Everyone is a writer! Youngsters compose an original piece of writing. In this writing lesson, they come up with their own idea for a piece of writing, revise it, and then publish it with illustrations. This lesson includes three...

Third graders, after brainstorming what they already know about trees and what effect the seasons have on them, create a model of a hollow log. They participate in a young naturalist's notebook writing activity while walking outside...

Second graders focus on how descriptive words help them see, feel, and hear a story better. They listen to a read aloud of Angela Johnson's, "The Leaving Morning," while giving a thumbs up signal each time they hear a "sense or how"...

Whether you are teaching mainstream, advanced, or intervention language arts classes, you will find something helpful in a thorough writing packet. It includes prompts, rubrics, responses, helpful hints, graphic organizers, and many...

Are you planning to have a guest speaker talk to your class? Prepare in advance and help your class transform into an engaged and thoughtful audience. Before the visit, young writers work cooperatively to brainstorm what they want to...

Students use wordplay to investigate the grammatical components of a sentence. They read a New York Times article by analyzing the writer's use of nouns and verbs in the article and then constructing original sentences using those words...

Eighth graders read through, interpret and discuss the Declaration of Independence. They review the 4 main parts of it and add notes to their graphic organizers. They also read about and discuss the writers of the Declaration and...

Support scholars' ability to write complex sentences with a two-page learning exercise designed to inform and reinforce. Here, learners obtain a brief overview of what a complex sentence is and how one is made; then apply their new-found...

Learners are introduced to the definition of "flashback" in that writers use it when they want to reveal to readers something that happened in the past. Then Students write a short story using a flashback scene and then move back to the...

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...

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "Letter from Birmingham Jail" serves as an exemplar for a mini-lesson on semicolons. Working alone or in small groups, class members first circle all the semicolons in the letter, and then consider how this...

This set of worksheets constitutes enough work and materials to be considered a lesson. They guide readers through a process of exploring characters and their motivations, and writing a paragraph about them. Here are seven handouts that...

Celebrate Opposite Day by using a Visual Thesaurus to match words to their antonyms. They match a list of vocabulary words to their antonym counterparts using the Visual Thesaurus, and then they play Antonym Bingo with the words from...

Sixth graders set and are encouraged to meet their reading goals and demonstrate knowledge of literary elements in this lesson.

After reading El Bronx Remembered by Nicholasa Mohr, learners complete a KWL graphic organizer based on vocabulary from the novella. A SMARTboard presentation is a good resource for reviewing the vocabulary, as well as the triple-entry...

Reward your class with tasty treats while teaching them about simile and metaphor. After a teacher demo and explanation of simile and metaphor, pupils read books, looking for examples of these literary devices and copying them down....

Powerful verbs. Significant nouns. Great adjectives. Readers of The Last Lecture conduct a power vocabulary search and create a list of words drawn from the text that will be used to craft a found poem.

Students examine history of slavery in United States, discuss abolitionists such as Frederick Douglass who worked to end slavery, listen to excerpts from Douglass' autobiography, and visit interactive Underground Railroad web site.

What is historical fiction? After explaining the difference to your learners, it's time to give each learner a try! With your support, encourage them to research, plan, and write their own historical fiction story. Don't forget to have a...

Students examine organizational patterns as they pertain to reading and writing skills. In this organizational patterns lesson, students write a paragraph about their weekend using the specific organizational patterns reviewed. Students...

Students listen as a haiku is read by the teacher, determining what season is being portrayed in the poem. Students work together as a class and create a model haiku, then complete a worksheet, completing their own poem. Students will...

Learners investigate the properties and idea of the Pythagorean Theorem. In this algebra instructional activity, students identify the different parts of a right triangle and relate it to the Pythagorean Theorem. They do a robotic...

Pupils explore animal characteristics by participating in a paragraph writing activity. In this writing structure lesson, students identify the importance of a topic and transition when writing descriptive sentences about a subject....

Students explore using correct punctuation in their sentences. they discuss the various punctuation rules. Students practice putting the correct punctuation in a list of sentences.