Curated OER
Making a Formal Argument $5 or a Lottery Ticket
What's better: having a lottery ticket or a $5 bill? This question is sure to engage your middle schoolers. There's an example answer provided and, unlike the other worksheets of its kind, there is a space to write both a rough and final...
Curated OER
Car For Sale!
Car For sale! In this GED prep instructional activity, writers develop a classified advertisement to sell a car. After a discussion of precise words and phrases, telling details, and sensory language, sellers draft their ad for review,...
Curated OER
Accordion-Book Summary
Introduce your young readers to the book review. Groups of writers practice the basic steps of writing a book report and complete an Accordion-Book Summary activity. The lesson includes book report basics and directions to make...
Curated OER
Eliminate Weak Verb-Adverb Combinations
Encourage your writers to use sob instead of cry loudly to trade in adverbs for strong verbs. Improve your middle and high schoolers' writing with this humorously written lesson which demonstrates how to remove excessive adverbs.
Curated OER
The Writing Process
Students engage in the various steps involved in the writing process. The lesson plan is written as a guide for the teacher to write more in depth lesson plans for specific activities. This is a good model plan to follow.
Curated OER
Writing Fables
Pupils develop a working skill of using graphic organizers for writing. The lesson notes that the best kind of organizer is one that is engaging to the appropriate audience. The assessment follows the rubric given in the lesson.
Curated OER
Write a Tanka Poem
In this Tanka poem worksheet, 6th graders analyze a Tanka poem for number of syllables and content parameters, then write one about a journey, real or imagined using the 6 step writing process.
Curated OER
Problem Solution Writing
Students, after brainstorming possible problem solving activities, choose from one of the many and write what the problem is and a solution to solve it.
Scholastic
Descriptive Writing Fortunes
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...
Teacher Printables
My Report Pack for. . .
Here is a handy guide for putting together a research report on birds, or on a selection of other topics (see the added materials.). Individuals are guided to think of three questions about their topic, they narrow down subtopics, use a...
Curated OER
The Physics of Sports: An 8th Grade Physical Science Project
Explore the relationship between sports and physics in a cross-curricular lesson. Middle and high schoolers prepare a multimedia presentation based on a chosen sport. They answer five physics vocabulary questions about how the laws of...
Curated OER
Language Arts: Stick Puppet Show
Students create short stories and make stick puppets to act it out. After editing their stories, they glue used CDs or DVDs to popsicle sticks and decorate them as the story characters. Finally, students present their puppet shows to...
Library of Congress
The Harlem Renaissance
The Harlem Renaissance brought forth many American art forms including jazz, and the writings of Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes. Using a carefully curated set of documents from the Library of Congress, pupils see the cultural...
Curated OER
Clay Story Adventure
Young scholars build three-dimensional rough draft for a story by creating objects, people, places, animals, etc., with clay, and write story in a journal, poem, or other written form.
Curated OER
Eudora Welty Internet Scavenger Hunt
Students use the Internet as a research tool. they read, comprehend, identify, evaluate, and select the correct answers to contextual questions.They write a rough draft, edit/revise, and a final draft summarizing the information located.
Virginia Department of Education
Editing and Proofreading
This task is best utilized after a rough draft revision is completed. Writers pair-up and identify when the author uses the passive voice, clichés, and wordiness. Basic examples for the revision points are provided for the...
Curated OER
Intermediate Question Response- "Your Favorite Movie"
In this intermediate question response learning exercise, students write a response telling what their favorite movie is and why. They read an exemplary answer, write a rough draft, and a final draft of their answer.
Curated OER
Five-Paragraph Essay
Seventh graders examine the five-paragraph essay format, including the main idea and supporting sentences. After outlining their essay ideas, they write their rough drafts and proofread them in preparation for writing their final papers.
Curated OER
Essay Exchange Unit: Rough Drafts
Pupils submit rough drafts of position papers and post them on computer networks for review.
Curated OER
U.S. Generals...Support the Draft
Young scholars examine anti-war TV ads concerning the war in Iraq. They research information concerning the war, quotes made by generals, and the importance of a strong military. Students explore the possibility of enacting a draft and...
American Press Institute
Newspapers in Your Life: What’s News Where?
Big news isn't necessarily newsworthy everywhere! How do journalists decide what to cover with so much happening around them? A instructional activity on media literacy examines the factors that affect the media's choice of stories to...
EngageNY
Grade 9 ELA Module 2, Unit 2, Lesson 19
Now that readers can see the full scope of Sophocles' Oedipus the King, they can draw connections between the dramatic ending and the textual evidence throughout the Greek tragedy. As they prepare for the unit assessment writing prompt,...
Curated OER
Environment: Endangered Mammal Project
Students research different mammals and create illustrations and narratives about them. Working individually or in small groups, students compose their rough drafts prior to creating their posters or dioramas. Students present short...
Curated OER
Lesson Ideas for Halloween Writing
Halloween writing activities provide a way to make descriptive language a part of a student's literary repertoire.