Here are three well-thought-out tasks intended to build good note taking and letter writing skills. The class reads three short letters, determines who wrote them (based on context) and takes notes as a pre-writing activity. They...

You don't need to be a food critic to describe your meal accurately! A series of activities introduce learners to vivid adjectives when writing about the taste, smell, and feel of food. After working with word choice, parts of a...

Read the descriptive paragraph (included) with your middle schoolers, and have them study the stylistic elements included. They'll look for vivid verbs, alliteration, assonance, similes, and personification. Before writers craft their...

Using a motivating topic as the focus, this activity has learners write an email as though they are describing their new house. English language learners read an example letter, and then practice their own writing skills by writing a...

In this writing instructional activity, students look at a picture of a park and write a story about the picture. Students write their story on the lines provided on the instructional activity.

Reading a dialect can be difficult; show readers that it can also reveal fascinating details! They read two extracts from Jane Gardam's The Hollow Land, which is written in a British dialect. Readers answer comprehension questions,...

Here's a fresh take on a writing prompt. After a reading of Dr. Seuss's If I Ran the Zoo, primary graders imagine a creature for Dr. Seuss's zoo, write a description of their animal, give it a name, explain what it eats, how it...

Explore the elements of a story with this two-page graphic organizer. Readers write and draw descriptions of each element, including setting, plot, conflict, rising action, climax, dialogue, and narration.

Use proportions to determine the travel distance in a given amount of time. The 10th installment in a series of 33 uses tables and descriptions to determine a person's constant speed. Using the constant speed, pupils write a linear...

December writing activities galore! With everything from poetry to research to descriptive writing to writing about things that represent December, there's no way you will run out of options.

As fun as a barrel of monkeys, this figurative language worksheet will engage your students in learning to write similes. Asking them to first think of adjectives describing the six nouns listed on the page, this exercise has...

How do you know what traits a character displays in a story? Learners select a character and find list three traits for this character, explaining why they chose each trait. They then put this information together into a paragraph or essay.

What better way to write in fall than with fall-themed writing paper? Use a set of lined papers to get you started.

Scholars read excerpts from the story, Heidi, in a three-part assessment that focuses on comparing and contrasting characters. Each part contains three tasks that challenge learners to discuss, answer comprehension...

A three-part assessment challenges scholars to write opinion essays covering the topic of the student council. After reading three passages, writers complete a chart, work with peers to complete a mini-research project, answer...

Scholars are lucky to stretch their poetry writing muscles with a worksheet that challenges them to compose two limericks—one about a boy and the other about a dog. 

The characters in Lois Lowry's The Giver are rich and complex as they weave their way through the plot. Examine the character traits of one chosen person with a biopoem, which enables learners to follow a poetic format in writing a...

As a writer, how can you show your audience a certain character is showing a certain emotion? Use this worksheet to practice giving detailed descriptions of your characters and their feelings. Writers complete a chart that lists seven...

In this writing descriptions worksheet, students write a description of a young boy pictured on the lines provided and then write three more descriptions of students in their class.

Eliminate the hard work of creating an entire literature unit with this reading guide for the novel Sarah, Plain and Tall. From background information about the author and her motivation for writing the story to...

Charles Dickens offers an excellent example of sensory writing in this reading comprehension worksheet. Learners read excerpts from the novel Hard Times in which he describes the New England industrial city of Coketown. They...

Can you figure it out? A instructional activity challenges grammarians to read 28 descriptions and guess what noun each one is describing. 

How is your grandmother related to you? How is your cousin related to your grandmother? Learn about family relationships and pronouns with an activity that guides pupils to write two short narratives about members of their families.

Get an in-depth look into a narrative text with a three-page learning exercise that examines a story's character—actions, sayings, thoughts, and appearance—setting, and challenges scholars to write a brief summary about what they've...