What's A Word?

A short story is only as strong as its characters, development, and conflicts. Encourage the young authors in your class to plan their stories based on the elements of narrative writing, all provided in brainstorming graphic organizers.

Write a story as a class.  In this writing lesson plan, each person takes turns writing one to two sentences onto the paragraph given about Kim the Kiwi bird, including characters and events.  Altogether, brainstorm a title for the...

Do your young authors suffer from writer's block when they try to write short stories? Access their natural creativity with C-Gor, the writing monster! The instructional activity takes aspiring authors through a new writing process...

Batten down the hatches, there's a storm brewing. Young writers learn how to brainstorm ideas for a personal narrative in the second lesson of this writing series. Watch the video and follow along with the instructor as she explains her...

The end is near. After all the brainstorming, planning, drafting, and revising, it is time for young writers to conclude their personal narratives. Reading back over their drafts, children generate lists of the different emotions they...

"The Dinner Party" is the anchor text in a lesson plan designed to encourage writers to use sensory details in their stories. After brainstorming descriptive words and phrases for the five senses, class members read Mona Gardner's stark...

Young writers can contemplate a cartoon zombie's brain while they write a creative story. The theme is Halloween and the issue is that the writer invited real monsters to his or her party. Big mistake! Or was it?

Get your ghouls and gals writing on Halloween! Learners write about what their jack o' lantern said when it suddenly came to life. A cute pumpkin graphic and a fun font spices up the resource.

Stories are much more interesting to read when they involve realistic characters. The sixth lesson of this writing series helps learners add details to enhance the characters in their personal narratives. This revision process involves...

Readers reflect on enjoyable stories they know, brainstorm criteria that make a story "good," analyze a New York Times article about innovative children's performances, re-envision classics on their own, and peer edit drafts. Use this as...