Offering several reading comprehension activities, such as a character map and a plot flow chart, this book report form will help your class through Mark Twain's Prince and the Pauper. The activities in the lesson lend well to...

Enrich a unit on fairy tales and tall tales with a set of read-aloud lessons. Second graders hone writing, vocabulary, comprehension, and literary analysis skills as they read classic stories. Complete with extension projects, discussion...

Starting at the very beginning may be a very good place to start, but it can also be very difficult for emergent writers. Help them get started by providing them with a setting, a main character, and a basic plot.

Explore the elements of a story with this two-page graphic organizer. Readers write and draw descriptions of each element, including setting, plot, conflict, rising action, climax, dialogue, and narration.

Encourage your learners to examine the setting in Theodore Taylor's The Cay. Pupils work in small groups to put together a description of the setting before reading two more chapters of the book. They use their double-entry journals to...

Conclude your unit on Peter and the Starcatchers with an involved final writing project that requires learners to write persuasive pieces, compose short stories, create brochures about the setting of the novel, and choose from a...

A comprehensive and immersive series of lessons that examines various aspects of story development leads learners into writing a narrative of their own. Writers develop an understanding of the writing process as they use the learning...

Students use iMovie to write, illustrate, and narrate a movie book to bring their story alive visually and capture the interest of and inspire nonreaders at their school.

Eliminate the hard work of creating an entire literature unit with this reading guide for the novel Sarah, Plain and Tall. From background information about the author and her motivation for writing the story to...

Refuse to alienate your scientific-minded young scholars during your creative writing unit. Learners explore how literary writing can reflect observable fact, and be based in actual science. The links include examples of fiction and...

Young writers generate descriptive words. They use pictures of various landscapes (from books, magazines, or the Internet) and complete a story pyramid. The pyramid (included here) asks to describe the main character, the setting, and...

Thomas Jefferson is one of the most recognized names and faces in America—but is there more to the third president of the United States? Upper elementary and middle schoolers conduct research on Jefferson, his famous home at Monticello,...

Many regard John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath as the great American novel. The lesson plan combines a variety of strategies, including partner work, independent practice, creative writing, grammar instruction, and small group...

A short story is only as strong as its characters, development, and conflicts. Encourage the young authors in your class to plan their stories based on the elements of narrative writing, all provided in brainstorming graphic organizers.

If the Lorax were to write a letter, what would he write? Introduce your class to systems and feedback loops through the whimsical stylings of Dr. Seuss. Learners take on the Lorax's point of view to write a letter, among other activities.

Can you understand more about how a person acts by learning about how that person lives? An interactive resource explores the setting of Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird with several slides discussing the location, social...

Support your learners as they work on writing paragraphs by providing graphic organizers, outlines, and frames. Sift through this packet to find the perfect organizers and templates to prepare pupils for writing. The resource...

Compare and contrast two paragraphs describing Alexander Fleming's scientific discovery of penicillin using this compare-and-contrast reading worksheet where scholars explain what happens through writing, decide whether the excerpts are...

A mouse on a motorcycle—what could possibly go wrong? Using the novel study that accompanies Beverly Cleary's The Mouse and the Motorcycle, pupils complete a brief vocabulary activity and then answer questions about the text. Next,...

After viewing slides and reading about child labor, young authors compose an original narrative story. They practice note-taking skills and work to effectively engage a reader by incorporating plot, logical order, complex characters,...

First and second graders explore the importance of having a beginning, middle, and end when writing stories. In this story writing instructional activity, students write short stories using the story diamond as a guide. They invite their...

Students write a story about their achievements in a sport, or their dreams for success in other areas. They create original works of art depicting their goals or anticipated achievements. They then display their stories and art.

Fill-out a story map to help your scholars with pre-writing. They will use a story map template to pre-write. They also organize their ideas into steps which become the foundation for their first draft. Concrete objects are brought in to...

Enhance a unit on historical fiction with an engaging writing instructional activity. Learners bring the Industrial Era to life as they compose their own historical fiction pieces based on primary source images of Pittsburgh steel...