Curated OER
Search Warranted?
Young readers work on evaluating claims in a piece of informational text with the article "In New York, It's Open Bag or Find Exits" from the New York Times. They analyze current search procedures implemented to fight terrorism...
Tools for Schools
Book Creator
Build beautiful books in whatever style you'd like with an intuitive and adaptable app for constructing books. Kids can add images, drawings, text, and audio to make books about any subject. When complete, learners can wrap up the...
Curated OER
Add a Page to Love
View Keith Haring artwork in the book Love. Create original artworks in the style of Keith Haring by choosing 2-4 colors to portray their illustrations. Finally, write sentences describing the artwork. These activities could be...
Berkshire Museum
Nature Journaling: Experience the Outdoors Through Writing and Drawing
Step into the great outdoors and develop young scientists' skills of observation with a nature journaling lesson plan. Given a specific focus or goal, children practice making and recording observations of nature through written...
College Board
1999 AP® English Literature and Composition Free-Response Questions
Have you ever felt like you are pulled into two directions? Some authors depict this feeling in their characters. Scholars choose a play or novel in which a character is pulled or influenced by two different directions and write essays...
Smithsonian Institution
Art to Zoo: Life in the Promised Land: African-American Migrants in Northern Cities, 1916-1940
This is a fantastic resource designed for learners to envision what it was like for the three million African-Americans who migrated to urban industrial centers of the northern United States between 1910 and 1940. After reading a...
Mobile Education Store
SentenceBuilderTeen™
Have you seen a large number of grammatically incorrect sentences in class writing lately? Help alleviate that issue with this app, which is targeted toward teenagers. Class members look at age-appropriate images and choose the correct...
Curated OER
All About Me!
Students write about themselves. In this descriptive writing lesson, students view a PowerPoint for examples of descriptive writing and then write sentences describing themselves. Students use a computer program to type their sentences...
Novelinks
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer: Writing Strategy
How do your pupils believe others see them? Invite them to write narratives to explore the image they present to the word. The narratives, inspired by The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, are to be set at each pupil's hypothetical funeral.
Curated OER
Writing Prompt
Guided by a picture of children engaging in winter activities (building a snowman, sledding, etc), young writers compose three sentences about the picture. They are prompted to use three specific words provided in a word bank. The...
San José State University
Revising for Clarity: Characters and Their Actions
This handout offers a three-step process for revising sentences for clarity: diagnose, analyze, revise. After reading an example sentence revision with a detailed explanation, learners complete three sample sentences using the three-step...
Curated OER
Writing a Personal Narrative
What is the difference between a news story and a personal narrative? This plan has learners write a personal narrative using the topic of service projects in their community. Consider completing a cross-curricular extension by bringing...
Curated OER
Document-Based Essay on U.S. Reaction to North Korean Nuclear Policy
High schoolers compose essays on nuclear policies. In this North Korea lesson, students examine political cartoons and primary documents regarding nuclear build-up by North Korea. High schoolers write essays about North Korea's military...
Film English
Theo’s Story
Encourage your class to consider a beautiful short film about a boy named Theo who happens to be visually impaired. Over the course of the lesson, pupils work in pairs, discuss their ideas and the film as a class, view the film,...
Portland Public Schools
Opinion: Persuasive Essay Unit Introduction
Opinion, audience, purpose. Fourth graders are introduced to the three characteristics of persuasive writing in the third unit of a year-long writing program. The 98-page packet is complete with plans, model essays, graphic organizers,...
Curated OER
Writing to describe
Students examine descriptive writing. In this writing activity, students listen to an audio version of the diary of Lt. Polly Hatchard and her expedition to the South Pole. Students explore the components of descriptive writing and...
Curated OER
Diary Writing
As part of their reading of Michael Morpurgo's novel Kensuke's Kingdom, young castaways create diary entries describing their own time left alone on an island.
Poetry4kids
Personification Poetry Lesson Plan
Scholars take part in two exercises to boost their knowledge of personification. After reading a detailed description and excerpts from famous poems, writers list action verbs and objects then combine words to create a humorous...
EngageNY
How to Write Like a Scientist in the Field: Introduction to the Elements of Field Journals
It's time to start journaling. Scholars look at examples of science field journals. They work in pairs to examine and complete a note catcher about a field journal. They then add to an anchor chart by discussing the different features...
Curated OER
Describing Paintings: Calm or Stormy
Young writers use nouns, verbs, and adjectives to describe details in two paintings. One depicts a sunny landscape, and the other shows a cloudier view. They write a narrative inspired by the paintings, paying attention to transitional...
Curated OER
Writing Exercises: The Gupta Empire I
Those studying the history of India and the legacy left by the Gupta Empire will have no problem answering these three short answer questions. Learners compose three short paragraphs describing the Gupta Empire, the historical population...
University of North Carolina
Verb Tenses
Twelve categories of verbs exist in the future tense, ranging from simple present to future perfect progressive, but only three have a place in academic writing. Those three tenses make up the content of an informational handout that...
West Contra Costa Unified School District
Writing Exponential Functions Based on Data
Give your class a concrete example of exponential growth and decay using this hands-on activity. These Algebra II lessons allow for the exploration of exponential growth and decay models, as well as the discovery of the patterns of...
Curated OER
Let's Go Exploring!
Use a Courbet painting of a cave or tunnel opening to reinforce the importance of descriptive writing. Writers of all ages use sensory details to describe what the scene depicts as they pretend to be in the painting. Then they imagine...