A Tale of Two Cities is the core text for five lessons in a Curriculum Guide for Charles Dickens' famous novel. To begin, scholars examine Dickens' use of anaphora in the first line of the novel. Next, they compare the point of view in a...

Pairs of pupils choose a person who they consider to be a hero. They research that person, develop a speech, and deliver it to the class in hopes of persuading them that this person really is a hero. A vote is taken after the...

Intended for native Spanish speakers, this plan provides an opportunity to create a class semantic web describing the different seasons and listen to Vivaldi's "Four Seasons." Learners will work together to revise their semantic webs,...

Descriptive writing is a must for students to understand. Using adverbs and adjectives, they turn simple sentences into works of art. Each simple sentence gets a descriptive make-over. This instructional activity suggests using Laptops...

First graders practice using describing words. In this descriptive word lesson plan, 1st graders read the story The Wonderful Pigs of Jillian Jiggs and match the pig descriptions to their names. They play a game where they describe an...

Access your young poets' senses and emotions with this activity, which guides them through the process of writing a "sense poem." After working on a sense poem as a class and modeling the procedure, individuals work on their own poems...

When paired with a trip to Aston Hall's kitchen, this activity is a good way to practice recall and descriptive language. Without literally being in the kitchen, it could actually be an even better activity! Students could use their...

Eighth graders are introduced to authors in the conservation community. As a class, they describe a personal experience they have had with nature. They identify examples of an author's descriptive writing techniques and answer questions...

Everyone loves Arthur, the friendly aardvark! Emerging readers explore Arthur books by Marc Brown. They use the Internet to research Marc Brown and share information with their class. They work independently to conduct research and then...

Young writers choose a person from American history, their community, or their family to use as the subject of a persuasive essay. The process begins with a discussion of the characteristics of a hero, the completion of a prewriting web,...

Scholars creatively respond to writing prompts. They respond to writing prompts that reveal clues regarding their personalities and then use the prompts written in class to guess the prompts that belong to their classmates.

Sixth graders discuss their likes, dislikes, hobbies, goals, and special events in their lives. They write a five paragraph autobiography focusing on style, transitions, and details. This is well-suited for either explanatory or...

Students explain how individual elements (e.g., plot, theme, character, conflict, etc.) comprise the structure of a play. They write an original one-act play with developed characters, specific setting, conflict, and resolution.

Readers write a formal letter to an author offering an alternative ending to a story the author has written. First, the class reads a story or novel. Upon finishing the reading, they are introduced to the format of a formal letter. They...

Students research art and write about how a certain art piece relates to their own life. In this art lesson plan, students go to Brooks museum and discuss the art they find there.

Young thespians can try their hand at writing a script and acting out a scene, while gaining a deeper understanding of the universal topics presented in Shakespeare's wide array of plays. Begin the lesson by conducting a compare and...

Pupils examine and discuss author's purpose and the influence of an author's perspective in his or her writing. In groups, they read scenarios and respond to them from the perspective of a designated character. Materials are attached.

Students use an object to tell an interesting story from their lives. They write and present a short story about an interesting episode from their life and gather objects in a story bag, which illustrates their story to the class.

Practice being concise. Exercise your vocabulary. Improve your editing skills. The contention in this activity is that by imposing a 140 character limit, the Twitter format actually helps improve writing skills. And of course class...

Students research Greek myths and identify characters from ancient Greece. After discussing the names, descriptions, scenes an objects in Greek mythology, they draw pictures on tiles and write descriptions. Students join the tiles...

Middle and high schoolers hone their writing skills by reading Rikki-Tikki-Tavi and the poem Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout Would Not Take the Garbage Out. They fill out a graphic organizer (included here), and use the organizer to write an...

Explore how to use appropriate language for a variety of real-world settings. Here, middle schoolers determine the audience for various types of magazines, and identify words that are appropriate for various friends and family members....

In this creative writing worksheet, students sort through old pictures and discuss the characterization in each. Students create characters, a setting, and their own tall tale or urban legend based on the pictures.

Students explore script writing. In this beginning of the year "building classroom community" lesson plan, students write several autobiographical sentences and introduce themselves on videotape. Students share the class introduction,...