Show a Powerpoint presentation about descriptive writing. Fourth graders brainstorm a list of writing topics and place them in graphic organizers. Then they write their own paragraphs describing topics of their choice and create...

The class reads several newspaper articles and analyze them for purpose, style, tone, length and organization. They interview each other about important events in their lives and write journalistic articles.

Get your language arts class moving, build community, and strengthen writing skills with this kinesthetic activity. The class brainstorms interview questions from which each chooses three. Individuals then collect information about six...

Sixth graders use short reading passages to identify, explain, and discuss the author's purpose for writing. After a lecture/demo, they utilize a graphic organizer embedded in this plan to organize their writing ideas.

Students practice organizing their vocabulary words in an online organizer tool. In this vocabulary instructional activity, students read a text and take notes. Additionally, students organize their vocabulary words into an online...

Students use their Life Map to write a strong introduction for an autobiography. They apply the Life Map to a written sequence, use guided imagery to visualize the writing process and experience peer editing.

Students create an art project and write a process paper  as a response to literature.  In this literature response lesson, students listen to Lynn Ehlert's, Snowballs before decorating a construction paper snowman. They write...

Second graders create a graphic organizer on Kidspiration about themselves. They write a personal narrative using the information from their graphic organizer. They share their project with the class.

Class members use a KWHL graphic organizer to record what they know, want to know, and what they need to learn as they read Lois Lowry’s Newbery Medal winning novel about a Danish Jewish family.

If you'd like to quickly access a simple graphic organizer designed for a class to divide and conquer a larger subject, then check out this resource. Assign class members to study a specific topic within a historical theme or event, and...

Can two cultures live together successfully? After reading Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, have your class complete the graphic organizer included. They compare different cultures and brainstorm how different pairs could live...

Young scholars take a field trip to a wetland ecosystem. An informal pond study is performed by students. They examine their favorite animal, write a description of how it moves and illustrate it. In groups, young scholars draw pictures...

What does your fortune say? Engage class members in writing complete sentences by first handing out fortune cookies and reading the messages. Pupils will practice writing complete sentences by composing fortunes to put in die cut fortune...

A perfect nonfiction writing activity for the beginning of the year, the Life Line helps you get to know your pupils better and helps the children get to know one another. Later in the year the Star of the Week writing activity...

Examine the works of visual and performing artists with upper graders. Using the works, they identify the comparisons among the techniques used. They will also review the six traits of effective writing and keep a writing journal...

Thorough and well-organized, this lesson plan helps pupils to weigh, build, and refute an argument (the latter of which is featured here; the first two parts are linked within the resource). Given a simplified argument and counter...

Explore nonfiction writing by comparing and contrasting two different texts. After reading two nonfiction books, articles, or magazines, learners utilize a graphic organizer to record their similarities and differences. They answer study...

Get your students writing, clear and organized stories with this PowerPoint. Students are taken through the brainstorming process by using a story web, they fill out what happened, where it happened, who was there, and how they felt....

Compare and contrast the characters in John Boyne's The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. Using a Venn diagram, kids write in different traits to describe each person, and note their shared characteristics in the middle section.

Have your middle schoolers define the terms outline, summary, paraphrase, plagiarism, citation, reference, and bibliography. They identify the main ideas, topic sentence, supporting ideas in technical writing and create note cards using...

Identify nouns in speech and writing. Learners find all the nouns in a read-aloud story. Then, they complete a worksheet that reviews the use of nouns, verbs, adjectives, prepositions, conjunctions, pronouns, and interjections. A list of...

Need to review the five-paragraph format with your high schoolers? Although the presentation does not include a complete essay as a model, the concise definitions and explanations would serve as a good review before learners are assigned...

This rubric is decent, but it doesn't provide a point allotment for each category. Use this as an outline to create a more comprehensive assessment for your writers' research papers. 

Compare and contrast just about anything with this handy graphic organizer. While it is the classic Venn diagram, there's something a little special about this particular resource: it's editable. That means you or your pupils can...