Fifth graders analyze William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, paying close attention to character development, plot, and dialogue. With daily reading and thoughtful discussion, scholars take pen to paper to respond to journal...

Throughout 10 lessons, fourth graders learn how to plan, organize, write, and edit their own personal narratives. In the beginning, young writers come up with ideas of personal experiences and the emotions linked with those experiences....

Nine lessons over three weeks explore the human body through read-alouds. Third graders listen to and discuss a reading followed by extension activities, including word work and comprehension practice. Learners draft a narrative essay.

A read-aloud anthology explores our solar system and beyond. Informational texts about astronomy invite pupils to discuss readings. Extension activities examine vocabulary, sayings, and phrases. Scholars work through the writing process...

Introduce expository writing with a unit that asks writers to craft an essay to explain a belief, value, or priority that is important to them. Mini-lessons within the unit focus on crafting thesis statements and conclusions, selecting...

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.

Whether it's an election year or not, a unit on voting patterns and political campaigns will awaken the civic pride in your high school citizens. Divided into six parts, the curriculum covers various facets of an election, including...

Scholars learn all about the Puritans in the third installment of a 16-part lesson series. After watching a video, they read and discuss biographies of Puritans and Quakers from American history, write journal entries and poetry, and...

What were the virtues and values that helped form America? Pupils watch and discuss a video, read biographies of early Americans, chart the differences between early American religious movements, write journals and letters, draw, and...

Ah, the dreaded college application essay. Here's a unique approach to crafting a powerful personal essay. Class members read The Autobiography of Malcolm X and Leslie Marmon Silko's Yellow Woman and a Beauty of the Spirit, analyze the...

Students practice biographical and autobiographical forms of writing: autobiography, biopoem, character traits, classmate biography.

Teenagers love to take risks to test their personal boundaries, but many risks are too dangerous to try. The set of exercises in this packet teach your class about the ways they can stay safe and protect themselves while still having fun.

Terror, mystery, excitement. American writers of the 19th century, including Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, and Emily Dickinson, used these elements to create morally ambiguous tales that challenged the prevailing belief in...

Students study the speeches of Frederick Douglas, Abraham Lincoln, and Chief Joseph. Students write a story set during the Nineteenth Century Era. Students present their story to the class. Handouts and worksheets are included in the...

A collection of essay assessment rubrics are provide on this learning module. Several rubrics for narrative essays, persuasive essays, and research papers are provided on this site.

[Accessible by TX Educators. Free Registration/Login Required] In this lesson, you will learn how to write an essay that has only one purpose: to tell a story about you. It's called a personal narrative, personal because it is all about...

Notes, a PowerPoint presentation, two videos, a song, an exercise, and a game help students to understand how to write a narrative. Elements of a narrative as well as the use of figurative language and sensory images are introduced and...

This site is a professor's guide for students. This guide features information on how to distinguish between Poe and his narrators in his stories.