Curated OER
Capturing the Reader With Vivid Images
Students examine how the author tries to capture the reader's imagination immediately, through imagery--and hold on to it. They locate Ukraine on a world map and understand Lenin's role in the establishment of Russian communism and the...
Curated OER
Poetry and PowerPoint
Third graders read and discuss the poem, "April Rain Song" by Langston Hughes. After brainstorming examples of vivid verbs, figures of speech, language patterns, and imagery used in the poem, 3rd graders write a poem on a topic of...
Curated OER
Family Pictures
Fourth graders, after reading the story, "Family Pictures," discuss the format of the story and then recall a favorite family experience of their own. They then write a paragraph as modeled by the author describing that experience with...
Curated OER
Writer's Workshop Mini-Lesson Plan
Fifth graders listen as the teacher reads "Voices in the Park." They discuss the character's feelings and write vivid descriptive words to indicate how the character feels about his experience. Students select one character in the story...
Curated OER
Puffins
In this writing activity, students write an original short story on Puffins. Students utilize vivid verbs and adjectives in their stories.
Curated OER
Alphabet Animals: K and L
In this coloring letters worksheet, students color two letters K and L. Both letters have animal images within the actual letter and make for a vivid reminder about the sound the letter makes and the words associated with them. K has a...
Curated OER
Alphabet Animals I and J
In this coloring letters worksheet, learners color in the letters I and J and also the pictures of an insect and a jackrabbit. The objective is to enhance students' letter recognition skills and provide vivid images to help learners...
Curated OER
A Christmas Memory
Students write an essay about a special Christmas memory they have. In this Christmas essay lesson, students use vivid description to write an essay about a special Christmas memory they have.
Curated OER
Convincing Characters
Learners create vivid, active characters for a story. In this character instructional activity, students discuss the characters in books they are familiar with. Learners create a list of novels they have read and discuss the character...
Curated OER
Where Do We Begin?
Primary learners grasp sequence of events by discussing morning routines and reviewing the story of Little Red Riding Hood. They explore the necessity of correct order of events. As a class, create a story with a beginning, middle, and...
Curated OER
Picture a Tarantula
Young scholars create an illustration based upon a read-aloud. For this visual arts lesson, students listen to the book The Tarantula Scientist and listen for details. Young scholars create a picture based upon what they imagined during...
Shmoop
ELA.CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.9-10.3
Teach your class the basics of narrative writing! The resource first describes the Common Core standard for narrative writing in-depth, and then moves into how to apply the standard. Show your class the example essay and quiz them...
Curated OER
How a Writer Conveys Descriptions With a Wallop Lesson 3 for Running (From River Town)
Learners examine strategies an author uses to provide qualitative and quantitative aspects of life in China. They apply the strategies to their own writing.
Curated OER
Langston Hughes Was a Dreamer Too
Encourage your pupils to imagine their own dreams for the future. After studying three poems by Langston Hughes and listening to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s I Have a Dream speech, young poets craft their own dream stanza.
Curated OER
Descriptive Writing: Using Art to Inspire description
Write with the senses! Try using art to inspire writers to consider all of the senses. Here, the class is divided in half. Each group looks at one of two images, imagines the senses that would be engaged, and records answers to five...
Curated OER
Irish Eyes: Taking a Look at Local Landscape
Direct your class’s attention to the elements that make their community unique. After examining sample travel brochures, groups select something from their community to use as the subject, and then research, create, and publish a...
Southern Nevada Regional Professional Development Program
“Tell Me a Story”: Moving from Reading to Writing
Narrative essay writing is the focus of a series of exercises that model for learners how to not only read a narrative, but how to also examine the techniques fiction writers use to create a setting, develop their characters, represent...
Curated OER
How Do Authors Use Imagery to Shape Their Writing?
Esther Forbes' award-winning Revolutionary War novel, Johnny Tremain and excerpts from Julie Otsuka's When the Emperor Was Divine are used to model how imagery brings alive the setting of a story. The young writers then craft their...
Curated OER
Narrative Writing: Using Exact Words
Review the narrative writing process with your emerging story writers. They read a sample narrative and identify five vague verbs that could be replaced with a more exact, exciting verb. Then they write a personal narrative making sure...
National Humanities Center
Teaching Emily Dickinson: A Common Core Close Reading Seminar
Three of Emily Dickinson's poems, "I like to see it," "Because I could not stop for Death," and "We grow accustomed to the Dark," provide instructors with an opportunity to model for class members how to use close reading strategies to...
Curated OER
Telling A Story
Learners brainstorm all the possible scenarios that would help them tell a story in detail with the whole class and with partners. They create web outlines to create a name story and then illustrate it with creative grammar usage and...
Curated OER
Scene Writing: Literacy and Playwriting
Drama is ever-present in our daily lives and eloquently depicted on stage. Middle schoolers practice writing scenes based on different prompts and frameworks, and then perform those creative scenes for their classmates. The...
Curated OER
Analogies
Analogies demonstrate how words relate to each other and crafting analogies is a good way to encourage learners to develop their understanding of the layers of meanings in words. This worksheet provides pupils practice completing and...
Curated OER
Nonfiction Genre Mini-Unit: Persuasive Writing
Should primary graders have their own computers? Should animals be kept in captivity? Young writers learn how to develop and support a claim in this short unit on persuasive writing.