Help your class find their writing voices with this lesson 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...

Whether you are planning a unit on F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, or simply want to improve your pupils' descriptive writing, this lesson could be a good addition to your class. Using the Six-Trait Writing process, pupils...

Help your young writers use logic in their persuasive writing. Discuss the characteristics of a persuasive paper, and have pupils work together to explore and solve a syllogism. They will write a short persuasive paper which includes a...

From British accents to Texan drawls, a character's dialect can be an important part of the reading experience. A Six-Trait writing activity guides learners through the analysis of a character's dialect (Daniel Keyes's Flowers for...

Mirroring Jerry Spinelli's style in Wringer, chapter 5, pupils use the "counting up/down technique" to recall an important moment in their lives. In the book, the character is being punched, and between blows he remembers details...

What do Jeep advertisements and Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath have in common? They both employ the art of the extended metaphor! Using the Six-Trait Writing model, learners begin to work on their own extended metaphors. Development...

The world is an ever changing place, and through this lesson students will have a chance to send a call out for change. Using Bob Dylan's "The Times They Are A-Changin'" as an inspiration and a model, students will brainstorm change,...

In To Kill a Mockingbird, Scout and Jem discover that their seemingly "feeble" father has an astonishing ability with a rifle. For this assignment, writers will compose a letter to a parent or loved one, asking for a return letter that...

In this lesson plan, the first chapter of the novel Girl with a Pearl Earring is used as a mentor text. Students will identify metaphors and then create their own unique metaphorical descriptions that they will begin to collect in their...

In this lesson, the book Dear Mr. Henshaw, written by Beverly Cleary, is used as a mentor text. Each student will generate a list of questions for his/her favorite author. Then each student will write a letter to the favorite author and...

The focus trait for this writing lesson is idea development; students will consider the idea of becoming famous and making the cover of an infamous magazine, People. Moving from the mundane to inspirational, attention to detail and...

Based on its title, student writers predict what Benatar's song means when it says that "Love Is a Battlefield." After discussing Benatar's extended metaphor as a class, young scholars will create an original extended metaphor about love...