Coat of Arms

A raggedy blanket, a faded orange bunny missing its tail, a crinkled photo of a former best friend. Writers select a memento and use this artifact to generate a childhood memory story. Specific directions for the three-part project are...

"Call me Ishmael." "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." "It was a dark and stormy night. . ." Beginning at the beginning is one of the biggest challenges in writing. Here's an assignment that asks writers to draft the...

An extensive portfolio project encourages your kids to reflect on their personalities with multiple writing assignments. From activities on extended metaphors to writing about an important day in their lives, kids explore the way they...

Set up your writers for writing strong introductions with a formula for putting together supported thesis statements. This reference page breaks the process down and provides an example of how to compose a thesis statement, develop a...

NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month, is a writing project for which participants write an entire novel in a single month. If you have decided to this in your class, this resource will be useful for you. This is an editing...

The Nashua River serves as the focal point of an investigation of the treatment of and care for natural resources. A reading of A River Rand Wild: An Environmental History by Lynne Cherry, launches the study and class members consider...

Are your young writers unsure of what to look for when asked to edit a draft of writing? Direct them to this simple and attractive printable, which uses two acronyms—ARMS (add, remove, move, substitute) and CUPS capitalize, usage,...

Ask your learners this question as a quickwrite: why do you write? This prompt can begin a unit on writing and open up a dialogue about the motivations writers have. Tap into your scholars' reasons for writing and make the activity more...

Even the most inspiring documents in American history had to go through a few drafts before they were ready for publication. Reinforce the importance of the writing process, as well as the collaborative nature of democracy, with an...

To celebrate National Poetry Month, young writers focus on the role letter writing has played in the development of poets. They begin by journaling three to five associations to a writing prompt that requires them to identify their...