It's a Mystery to Me

Story chains connect literary concepts, reinforce context clues, and even help learners predict what's coming next! Using words from the next chapter of Sharon Creech's Walk Two Moons, middle schoolers craft story chains to...

Thirty-six pages familiarize scholars with the story and vocabulary of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. After reading and listening to an abbreviated version of the holiday tale learners show what they know about the sequence...

It's time for a celebration! Scholars go on a gallery walk around the classroom to view their peers' completed illustrated children's stories. Using sticky notes, pupils provide feedback about the powerful elements they find in their...

What happens next? Work on story sequence with a lesson that prompts kids to put a story back in order. Additionally, they discuss what would happen if one event was missing from the sequence.

All ages love to engage in cartoon writing –- little do they know that they actually learn quite a bit from it! In an instructional session focused on literacy syntax and vocabulary, your pupils work cooperatively to draw six pictures...

Bring this lesson into your unit about creative writing and precise language. First, middle schoolers create a piece of writing with the help of their classmates. In the second part of this workshop, they edit their own piece of writing....

Students read short story selections, and work with classmates to produce commercials using digital video equipment.

Mark Twain's frame story, "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" provides an opportunity for a study of this story-within-a-story pattern. Using an illustrated template, class members record a plot summary of the frame story...

Review story elements with your class. They will use examples from a story to develop critical-thinking questions. Then they use a graphic organizer to describe the setting, character, and plot of the story, focusing on how they...

There's nothing like the prospect of writing a scary story to get your middle schoolers' writing juices flowing! In the lesson plan presented here, pupils listen to scary short stories read to them by the teacher. Then, a discussion...