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...

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...

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...

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...

Students use the descriptive writing process through the use of landscape scenes, the Paragraph Writing Strategy from the University of Kansas Institute for Research in Learning, and the 4MAT Instructional Model.

Introduce your young readers to the book review. Groups of writers practice the basic steps of writing a book report and complete an Accordion-Book Summary activity. The lesson includes book report basics and directions to make...

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...

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...

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...

Second graders create a graphic organizer on Kidspiration about themselves. They write a personal narrative using the information from their graphic organizer. They share their project with the class.

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...

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...

Pages and pages of engaging activities, worksheets, and writing projects on teaching folktales and fables await you! You don't want to miss this incredible resource that not only includes a wide range of topics and graphic...

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...

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...

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...

Third through fifth graders discover the importance of reading and plan a service project to provide books to children. First, they read the book The Important Book and then they brainstorm about the importance of reading. Afterward,...

One photograph can represent so much more than the images on the film. Eighth graders select a photograph from the Civil War era and conduct additional research based on the subject matter from the picture. Once they complete the...

Here's a fun way to incorporate technology into your curriculum. E-mail each of your class members a picture and 10 questions about the photo. Individuals then imagine the story behind the image and e-mail back their responses. Although...

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.

Students write a topic sentence to a paragraph and explain that it introduces the main idea. After a whole-class demonstration, students write a complete paragraph with their topic sentence and supporting sentences. There are some...

Students navigate through an online interactive virtual zoo to create imaginary animals by combining different parts of real animals. They write a short story about their combination creature.

Students identify geographical features of different regions encountered by migrants on the Oregon trail. Students research how the Oregon landscape may have affected life and 19th century westward migration. Students write a narrative...

Wrap up a documentary creation project with the final lesson plan in this series. Class members reflect on their learning and compose responses to four questions relating to what they learned, whey they would do differently, and how the...