As a final assignment in a unit study of Edward Bloor's Tangerine, individuals assume the voice of Paul Fisher and craft the witness report Paul mentions in the final pages of the novel. A great way to assess the...

Betty Botter and Theophilus Thistle provide models for willy writers to wrestle words into tricky tongue twisters. 

Here's a new take on a new year. After watching and discussing the video of Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman performing her "New Day's Lyric," young poets craft poems that reflect their feelings about the past year and their resolutions...

Nothing's better than a really funny poem! Help young writers craft their funny poems with a lesson on one of the most challenging parts of writing: picking what to write about.

Imagine a list that includes Alan Abelson of Baron's, Bob Woodward of the Washington Post, and Mother Jones. High schoolers select a national columnist, read and annotate five columns by this author, noting the rhetorical...

Learning to read and write in response to a prompt is an essential skill. Users of this interactive learn how to analyze a writing prompt to determine the many facets that must be addressed, how to plan and structure a response, and how...

Varier wag? I'fecks? Posterns? As part of their vocabulary study, readers of The Winter's Tale try their hand at crafting Shakespearian-style sentences using words drawn from the play.

If your students made a list of their favorite things, would writing poetry be on it? After this poetry writing lesson, it might! Young writers make a list of what they like—or what they don't like—before crafting the list into...

Can your class convince the townspeople to support the rally in Carl Hiaasen's Hoot? Have your young writers exercise their persuasive writing skills in a lesson that prompts them to write a letter or a speech based on Chapter 18...

Revive the art of letter writing with a project that enables class members to craft their own, personalized stationary. Young scholars add their name, address, and country to three different templates that features images of mythic...

Need some ideas for poetry lessons? Check out this packet loaded with suggestions for elementary, middle, and high school writers.

Identifying an author’s choice, especially choices that concern craft and literary devices, is a difficult skill to teach. Here's an activity that will make your job easier. The resource breaks down how to teach the skill to novice,...

After examining winning entries to the Nicholas A. Virgilio Memorial Haiku Competition, young poets try their hand at this fixed form.

A reading adventure pack, featuring a fiction and nonfiction book focuses on the weather. Scholars read Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs by Judi Barrett and Seymour Simon and then complete three creative activities. Participants craft...

Instructing learners on how to craft a good paragraph, a skill required of all writers, is the focus of a 23-page packet that includes directions, graphic organizers, exercises, and worksheets for guided practice. 

To conclude a study of the French Revolution, young historians adopt the voice of critics of Napoleon Bonaparte and lay charges against him. They then craft a memoir in Napoleon's voice that details his motives and what he sees as his...

To better understand the conflict between Amir and Hassan, two characters in Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner, readers assume the voice of one of the boys and craft a letter to the other that explains his feelings and concerns.

To focus attention on key concepts and vocabulary words in The Last Lecture, readers use power words drawn from the text to craft found poems.

Powerful verbs. Significant nouns. Great adjectives. Readers of The Last Lecture conduct a power vocabulary search and create a list of words drawn from the text that will be used to craft a found poem.

Students color pages, eat carrots, read books, and more to learn about Winnie the Pooh. In this Winnie the Pooh lesson plan, students also play a bears musical chairs game.

Give your students writing prompts to help them with their writer's block by using these PDF templates of boxes with open-ended prompts written on them. Although targeting elementary students, the concept could be used for middle school...