For Teachers 5th - 8th
[Free Registration/Login Required] Students will analyze tourism brochures to determine features related to nonfiction writing in this unit. Tourism websites may be used in lieu of the brochures. Cotswold and the North Leigh Roman Villa...
Rubric
Daily Teaching Tools

Daily Teaching Tools: Independent Author Study Evaluation

For Teachers 6th - 8th
This Daily Teaching Tools resource provides an author study evaluation rubric. Students will be assessed on oral communication skills, author information, and a Venn Diagram.
Lesson Plan
TeachEngineering

Teach Engineering: A Magnetic Personality

For Teachers 3rd - 5th
Students learn about magnets and how they are formed. They investigate the properties of magnets and how engineers use magnets in technology. Specifically, students learn about magnetic memory storage, which is the reading and writing of...
Lesson Plan
Ohio State University

Osu History Teaching Institute: Homestead Act of 1862

For Students 4th
Through the use of primary sources, 4th graders will understand the main concepts of the Homestead Act and use that information to write a letter to a relative explaining why they moved to Ohio.
Lesson Plan
Better Lesson

Better Lesson: Publishing Time

For Teachers Pre-K - 1st Standards
In this instructional activity, students will experience different types of publishing in order to strengthen their motivation and cultivate pride in their work. After utilizing the writing process, students will type out their writing...
Lesson Plan
Better Lesson

Better Lesson: Ew, Gross!

For Teachers K - 1st Standards
In this lesson, young scholars will be able to gather information from provided resources to answer a question. Using the book "Owls", the teacher will read the book while asking guiding questions. After the book, the students will have...
Unit Plan
Texas Education Agency

Texas Gateway: Use Outlines, Notetaking, Graphic Organizers, Lists

For Students 9th - 10th Standards
A learning module that teaches students about organizing information for an essay in four mini-lessons: Introduction, Taking Good Notes, Using Graphic Organizers, and Making Lists.
Lesson Plan
Better Lesson

Better Lesson: Revising Our Argument for Presentation Part 1

For Teachers 9th - 10th Standards
Young scholars will compare and contrast the written form of Sojourner Truth's "Ain't I a Woman" to a live reading of the poem by an actress. Follow-up activities provided.
Unit Plan
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Houghton Mifflin Books: Zathura by Chris Van Allsburg

For Teachers Pre-K - 1st Standards
This comprehensive teacher's guide for the book "Zathura" by Chris Van Allsburg provides us with an opportunity to examine how writers blend scientific information with a fictional story.
Lesson Plan
ReadWriteThink

Read Write Think: Introducing Each Other: Interviews, Memoirs, Photos, Internet

For Teachers 6th - 8th Standards
This lesson plan is designed to teach various methods middle schoolers can use when researching background information on one another in order to introduce each other in written and oral form.
Lesson Plan
National Endowment for the Humanities

Neh: Edsit Ement:portrait of a Hero

For Teachers K - 1st
Discussing real life heroes and heroines and viewing their pictures will help learners learn about reading and writing biographies. A writing rubric assessment is included in this series of activities designed to teach about heroes and...
Website
iCivics

I Civics: Curriculum Units

For Students 9th - 10th
A large collection of Social Studies units, WebQuests, and games that focuses on teaching students how government works and the importance of being responsible, informed American citizens. Units are linked to state standards. A teacher...
Lesson Plan
Better Lesson

Better Lesson: What Is Plagiarism?

For Teachers 5th - 7th Standards
In this lesson, students write summaries of researched information in their own words and quote text accurately.
Lesson Plan
Other

Ralph Waldo Emerson, Transcendentalist Philosopher

For Teachers 9th - 10th
Information and activity ideas pertaining to the famous American thinker. The yellow, left side of the page contains teaching ideas, and the white, right side of the page contains background.