EngageNY
Writing the Children’s Book: Day One
With a brief mini-lesson, scholars learn about using strong verbs, sensory details, and precise descriptions. Next, pupils continue working on their children's book storyboards before choosing their strongest pages for peer critiques.
Scholastic
Myths, Folktales, & Fairy Tales for Grades 7-9
Here is a must-have resource for studying fairy tales, myths, and folktales with your class! It includes instructional ideas, activities, and materials to support a month-long review of these three unique genres of writing.
EngageNY
Writing the Children’s Book: Day Three
Illustrations are a key feature of children's books. Using the resource, pupils learn about adding illustrations to their children's books. Next, as they complete their storyboards and work on their second drafts, they consider their...
Teach-nology
Author’s Purpose
What is the author's purpose in writing a joke book? What about a book about the digestive system? Explore author's purpose with a worksheet that challenges kids to identify whether ten books are meant to entertain, inform, or persuade.
Academy of American Poets
Teach This Poem: “In This Place (An American Lyric)” by Amanda Gorman
Amanda Gorman, the United States's first National Youth Poet Laureate, is featured in a resource from the Academy of American Poets. Class members first read Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have A Dream" speech and note what King wanted...
Teach-nology
Author’s Purpose
What is the author's purpose when writing a narrative story? Kids read a short narrative passage before answering three questions about author's purpose.
Scholastic
Who Am I? What Has Made Me Who I Am?
"Everything we have seen and touched and heard and experienced has, in some way, made us who we are." Your young learners will use this resource to create lists of influences (people, animal, nature, places, etc.) in their lives and to...
Scholastic
A Tale to Tell!
A creative spin occurs when one pupil acts as author Ann M. Martin. Using a Q & A at the back of her book A Dog's Life, other classmates ask the "author" questions. They discuss the reasons why they know the book is from a...
Curated OER
Play with Powerful Poetry
Use stations to teach skills relevant to the Common Core and tap into individual creativity.
Digital Writing and Research Lab's – Lesson Plans
Teaching Close Reading through Short Composition/Revision
This activity may have writers evaluate short compositions, but their subjects are quite tall: great Americans. Pupils read one another's compositions and closely examine how specific phrases and diction contribute to shaping American...
Curated OER
Scent-Inspired Composition
Our sense of smell has a wonderful way of bringing back memories. Unlock those memories with an olfactory-inspired writing prompt that challenges writers to tell a story about a specific smell and the memories it conjures.
Pearson
Practice Test English Language Arts: Grade 8
As teachers, it is our job to encourage learners to stand up for what they believe in and help them learn lessons from life's events. A set of practice questions designed for the ELA MCAS assessment features passages that teach positive...
Roald Dahl
Matilda - Throwing the Hammer
Full truth, or an exaggeration? How can you tell when a storyteller is exaggerating a story? Readers analyze a story told by Hortensia, and identify the exaggerative language she uses. Then, learners write their own narrative story using...
Curated OER
Myths, Folktales, & Fairy Tales for Grades K-3
Have your class explore the art of storytelling through this activity on fairy tales and folktales. Learners interact with a variety of fairy tales and folktales. They practice telling stories out loud as well as writing their own. This...
Curated OER
12 Days of Christmas
Students utilize different problem-solving strategies and creative writing when dealing with the words from the song, "12 Days of Christmas." They try to problem solve how may presents were given and then explain their sequence in the...
Novelinks
Walk Two Moons: Unsent Letter
Take a journey with your class as they explore the different settings from Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech. Middle schoolers write postcards in first person as if they were the characters of the story.
Curated OER
Ordinary People: Unsent Letter
Invite your learners to take on the voice of a character from Ordinary People as they write a letter. Pupils use what they know about the given character to compose their letter, which must relate to the plot of the novel.
Curated OER
Poetic Elements Are Fun!
Engage your class in the elements of poetry with a series of lessons and activities. The plans cover simile, metaphor, personification, onomatopoeia, alliteration, and imagery. Learners come up their their own metaphors, identify poetic...
Curated OER
Unforgettable...
Middle and high schoolers remember their most memorable experiences, and then connect their own narrative with an exposition about the topic associated with their experience. This New York Times lesson would be a great addition to...
Curated OER
Truth Be Told
Encourage your middle and high schoolers to share their memories of a recent event. After reading a New York Times article, they discuss Elie Wiesel's memoir, Night. They write their own memoir about a significant event that affected...
Curated OER
Teaching Descriptive Word Usage
Second graders practice their creative writing by using descriptive words. In this language arts lesson, 2nd graders utilize their best descriptive writing to elaborate on one of 20 different bean bag characters. Students...
Curated OER
Making Poetry Writing Fun!
Students find a group of words from an unlikely source and turn them into a poem. They discuss the central image in two well-known poems by Langston Hughes and Emily Dickinson. They write their own short poem expressing one central...
Curated OER
Trek Across America
Bring a time machine into your classroom with this writing lesson, in which young writers project themselves back in time and have a variety of choices from that point forward. They either write a conversation with a historical figure,...
EngageNY
Grade 12 ELA Module 1: Unit 1, Lesson 11
Chapter 10 of Malcolm X's Autobiography introduces readers to Elijah Muhammad's teachings. Discussion questions focusing on syntax and diction draw attention to how Malcolm X's perspective on Mr. Muhammad changes.