Sixth graders explore details from a story to develop ideas and opinions about character traits. Using a Smart Board, 6th graders create a chart explaining the character's action and traits. In groups, students discuss and describe...

Collective story writing is a great way to reinforce the concept of story elements and collaborative learning. Young writers discuss story elements such as, setting, character, action, climax, conclusion, foreshadowing, dialogue, and...

Beyond Paul Bunyan and his blue ox, tall tales can be a great way to teach young writers about word choice and voice in their writing. Using Jerry Spinelli's Maniac Magee  and the Six-Trait Writing process, they begin to write...

Looking for a great lesson on how to write a biography? Here, middle schoolers draw from magazine articles, novels, historical figures, and current events to choose a person, or character to write about in a biography. They follow a...

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...

Running an election campaign takes money. Class groups must effectively budget money in order to design and purchase sufficient advertising aimed at procuring classmates' votes. After completing an online tutorial, they also write and...

How does an author develop his or her characters? Using the short story "On the Bridge" by Todd Strasser, readers study character development by looking for examples of both direct and indirect characterization. They plot these points on...

Combine participial phrases and creative writing with this lesson, which is equally helpful for writing skills and conventions. After a mini-lesson on participial phrases and reading the picture book Dancing in the Wings, pupils use a...

Sometimes, sensory details can bring you back to a familiar place. Study the setting descriptions from a critical chapter in Amy Tan's A Joy Luck Club, and discuss how they enhance the book's plot and contribute to a central theme.

Encourage close reading of the text and a focus on how Sandra Cisneros' develops her characters with an activity that asks teams to sort, group, and label character descriptions from The House on Mango Street.

Imagine a day in the life of a child who has to work 12-14 hours a day, seven days a week. After viewing images and reading stories of child laborers, class members select an image and write a richly detailed narrative about a typical...

The best way to be a good writer is to read good writing. Learners read and discuss an excerpt from a book that will help them comprehend the relationship between setting and character. They will use what they've gleaned from discussion...

From British accents to Texan drawls, a character's dialect can be an important part of the reading experience. A Six-Trait writing activity guides learners through the analysis of a character's dialect (Daniel Keyes's Flowers for...

What a terrific exploration of writing! This resource focuses on how to write a great beginning for a narrative piece. It is a thoughtful and helpful look at this topic.

Examine homelessness through a series of writing and discussion activities and a short film. Learners first come up with their own stories based on images of characters in the film. They then watch the film and respond to a series of...

Class groups assume the identity of one of the primary human characters in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. They create a body biography that identifies the most important traits of their character, translate these traits into...

Poems For Two Voices are a great resource in any language arts classroom, whether you are studying poetry or not. Focusing on The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, this lesson prompts young authors to write a Poem For Two...

Shakespeare can be a challenge to the most skilled high school readers. This selection of short answer questions helps increase understanding of the character, Katherine, by addressing dialogue, tone of voice, making inferences, and...

Get the word out about friendship, support, and a safe school community with a media literacy lesson about bullying. Young journalists investigate instances of bullying and take descriptive pictures as they compile a magazine to fight...

Introduce your class to the characters from My Antonia by Willa Cather in a unique way. Given a hypothetical situation about an atomic bomb shelter and a list of character descriptions, pupils must decide which characters get to...

After reading Love That Dog by Sharon Creech (and possibly shedding a few tears), middle schoolers work on their own sixteen-word poems with a Six Trait writing activity. They focus on word choice in this activity to capture an...

There is nothing more exciting than allowing learners to express themselves through a creative medium. In groups, they write narrative stories, focusing on building a strong storyline and dialogue. Next, they transform their stories into...

In this writing worksheet, students write a descriptive sentence to tell about each clip art character. They write sentences to describe a teddy bear, a dragon, a basketball player, and a rubber duck.