Are you actually feeling really tired of reading wordy, redundant, long, lengthy sentences practically all the time over and over again? Introduce writers to this handout and exercise to teach to tighten up their prose! Provides two ways...

Augment argumentative skills with this handout and brief exercise. This resource outlines premises, conclusions, and joining words, and explains how these make up the foundation of logical arguments. After reading through this...

Using the analogy of the human body, writing an essay is described in these slides. An overall look at writing, the analogy is meant to have writers consider how their paper functions as a whole. Details and instructions for writing are...

Paragraphs are simply visual cues to separate information. Briefly display the different types of paragraph organization with these slides. A good tool for beginning readers and writers.

Arm your writers with an arsenal of literary terms. With definitions of everything from plot structure and figurative language to point-of-view and types of irony, learners will gain an understanding of elements in stories and be able to...

The subject and the predicate are two vocabulary words that every young writer must know. This short, but effective, presentation aptly describes what the subject and predicate are, what role they play in a sentence, and offers some...

A pair of complex sentences, drawn from a New York Times article about a police writing class, are punctuated differently with commas and semicolons. There's only one question, but it's a good one to press your grammarians to increase...

This sentence uses every letter in the alphabet! What a perfect way to practice printing with your budding writers. They copy the words, remembering to leave space between them. Because there is no dotted middle line to guide their...

As the culminating activity in a unit study of science fiction, young writers demonstrate their understanding of the genre by producing their own graphic novel. After deciding on the main elements of their story, individuals use a comic...

Introduce young writers to two graphic organizers that help them develop and organize support for an evaluative essay. As a warm-up, essayists get to prove why spaghetti and meatballs is their favorite meal.

Sentence structure and placement are key to any author's style. Encourage your creative writers to write their sentences strategically by looking at this 11-slide PowerPoint. Types of sentences are introduced, and some examples are...

Planning on assigning a book review? High school and college-level writers will benefit from a presentation that provides step-by-step directions for crafting a review. Before, during, and after reading tips are included.

Finding dependent clauses separated from the rest of a sentence? Main clauses without verbs or subjects? Sounds like you are plagued by sentence fragments and that your writers need a quick review of this common grammatical error....

Refine the writing of your class members with this quick PowerPoint. Wordiness can kill effective writing, making it boring and indirect. Help your writers cut out some of the unneeded words by pairing this presentation with a piece of...

Show your writers how to use simple, compound, and complex sentences to add variety to writing. In addition, examples show how to employ semicolons and coordinating conjunctions to combine sentences. Colorful illustrations and graphics...

After a study of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and the impact his death had on the country and on Reconstruction policy, class groups analyze primary sources that recount the writer’s response to Lincoln’s death. As guided...

Students analyze the impact of jazz on the novel, "Invisible Man," by Ralph Ellison. They read and discuss excerpts of the novel, write an essay on the influence of jazz on Ralph Ellison as a writer, and view video excerpts on jazz...

By working cooperatively, writers will create a newspaper about the Brooklyn Museum of Art. Each member will take on a different role representing various types of newspaper writers. They will discover the history, exhibits, special...

Young scholars 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...

Learners recognize different purposes and methods of writing and to identify a writer's tone and point of view.

Students conduct a simulation to determine the health of local streams and rivers. They role-play as researchers, scientists, politicians, and writers and use technology to implement plans to improve the quality of waterbodies.

Students assume identities of lawmakers, judges, writers, and protestors during times in American history when freedoms of speech and press were limited because country was on the brink of war or fighting one. Students use primary source...

Fifth graders practice skills for writing and reading. In this independent reader and writer lesson, 5th graders are given tools to edit their own writing and to choose books they can read on their own. They work both as a class and...

Tenth graders investigates a website to gather information on the Holocaust and Anne Frank. They compare Anne Frank's characteristics to other peers. Students explore specific examples and draw conclusions about human behavior.