An interview with playwright August Wilson about the people who most influence his writing. He includes Amiri Baraka, Jorge Luis Borges, and Romare Bearden, and most especially, blues singer Bessie Smith. In addition to the interview,...

How do you write a winning statement of purpose? This is a clear and comprehensive explanation of how to approach and write an essay from the San Jose State University. Practice exercises are given at the end.

This series of 12 downloadable activities teach students some basics of story writing, using books or videos from the PBS "Arthur" series as a springboard. Activities include creating story maps, asking questions about characters and...

The writer will assume the role of a living creature (like an arthropod) or an abstraction (like a fraction). Writers will do research on what they have chosen as their roles, and learn new facts about these roles. The writer will...

This GrammarCheck infographic provides tips for fixing common writing mistakes. Information on errors related to homophones, apostrophes, commas, participles, and sentence structure are included.

Learners will plan a paragraph that states their opinion and cites evidence to justify their opinion about an informational text. This lesson plan uses biographies since students can easily be able to write down factual information from...

This Center for Urban Education resource provides a downloadable graphic organizer for students to use when analyzing the evidence that authors use to support a claim. RI.9-10.5 ideas/claims developed. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.R.8

Learn how to write research papers. Includes an eight-step writing handout, information on quoting and paraphrasing, and tips for writing annotated bibliographies. Click on the side links to access some of these resources.

This article introduces the concept of blogs, gives links to blogs that deal with topics in education, ideas for using blogs for student writing and information on setting up your own blog. After reading this article you should be able...

This is a two-page PDF of the instructions for a Medieval Diary Multimedia Project. Students choose a character from an Arthurian legend and write a diary as the character. It provides instructions, topics for discussion, format choices,...

The first step in writing an informational text on the topic of young scholars' choice is helping the student choose a topic of interest. Students will brainstorm ideas that will be possible final topics.

If you are looking for ways to make your writing clearer and more concise, check out this site. Many helpful hints are given here. Information can be downloaded in PDF format. L.11-12.3a Syntax

Students will take a previously created paragraph and edit it to make it better by adding details, definitions, a topic sentence, or a closure to an informational paragraph. Resources include a PowerPoint presentation and pictures and...

This Indiana University of Pennsylvania Writing Center site provides resources to help students organize the content of their essays. Resources to help students with outlining content and incorporating transition words are provided.

Lesson which provides three types of reports for early elementary students to share. These allow young students to see themselves as writers with something useful to contribute from an early age.

This resource provides many links to information on writing research papers.

After giving students the writing topic "A Special Day that I Remember, give students ten to fifteen minutes to write on the topic. Then tell them they will be revising their "Special Day" prompt writing, but first they will listen to...

On Test Day, you'll be asked to write one sample essay after you've completed the scored sections of the LSAT. The writing sample isn't scored, but copies are sent to all law schools to which you apply. This article gives tips on writing...

A great site from the Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute by teachers helping to guide students through the process of writing papers. It explains prewriting strategies, organization, and each draft of a paper.

Lesson which outlines the STAR process for finding resources in a library. Young scholars are taught to select appropriate search tools, subject headings, and resources.

Want to improve your students' reading skills? This is a good place to find the types of directed activities, using a definition text, reconstruction/analysis activities, and advantages of using DARTs.

What kinds of evidence best support the points you make in a paper? Where can you find the evidence you need? This handout answers all these questions and more, including the difference between primary and secondary sources. You'll also...

Write a letter using the informal letter format to someone.

This tutorial explains point of view in informational texts. Students will learn how to analyze multiple accounts of the same topic or event and identify similarities and differences in different points of view.