Curated OER
Writing Summaries
Practice summary writing with informational texts. Young readers create summaries after reading magazine articles, newspaper articles, or other forms of informational texts. Readers use the GRASP strategy (read text, write what you...
Curated OER
Imaginary Wealth and a Magazine Article
Students explore economics by writing a fictitious news article. In this personal wealth lesson, students participate in a role-playing activity in which the year is 2025 and they must write an article about their extremely wealthy...
Curated OER
Magazine Production
Analyze magazines as a class, looking carefully for the target audience, advertisements, and topics presented. Small groups then work as a publication team and receive a magazine that they have to "sell." Each individual has a different...
Curated OER
Tell Us All: Tools for Integrating Math and Engineering
What a scam! Middle and high schoolers pose as journalists exposing consumer fraud. In this lesson, they write an article for a magazine using data collected during previous investigations (prior lessons) to defend their findings that a...
British Council
Rich!
Let's take a trip to the future. Scholars imagine their future wealthy selves by completing a worksheet based on the year 2025. Then, acting as journalists, they conduct interviews with their classmates to prepare to write an article for...
Newseum
Editorials and Opinion Articles
Reading the news is fun, and that's a fact! With the lesson plan, scholars differentiate between fact and opinion as they read editorial articles. They complete a worksheet to analyze the information before writing their own editorials...
Curated OER
Persuasive/Argumentative Essay vs. Opinion writing
Reinforce persuasive and argumentative writing skills with this lesson, which utilizes SchoolNet News Network's website/SNN Monthly magazine. Young writers review journalism writing styles that help them explain that writing a persuasive...
Curated OER
How to Write a Biography
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...
Curated OER
Writing Fables
Young scholars write their own fables. In this writing fables lesson, students use handheld computers to write a fable. The class designs a spreadsheet to organize common elements of fables. Young scholars also edit each others' work.
Curated OER
Jeffrey and Sloth: Six Traits of Writing
Use drawings as inspiration. Have learners doodle for 10 minutes before beginning the lesson. Then, have them use their doodles to inspire a story. Several writing activities are included here to play with writing. One of my favorites...
Curated OER
"Me" Resource
Learners elucidate themselves by writing up to six entries in different formats. Some formatting choices include a dictionary, encyclopedia, or atlas entry, a magazine article, a newspaper article, and a table of contents. Some...
Curated OER
Blogging to Create a Community of Writers #6: Writing a Review
Looking for a good social media lesson for your class? Then, this lesson is for you! They study various written reviews, then must choose an item to review of their choice. They can choose from: a book, restaurant, CD/musical...
Curated OER
Publishing a Magazine
Students work collaboratively to create, edit, and publish their own student magazine. The lesson suggests the use of iPhoto, a word processor, iPages, and digital cameras for the creative process.
Curated OER
Expository --Writing
For this writing worksheet, students investigate the writing process, especially in expository articles. Students examine a piece written for a children's magazine about dinosaurs. Students read about the steps taken to generate it:...
Curated OER
Are You For Real?
Students try to find newspaper and magazine articles that are informative or persuasive. They practice determining the differences between the two types of articles. They identify the devices authors use to persuade the audience.
Curated OER
New Gun Control Politics: A Whimper, Not a Bang
Using an article from The New York Times, students answer discussion questions about gun control. They are divided into four groups to research different standpoints on gun control, including the Executive Office, Congress, Gun Control...
Curated OER
Eastside Literacy Reading Lesson - Fact or Opinion
Analyze critical thinking skills that involve the ability to distinguish between fact and opinion through self-reflection. Higher education students will collect a newspaper article, advertisement, magazine article, tabloid article,...
Curated OER
Briefly Noted: Practicing Useful Annotation Strategies
Post-It notes, highlighting, underlining. Sam Anderson’s New York Times Magazine article, “What I Really Want Is Someone Rolling Around in the Text,” launches a study of “marginalia,” or writing thoughts in the margins of a text. After...
Scholastic
Outlining Main Ideas and Details
Practice outlining and evaluating expository writing in this instructional activity. After discussing main ideas and seeing examples, young writers go through a sample outline and discuss the way to properly format a piece of writing....
Curated OER
"I Spy": Using Adjectives and Descriptive Phrases
Students define adjectives and use adjectives and descriptive phrases to write a descriptive paragraph. They write a description of a sensory item, and read and discuss a five senses chart. Students then complete a chart using adjectives...
Newseum
Journalists Code of Ethics
Journalists are supposed to adhere to a Code of Ethics. To determine the degree to which reporters follow this code, individuals select three recent stories with photographs from newspapers, magazines, online news sites, or television...
Curated OER
Creating Bloggers
Blogs provide the motivation for this richly detailed writing lesson plan. After viewing blogs on various websites, class members pick topics, create a blog, and post an entry. Your bloggers then evaluate their work using evaluation...
Curated OER
Biology Project: Gone Fishing
Learners write a scientific article using data and prediction skills. In this scientific writing lesson plan, students access data about fishing off the coast of New Jersey. They look at satellite data, fluorometry and CTD data over a 3...
Curated OER
Jeffrey and Sloth
Students listen to the story Jeffrey and Sloth and explore the six traits of writing. In this six traits of writing lesson plan, students practice doodling as a method of brainstorming ideas. Students then discover the importance of...