After reading the first, second, and third parts of "How Bear Lost His Tail", third grade writers answer questions about the story by completing a series of options, including discussion points. Then, they begin to plan a new narrative...

Get in touch with the emotional side of writing by reading Words By Heart. The writing assignment helps learners make personal connections with the text and hone their writing skills by exploring a time that they had to forgive...

Learners revisit Plantation Life to focus on Douglass's purpose and choices he made for writing the text. They complete text-dependent questions, an analysis note catcher, and finalize their thoughts by sharing out with the class.

Build upon prior equation writing experience to create more complicated equations. Lesson one in a 33-part unit builds upon the class members' sixth and seventh grade experience of writing linear equations. Several examples...

It's the classic scene: Tom Sawyer is whitewashing a fence. Expose your learners to Mark Twain's humor while reinforcing reading comprehension. Eighth graders are encouraged to read and reread, achieving as much exposure to the text...

Imagine 28 instructional strategies, appropriate for all subject areas and all grade levels. Directed Reading-Thinking Activities (DRTA), Question-Answer Relationship (QAR) activities, KWL charts, comparison matrixes, classification...

Lesson 7 focuses on building academic vocabulary and writing an explanatory letter with supported textual evidence. For the first five minutes of the activity, the educator reminds the class of how to read and refer to the accordion...

An assessment challenges scholars to read an informative text then respond with an explanatory essay. The exam begins as participants read a text passage twice then take notes, making sure to jot down key details. Following the...

A two-part assessment challenges scholars to gather information from reading then write an opinion piece. In part one, learners read, take notes, and answer text-related questions. In part two, participants use their new-found knowledge...

An assessment sheds light on scholars' ability to read, gather evidence, and draft an original written composition. Learners read an informative text twice before taking notes and discussing their thoughts and textual evidence with a...

Provide these templates as aids for pupils as they work to compose summaries of both stories and informational texts. The first two frames provide sentence starters to help learners structure their summaries and include all the necessary...

Does a ban on vending machines infringe on student rights, or do school officials have an obligation to monitor foods sold on school grounds? Your class members will explore the educational, health, and financial issues related to...

A language arts instructional activity helps young writers identify elements that make up historical fiction. First, it guides them through elements of fictional pieces with vocabulary cards. Then, pupils work collaboratively to...

Students write their own fables. For this writing fables lesson, students use handheld computers to write a fable. The class designs a spreadsheet to organize common elements of fables. Students also edit each others' work.

Sharing is caring! Using the collaborative lesson, scholars engage in a shared writing process with the teacher. Working together, they compose opinion letters about Jackie Robinson's legacy. 

High schoolers investigate the dilemma of a proportional response with a lesson about the history of terrorism and militant extremists in the United States. As they examine memos from the FBI and speeches from President Bush and Obama,...

A two-day assessment challenges scholars to read an excerpt from the story, Bud Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis then complete a series of exercises in preparation for a writing assignment. Day one includes an independent...

Wrap up your unit on The Cay with an engaging argumentative writing assignment. Writers must decide if they believe The Cay should be banned. The resource includes links to several articles, which have been addressed and examined in...

Writing a recipe for how to make a banana split is the task assigned in this language arts resource. Learners must list the ingredients, then write the instructions for how to construct the dessert. They can look up the instructions in a...

Those in positions of authority don't always have the best interest of their people in mind. As part of a sample assessment question, readers must consider how works of literature they read apply to a quote from Edmund Burke—"The greater...

Practice the strategy of summarizing to gain meaning and knowledge from an informational text. Young readers highlight supporting details and main ideas, and then they use this to summarize two articles: "The Great Quake" and "What...

Just like you choose your clothes to ensure they fit the occasion, you should choose your words deliberately while writing. Style, the main topic of one handout in a series on writing skills, involves choosing words carefully and paying...

Readers take another look at  Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass to determine the purpose of the text. They use Frederick Douglass’s Purpose: Text and Questions handout and a close reading guide to direct their thinking. To...

Create to learn! Your class can create posters of transitional words and phrases to help them compose an explanatory text. They work in groups and focus on one type of transition (time, place, importance, etc.). They also create a poster...