You can't read Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory without craving the rich treats described in Dahl's vivid prose. Young writers try their hands at sensory language with a lesson plan that prompts them to write about...

Which came first—the painting or the poem? In this case, it is the painting. Scholars closely examine a work of art and then craft an ekphrastic poem in response. A carefully scaffolded nine-page plan leads young poets through the process.

Our sense of smell has a wonderful way of bringing back memories. Unlock those memories with an olfactory-inspired writing prompt that challenges writers to tell a story about a specific smell and the memories it conjures.

Scratching your head when it comes to engaging writing prompts? Check out a list of prompts designed for middle school classes, which includes topics for persuasive writing, expository writing, how-to essays, personal narratives, and...

To get to the heart of a writer's purpose, just remember to have some PIE (Persuade, Inform, or Entertain)! And appropriately, here is a PIE chart that leaves room for pupils to identify each letter of the acronym and any other...

This puppy really wants to get to its bone, but it can only do so by following a trail of adjectives. Pupils make the puppy's path clear by coloring in all the stones that include adjectives. They then write a sentence about what happens...

Put children's descriptive writing skills to the test with these fun collaborative writing activities. Presented with the picture of an object, young writers are are tasked with creating a description that provides enough detail for...

Everyone has a mouth watering, delectable delicacy that they can talk or write about. Pupils will use this writing prompt worksheet to not only detail their favorite food in writing, but also illustrate what they are...

If you could have any one superhero ability, what would it be? Your charges will love this classic writing prompt, which can be supplemented with an array of follow-up writing or discussion activities.

A world without adjectives would be a sad place indeed! Make sure adjectives stay around by teaching your class about what they are and how using them can make a boring story truly interesting. Learners put this idea into practice by...

A recipe, no matter its format, gives ingredients and instructions for a specific food so that the food item tastes the same every time. See Preface Materials:

In this lesson, Ralph Fletcher's writing style is introduced to student writers. Students will write a rough draft about a time they ate, or a time when they saw someone else eat, something unusual. Then students will read and analyze...

This workshop helps students increase their skills in descriptive writing by following tips and suggestions from writer Virginia Hamilton. After reading about Hamilton, students write their descriptive pieces and publish them online. A...

Inspired by Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs by Judi & Ron Barrett, students will brainstorm adjectives that center around food that might fall from the sky. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner foods will be brainstormed. They will then...

After reading several clothing descriptions and stories from the J. Peterman Clothing Catalogue, students imitate the voice of the catalogue to write descriptions and stories of their own clothes. Teacher instructions, printable graphic...

After reading Anne Whitford Paul's book Everything to Spend the Night from A-Z, young scholars write about a real or imaginary sleepover and what things they should take to make it a wonderful night.

Check out this comprehensive website featuring ideas for teaching writing based on the six trait analytic writing model.

This is a printable PDF template page for 6 Trait Post-it Notes for Revision and Editing for descriptive and narrative writing.

This collection of trading cards was created by 5th and 6th graders at Shutesbury Elementary School in Shutesbury, Massachusetts, as part of a choice-based fictional reading project. Each student selected a fiction book that he or she...

As part of a revision and writing section of BBC Bitesize focusing on specific forms of writing, this site discusses describing people as a type of descriptive writing.