Teams select a society to investigate and create a chart comparing and contrasting the status of girls in that society with their own. They then craft and illustrate a personal narrative written from the point of view of a girl living in...

How do your pupils want to change the world? Find out with this writing prompt, inspired by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s well-known speech. The resource provides the prompt and lines for writing.

Middle schoolers write descriptions, narratives, and dialogues based on objects of art and time periods in a museum. They base several writing assignments on art objects and paintings, including a literal description and an emotional...

Giving gifts has been a part of the human experience since modern man walked the earth. Upper graders explore the culture of gift giving in Mayan times through an artistic analysis. They analyze gift giving and palace life as seen on an...

The students create a personal narrative on their experiences with immigration. In this lesson plan, students are asked to read and understand examples of narrative writing as well as evaluate lyrics from Ben Folds Five to determine...

Young historians use their planning graphic organizer to prepare a personal narrative draft on expert trades. Since the instructional activity is considered the mid-unit assessment, learners respond to a writing prompt related to the...

A reading of a New York Times review of the movie Beloved launches research into how the Civil War affected the lives of people living during this period. Creative thinkers select a person from an included list of historical figures and...

Discover the lovely story of Raimundo Arruda Sobrinho with your class. Over the course of the lesson, pupils practice descriptive writing, write short narratives, collaborate in small groups, watch a powerful short film about Raimundo,...

Inspire your class to write about role models and personal heroes with this resource from The Learning Network. Class members read a New York Times article excerpt about basketball star Jeremy Lin and how he inspired the author. After...

Conduct a classroom conversation about communication using this resource as a jumping-off point. For this The Learning Network activity, learners read an excerpt from The New York Times opinion piece, "The Flight From Conversation," and...

Helpful for an American literature or history unit, this lesson prompts middle schoolers to examine slavery in the United States. They read slave narratives that were part of the Federal Writers' Project and then conduct their own...

Fourth graders write a narrative from a race car driver's point of view. In this narratives lesson students use the narrative writing format to write about a race car driver's experiences in the Indianapolis 500. The students use a...

Students discover journalism by writing about themselves.  In this non-fiction writing lesson, students discuss the outline of a personal narrative and write a paper about an experience they've had.  Students reflect on the...

Fourth graders read various stories in their literature books about families. Individually, they make a timeline showing the most important events in their lives. They bring in one artifact from their lives and write a paper about it...

Approach the topic of popularity with this resource from the New York Times and their Learning Network series. The article is about Alexandra Robbins' "Quirk Theory." Learners respond to the article excerpt either on paper or...

Frequently banned, often challenged, a mainstay of middle school curriculum, Tales from the Secret Annex, is the featured text in the seventh unit in the Teacher Guide Core Knowledge Program. The 134-page guide includes an...

Fourth graders write from the perspective of a child in the colonial period. In this writing instructional activity, 4th graders create a fictional character living in the colonial period and write about daily life from their perspective.

Students examine their lives. In this autobiography lesson, students write about their lives. They examine their past, and present lives and imagine their futures. They end the lesson sharing their personal narrative.

Travel back in American history to the era of slavery and abolition. After reading about the Underground Railroad, young historians examine a painting depicting the event, and write a narrative from the point of view of a person in the...

Bring a time machine into your classroom with this writing lesson, in which young writers project themselves back in time and have a variety of choices from that point forward. They either write a conversation with a historical figure,...

What is it that makes people keep going when they face challenges in life? Ask your class to consider this question in relation to their own experiences and as they read material from The New York Times. Using personal experiences...

Imagine you are a soldier in the Civil War. What are you wearing? What do you need to carry with you? Examine the life of a person during the Civil War, from drummer boys to powder monkeys to musket-toting soldiers. Elementary...

Learners read slave narratives and retell the stories to the class, identifying sensory details. In this slavery lesson, students discuss the importance of sensory details, then read the slave narratives looking for specific examples. ...

Ask your learners to reflect and write with this worksheet. This activity asks pupils to write about positive experiences - times when they have displayed positive qualities such as courage, kindness, wisdom, and determination. This...