Descriptive Essay

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...

Middle schoolers write descriptions, narratives, and dialogues based on objects of art and time periods in a museum. They base several writing assignments on art objects and paintings, including a literal description and an emotional...

Winter, spring, summer, and fall! Every season is covered in a 14-page list of writing prompts. Included are story starters, reflection questions, poetry topics, and more.

Finding the central idea is the focus of this lesson. Middle schoolers write descriptions of different animals using details and descriptive language. They watch a video of kids using descriptive language, and then use showing language...

Using a motivating topic as the focus, this activity has learners write an email as though they are describing their new house. English language learners read an example letter, and then practice their own writing skills by writing a...

Revising, as opposed to editing, is the focus of a presentation that details this essential part of the writing process. The author of this PowerPoint suggests outlining the draft to determine if all the necessary elements are included...

Can we test whether lines ascribed to William Shakespeare were actually written by someone else? Science and linguistics join forces in this fantastic TED-Ed video to help us investigate the theory of whether history's greatest writer...

Have your class examine the characteristics of various writing genres using the Writing with Writers online project. Detailed instructions for how to introduce, discuss, and develop a piece of writing for each genre are included. Class...

Provides excellent examples of descriptive writing for one needing inspiration. Site is written for those who write literature for children, but can also be applicable to other genres.

Viewers get some tips on how to create suspense in their writing from a short video that draws on examples from Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart," Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca, and even Oedipus Rex.  Remember: It's not what happens but what...