I Wonder What An Important Observation Is...

How is your grandmother related to you? How is your cousin related to your grandmother? Learn about family relationships and pronouns with an activity that guides pupils to write two short narratives about members of their families.

Master a well-organized thesis statement with a short activity for a persuasive writing unit. Young writers read five different introductory paragraphs about various topics, find the main ideas addressed in each thesis statement, and jot...

A Six-Trait Writing instructional activity helps your middle schoolers liven up their word choice and shows them how to evaluate their own writing. Class members take a close look at the language used in poems by Shakespeare, Kipling,...

If your writing classroom was the Wild West, what phrases would be "outlawed"? Here is one poster that every writing instructor, and really, any teacher of communication, should have in their classroom!

What is the difference between making inferences and making observations? Young climatologists refer to a PowerPoint to make observations on each slide. They record their observations in a provided worksheet before drawing a...

William Shakespeare penned some of the richest and most fascinating works of literature—or did he? Middle schoolers read three brief informative passages and conduct additional research to evaluate the claim that Shakespeare did not...

Write and work with authors on the Scholastic Website to promote the recognition of various genres.  Young writers will participate in activities based on the type of writing such as biography, descriptive, folktales, mystery, news,...

Design an informational brochure to urge people to move to a specific community. The purpose of this activity is to expose pupils to expository writing. After creating the brochure, they write a three-paragraph persuasive or...

A lesson begins with a description of a diamante poem and the rules to follow while writing one. Scholars examine the ins and outs of synonym and antonym diamantes, then compose an original poem using their newfound knowledge. 

Relate the structure of the essay to the structure of a building. The class compares an essay to a building, with the writer being the architect, the introduction being the foundation, and so on. They use the visual representation of a...