Curated OER
Story Mapping
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...
Curated OER
Writing Short Stories: The Fun Way
Do your young authors suffer from writer's block when they try to write short stories? Access their natural creativity with C-Gor, the writing monster! The instructional activity takes aspiring authors through a new writing process...
Curated OER
Making A Story Map
Sixth graders learn to plan a story by using a story map. They analyze a detailed sample story map and answer 5 questions about it. Then, plan their own story using a story map template.
Curated OER
What A Pair! A Cross Grade Writing Activity
What a pair! Older pupils interview younger ones and use what they learn to write a short, illustrated storybook that features the youngster as the main character. The youngster responds with a thank-you note in which they identify their...
Curated OER
Noisy Nora, Studious Students: Story Elements
Alliterative adjective nicknames generate stories inspired by Rosemary Wells' book Noisy Nora (also a thematic complement to any class with children who make a ruckus to get attention). Class members explore basic story elements --...
Curated OER
Story Setting - The Art Lesson by Tomi dePaola
Students read the book The Art Lesson by Tomi dePaola and analyze the story. In this setting lesson, students discuss the importance of the setting and how it helps us understand the story. Students answer questions and chart their...
Curated OER
The "Write" Stuff: Strategies and Conventions for Imaginative Writing
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...
Curated OER
Story Pyramids
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...
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Cinderella Folk Tales: Variations in Plot and Setting
Students examine plot and setting of Cinderella, and how it changes as it is translated into different cultures, discuss universal literary elements of the Cinderella story, and write narratives with original settings and plots...
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Writing Diagnostics and Introduction to Literary Terms
Assess your new learners' writing abilities and knowledge of literary terms with these diagnostic activities. Part of a back-to-school unit, this is meant to provide the teacher with information about the ability levels of their class....
Curated OER
Writing Pattern Books
Have your older middle schoolers assist young children with writing in this community service and literacy lesson. Middle schoolers become partners with a local elementary school. They assist the grade school children in writing a...
Google
Storytelling: Your Innovation Story
Explore a trailblazing way to talk about innovation. Using the Scratch coding program, young computer scientists create innovations and write stories to accompany them. They include some of the add-ons they mastered throughout the unit.
Curated OER
Sound/Story
Students combine creativity with the rigor of careful editing by adding music to their story. It forces them to focus on how they communicate the meaning of their story to the listener.
Curated OER
Publishing Stories: Beginning, Middle, End
First and second graders explore the importance of having a beginning, middle, and end when writing stories. In this story writing lesson plan, students write short stories using the story diamond as a guide. They invite their parents to...
Curated OER
Identifying Setting: Expository Writing
Your class can take turns describing a well know location or setting without giving its name, and the rest of the class can try to identify the location, based on the details given. They chart the elements that helped in the...
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Create a Book with Student Treasures
You can't publish a story until after it has been revised and edited! Budding authors investigate the writing process while drafting an original story. They select a topic, complete a rough draft, edit it, revise it, and finally publish...
Curated OER
Creative Writing Workshop (Middle, Reading/Writing)
Bring this lesson plan into your unit about creative writing and precise language. First, middle schoolers create a piece of writing with the help of their classmates. In the second part of this workshop, they edit their own piece of...
PB Works
The Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway
There is more going on under the surface of Ernest Hemingway's work than one can glean in an initial reading. A literature resource compares the themes and structures of several of Hemingway's works before prompting class members to use...
Curated OER
Adventure Story
It's always fun to make up something together as a class. This fine lesson has children make up and illustrate a collaborative adventure story. The essential elements of a good story (setting, characters, plot, help, conclusion) are all...
Curated OER
Scrambled Stories II
Review story elements with your class. They will use examples from a story to develop critical-thinking questions. Then they use a graphic organizer to describe the setting, character, and plot of the story, focusing on how they...
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Hanging Out with Stories
Help your class listen and respond to a fictional story by creating a story structure mobile illustrating the main characters, setting, plot, problem, story events, and solution. Using a coat hanger, they will create an artistic element...
Teach with Movies
Teaching Students to Write a Narrative
Encourage narrative writing with a clever exercise. Class members watch episodes from movies and describe what happened to a character, including details about the setting, plot, and characters. Writers then craft a narrative about a...
Curated OER
Episodic Writing Using Pictures of Hollis Woods by Patricia Reilly Giff
Help your middle-schoolers expand their writing skills with this lesson plan on episodic writing, which focuses on story details, idea development, and organization. After reading "The Eighth Picture: End of Summer" from Patricia Reilly...
Curated OER
The "Write" Stuff: Strategies and Conventions for Imaginative Writing
Fifth graders develop and practice the steps involved in imaginative writing. They follow the steps/worksheets included and write imaginative stories of their own.