An extensive portfolio project encourages your kids to reflect on their personalities with multiple writing assignments. From activities on extended metaphors to writing about an important day in their lives, kids explore the way they...

Have your older students assist young children with writing in this community service and literacy lesson plan. Middle schoolers become partners with a local elementary school. They assist the grade school children in writing a pattern...

Students create persuasive TV commercials for common products. They develop a list of products, write the script for a commercial, and act-out and videotape the commercial to present to the class.

Middle schoolers aren't too young to feel strongly about politics, social issues, consumer rights, or environmental problems. Demonstrate the first steps toward social change with a project about action-oriented writing. Eighth...

Pupils choose their favorite television show, craft and illustrate an advertisement for this show, and then write a short paragraph about why the show appeals to them. No provisions are made for children with limited or no viewing...

Whether you are teaching a newspaper unit in language arts, covering the First Amendment and censorship in social studies, or focusing on writing ethics in journalism, a unit based on the foundations of journalism would be an excellent...

Examine the differences between totalitarianism and democracy in this writing lesson plan. Using the same format and theme from Great Expectations, young writers work in pairs to compose their own short stories. They follow guidelines...

Help your young writers recognize the importance of composing formal letters. Middle schoolers read letters written by Thomas Jefferson and analyze the components that make it a formal letter.  They will then compose their own...

Help your class find their writing voices with this lesson plan which uses the work of Ralph Fletcher to guide a "Prompt in Reverse" activity. Using the chapter "First Pen" from Fletcher's Marshfield Dreams, learners decipher what they...

Looking for a good social media lesson for your class? Then, this lesson is for you! They study various written reviews, then must choose an item to review of their choice. They can choose from: a book, restaurant, CD/musical...

Writer's workshop is an idea that's been around for years. Students write, read, and comment on each others writing in an authentic and thoughtful way. Here is a 21st century twist, 6th graders will use the class blog to create a...

HIgh schoolers respond to a persuasive article on using animal research. In this english lesson, writers listen to a conversation, and discuss the point of arguments. They write a critique on a certain film and share it with their...

Here are two great lessons that work together and are inspired by the Stephen Sondheim musical Into the Woods. Young writers and actors will retell the story of "The Frog Prince" through games, improvisational script writing, and...

Analyze magazines as a class, looking carefully for the target audience, advertisements, and topics presented. Small groups then work as a publication team and receive a magazine that they have to "sell." Each individual has a different...

Consider how well young scholars' favorite TV shows, movies and video games reflect the diversity of society. The lesson introduces your class to several media literacy concepts, such as how media conveys values and messages, as well as...

Students discover effective writing techniques to create persuasive essays. In this writing lesson, students investigate ways to express facts and points of view through persuasive essays. Finally, the students write their own persuasive...

Students practice persuasive writing. In this writing lesson plan, students understand that there are different ways to write. Students build a list of words that can be used for persuasion. Students develop statements to use for...

Beyond Paul Bunyan and his blue ox, tall tales can be a great way to teach young writers about word choice and voice in their writing. Using Jerry Spinelli's Maniac Magee  and the Six-Trait Writing process, they begin to write...

C.S. Lewis’s That Hideous Strength provides the model for using dreams in narrative writing. After a discussion of the purpose of dreams in Lewis’s tale, class members craft a story in which their dreams play an essential role.

Students complete a variety of computer file pre-writing activities to help them prepare for writing a personal narrative. They focus on including a beginning, middle and end to their narrative. They make a class book.

Eighth graders compose or create works of communication for specific audiences and purposes. They locate, access, and select relevant information from a variety of sources. They revise and edit their work to improve content, organization...

The fifth installment in a writing unit that culminates with a Hyperstudio illustrated group story project, this plan is ripe with ideas for ways to design group writing projects for elementary writers. Use the whole unit as a base from...

Students create poems and sound compositions using instruments, sounds, and pictograph notation. After listening Debussy's Children's corner suite, they brainstorm a list of snow vocabulary words. Students write poems and in groups...

Combine participial phrases and creative writing with this instructional activity, which is equally helpful for writing skills and conventions. After a mini-instructional activity on participial phrases and reading the picture book...