Demonstrate gift giving as an act of caring about someone versus gifts for show (or gifts from the purse). Elementary learners practice giving gifts from the heart by creating a poem for someone special to them.

Primo Levi wrote a collection of short stories comparing his life from Italy to Auschwitz to elements in the periodic table. Pupils read an excerpt from his book and research the characteristics of various elements. Then, they make a...

“It was a dark and stormy night.” Thus begins the 1830's novel Paul Clifford and, of course, all of Snoopy’s novels! Encourage young writers to craft settings for their stories that go beyond Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s often-mocked phrase...

Turning 11 comes with a range of emotions. Explore those emotions by reading the short story "Eleven" by Sandra Cisneros. Readers analyze the main character's reactions to the events of her day. Then, they write an essay describing what...

Improve high schoolers' public speaking with an engaging activity. Class members select three personally relevant quotes from a list. They then write a short speech for each quote, explaining how the quotes are personally relevant....

Who is Doctor DeSoto? Start by playing a video clip (included). Discuss different methods of persuasion, and then analyze two different persuasive letter examples. What should your class be looking for? Send them off to work in groups...

Get ready to read The Watsons Go to Birmingham - 1963 with a lesson plan about historical fiction. Spanning several centuries, the resource prompts learners to guess the historical era of a story based on a word or...

Students read and comprehend a piece of fictional writing, analyze how setting, characterization, and plot affect the theme of a story and work in a group to create a new writing assignment. This 5-day plan culminates in students writing...

Phonetic masters identify and recognize short vowel sounds by reading and listening to a story that highlights select words. They use picture clues to aid comprehension and construct a story by actively choosing and identifying...

Students, after reading and discussing the two texts by Flannery O'Connor, "Good Country People" and "Greenleaf," analyze the plot, tone, characters, themes and setting in each story. They write their own short stories dealing with a...

Students read and analyze the twelve short stories in the novel "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes." They create their own detective that has to solve a new kind of crime, and write and edit a short story with their original detective as...

High schoolers experience and study cause and effect as they assess the consequences man faces when time travel is attempted. They determine, in their imaginations, what time period they would like to visit. Each student then listens to,...

Bring your learners together to write a class narrative about the first day of school. Start off by teaching them about sequence with a quick oral activity. Then, work together to fill out a story map. Finally, compose the class...

Conduct a close reading of George G. Toudouze's well-known horror story "Three Skeleton Key." This plan breaks up the reading into several steps and provides text-dependent questions to ask along the way. Learners will have the chance to...

Students listen to children's fairy tales and watch them on a video. Afterward, they list the heroes from each story. Students write a short paragraph about a typical day for the hero. Students dress up like their character and give a...

Young scholars in a Spanish class are introduced to the techniques of creative writing. In groups, they focus on the pre-writing section of creative writing and keep a folder of their works throughout the lesson. They end the lessons...

Students read the book "Every Living Thing." They read one story at a time, and participate in various activities. Some of these activities include the following ideas: Students write about a time when they were in a similar situation as...

Students write their own books based on a life experience that they have had. In this life experiences lesson plan, students practice the writing process along with illustrating their book.

Students listen to a story, "My Mama Had A Dancing Heart." They discuss the feeling they had after reading the story and define "mood." Students brainstorm a list of moods and discuss the mood of each character. Afterward, they write a...

Ambition is the keyword of a lesson that focuses on the contributions made by famous female artists. Specifically looking at European artists, Luisa Roldan and Elisabeth Louise Vigee Le Brun, scholars examine a piece of their work then...

If a bar of chocolate was on the floor, would you try to pick it up? What if it was covered with glue? The eighth lesson in an 11-part unit designed to accompany The Twits by Roald Dahl has scholars imagine crazy scenarios. The...

Students complete a variety of activities as they explore/review the letter 'o' and the short /o/ sound. They recite short /o/ tongue twisters, practice writing the letter 'o', and listen to stories, identifying words with the short /o/...

First graders practice the short o and sh sound. In this phonics activity, 1st graders listen to the stories Hot Pot: The Sound of Short O by Alice K. Flanagan and Shoes: The Sound of SH by Peg Ballard. They create word webs...

Middle schoolers write a narrative or short story of 500-700 words based on an assigned work of art.