Connect Martin Luther King Jr's famous speech, "I Have a Dream," to The Cay by Theodore Taylor. Taylor refers to the speech in his dedication, which creates a natural segue into talking about the speech and how it relates to the novel....

Ask class members to reflect on their year-long writing experience by creating a portfolio of their work. Here's a resource that details what should be included in such a portfolio, and provides a rubric that can be used to assess...

Some self-paced writing resources are just better than others. This one is great. The 205-page packet includes exercises on every aspect of the writing process, from crafting sentences and paragraphs, to proofreading, revising, and...

Read and discuss a variety of books by different authors and have your class create their own book. They will identify the different parts of a book, then using a story they have already written, they enter their story and information...

Fourth graders practice using technology to create a dedication page. They use the software of Microsoft Word in order to format and save the document. The teachers provides time for independent practice. The document is then saved and...

Every child is an author with this engaging reading activity. First the class reviews the various parts of a book such as the title, author, dedication, and author-biography. Then each individual will choose a story of their...

Take a virtual trip to see other countries and cultures! After learning about different cultures and populations, English learners think about a place they'd like to visit. Small groups or individuals plan a trip to a country...

As a class, young writers learn how to develop a strong supporting character. They think and discuss a good friend they know, they use that friend as a basis for a potential supporting character. They create a supporting character as a...

Helen Keller became a teacher after her experience with Anne Sullivan, demonstrating to the world how valuable a dedicated mentor and determined spirit can be when overcoming adversity. Middle schoolers learn more about the influential...

A carefully crafted, logically organized, 128-page packet is an excellent addition to your unit on expository writing.

Introduce the logic behind a dichotomous key or administer a group performance assessment with a fun and challenging classification lesson. With explicit instructions for the teacher and for collaborative groups, as well as engaging...

A great way to publish students' stories is by having them create a picture book using Pages. This simple instructional activity has them take a short story they have written and create a book with a title page and dedication. After they...

Students analyze the components of a book to use it as a model for the creation of their own book. The title, author, illustrator, front cover, back cover, dedication page, and author are examined in this lesson.

Help your writers get started with these hooks! Twenty-five opening lines from the "Lives" column in the New York Times Magazine act as prompts for creative writing. Have your learners choose one prompt and write an original essay....

Walk your learners through constructing a well-formulated argument on Napoleon's dedication to the goals of the French Revolution. 

A 13-page packet introduces high schoolers to a lady of amazing firsts. Shirley Chisholm was the first Black woman elected to Congress, the first Black woman to run for President of the United States, and a leader of the Women's Rights...

Bring the fun and creativity of children's stories to your language arts class. Middle schoolers write, revise, and publish an original student book which incorporates the elements of a short story. They put their story in the form of a...

Go beyond a traditional end-of-the-year survey and have your middle school pupils compile a portfolio of work illustrating their progression as a writer. 

What goes in must come out! Learners play with a function machine to determine the correct function. They enter input values and watch as the machine produces the output.

Ask your pupils to explore the sounds, forms, and language of poetry by putting together a portfolio of their own work. In a binder, learners collect the poems listed on the second page of the assignment sheet. Each individual creates a...

Here's a fresh approach to the dreaded personal narrative required by most college applications. The Autobiography of Malcolm X is the anchor text for a unit that, through modeling and guided practice exercises, encourages the...

Creating a good main character is a must when writing a creative narrative or novel. Elementary aged writers create main characters for the novel they are writing. They first use themselves as a models, then create a character as a...

Students explore the relationship between the form of books and the content inside. In this book exploration lesson, students use a piece of their creative writing as inspiration; they author a written book and design a cover that...

Sixth graders review a variety of journals including Anne Frank's. They create a school journal including individual entries, a dedication, pagination and illustrations.