The Narrative Paragraph, The Old Mill Stream

Young writers complete a timed persuasive writing assignment in which they argue for a club they would like to see established at school, and are then provided with real student samples of responses. 

What type of writing is this? Learners read a brief introduction to various types of text: instructions, explanations, poems, folk tales, novels, informative, and arguments. The introduction doesn't explain these, so...

You're walking down the street and find a wallet on the ground. What do you do with it? This age-old scenario serves as a narrative writing prompt that challenges children to come up with creative stories describing the...

Working in groups, middle and high schoolers describe and discuss photographs depicting working conditions experienced by child laborers in the 19th century. They then write a persuasive paragraph supporting an amendment to regulate the...

Deafening, dusty, debris. Such were the working conditions in the 1800s textile industry as portrayed in Katherine Paterson's novel Lyddie. Scholars watch a short video clip about life and work in the mills. Next, they work...

As teachers, it is our job to encourage learners to stand up for what they believe in and help them learn lessons from life's events. A set of practice questions designed for the ELA MCAS assessment features passages that teach positive...

Open Library offers this beautiful, Caldecott-illustrated volume of Washington Irving's "Old Christmas," with the added bonus of being able to hear the work read aloud as you page through the volume.

Twelfth graders explore Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. In this reading and writing lesson, 12th graders read the book and think of five books to save from the fire. Students write an essay explaining why they'd save them. The essay...

How can the rhetorical structure of an editorial help to develop its argument? Use this New York Times editorial to emphasize the importance of structure in a piece of informational text. Adolescent writers then use the editorial as a...

What is the root of the conflict between ranchers and environmentalists? Middle schoolers write their impressions of what an environmentalist is and does. They read the New York Times article "In New Wild West, It's Cowboys vs....