Can your pupils change the world? Explore this question with Ben Harper's song "With My Own Two Hands" and John Mayer's "Waiting for the World to Change." After listening to the songs, they discuss the tools at their disposal for...

Jack London's heart for adventure has come to define the spirit of America and its frontier. Selected passages from the foreword The Cruise of the Snark take eighth graders through London's construction and voyage of his ship before...

Your class just completed a graphic organizer as a prewriting strategy, but how do they take what they've recorded on their sheet and turn it into a five-paragraph essay? Help your novice writers with this 23-slide PowerPoint. An example...

"What happens next?" Using real-life scenarios, movies, images, and other prompts, pupils practice making predictions based on inferences from clues. A SMART board activity takes them from making predictions to writing a prediction...

The similarities and differences between academic and everyday summaries/abstracts are explored in this PowerPoint. After reading "Historiographic Reflection on Israel’s Origins: The Rise and Fall of the Patriarchal Age,” and abstracts...

Young writers use the provided Halloween-themed template to record information gathered after researching a topic related to the October holiday. Six different expository text structures are suggested as a guide; however, information on...

Young writers are given a prompt to construct a story around: "Imagine you are spending a night under the stars." The following slides invite learners to use all of their senses to help them create an engaging and interesting story about...

Help young writers make a good first impression on their pen pals with this personal letter template. Including sentence frames and word banks, this resource supports children as they learn to write personal descriptions using complete...

Hobbits, dwarfs, wizards, trolls, and goblins. Readers track these fantastic creatures through J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit noting passages of character description and habitats. Using specific passages from the novel, class...

What are the necessary components of a five paragraph essay? How does one interest their reader? These questions are answered with this 12-slide PowerPoint which details components of the introduction, body paragraphs, and conclusion....

What do you use a brochure for? Middle schoolers or underperforming high schoolers identify the attributes of informative brochures. Either bring in a few brochures you've collected or use the sample brochures attached here. While...

Young grammarians as well as language learners can benefit from a short presentation about using appositives to combine short, related sentences. After a brief definition of terms, pairs share their ideas and combine model sentences.

Expose young readers to a new genre of fiction with a short reading passage. After learning about fables, children identify the main idea and supporting details in preparation for writing a short summary. Read the text as a class,...

Corresponding with pen pals just got easier with this simple writing template. Including sentence frames and space for drawing pictures, this is a fun resource that introduces young learners to writing personal letters.

What we need is another day off! Pupils use a one-page worksheet to present their ideas for a new holiday celebration. After choosing a name and date, they describe how the holiday would be observed and what people would do to celebrate...

Looking for ways for your young writers to practice using adjectives and composing letters? For this activity, learners use the adjectives in a word bank to fill in the 15 gaps in a business letter about Japanese cars. Scholars must...

First graders explore language arts by undergoing a writing assignment. In this descriptive writing lesson, 1st graders identify the skills necessary to write in depth about a subject which they must do based upon a specific topic....

Students examine the use of adjectives in a product review, then write their own descriptive review. In this writing and word usage lesson, students first analyze the choice of adjectives in a New York Times article about the iPhone,...

Students determine the difference between major and minor details after researching animals and completing graphic organizers. They write descriptive paragraphs for classmates to guess what animal is being described.

Students learn characteristics of an effective personal narrative.  In this personal narrative lesson, students discover ways to show rather than tell, adding richness and detail to their writing.  Students evaluate a news...

 Young scholars describe the sensory experience of a character's journey in an essay.  In this precise details writing lesson, students explain the effects on the senses of weather, time of day, landscape, and other...

Twenty-eight lessons make a unit that focuses on skills practice. Lessons explore r-controlled vowels, past tense verbs, nouns, adjectives, and two-syllable words. Pupils read a story, answer questions, and draft a descriptive essay...

Foster community in your classroom and encourage learners to get up and get to know each other. Individuals each receive the classmate inventory handout included and use it to fill in information about their fellow scholars. Once they...

Poetry or prose? That is the question facing middle schoolers as they begin a month-long poetry unit by examining the characteristics that differentiate poetry and prose writing. Pupils learn about poetic devices and different types of...