Young writers get a jump start on story telling by selecting a plot, a setting, and multiple character cards and then use these basic elements to create a tale.

Young writers will surely remember this acronym while they are writing! Each letter prompts pupils to include a different aspect of a brief constructed response. The resource includes a checklist as well as a graphic organizer that...

Strengthen your high schoolers' writing with a series of steps for writing successfully. With sections on organizing an essay, choosing a topic, crafting a thesis statement, and revising a draft, the lesson encourages your class to...

Designed as a professional development exercise to introduce teachers to the Internet, the activities in this resource ask novice web surfers to access a series of sites, bookmark them, and answer question about information found on the...

Adding details and figurative language makes any story more fun to read! After reading two versions of the same story, one devoid of figurative language and one embellished, young writers are asked to add alliteration, hyperbole,...

Use hypertext to make a multimedia choose-your-own adventure story! Young writers incorporate knowledge of story writing elements to write their own stories, and rewrite the adventure with various scenarios and endings. Use technology to...

Help your young writers through the sometimes difficult process of beginning to write. Direct them through how to choose a topic and write to a specific audience. Great refining statements guide them to writing focused, clear essays. 

More of a short lesson than a worksheet, this exercise gives instruction on the definition of nouns. Young writers discover common, proper, singular, plural, concrete, and abstract nouns. Excellent!

Here is a great activity on how to make a complete sentence. Young writers "drag and drop" the words using the mouse. This is a fantastic activity to use with "Word Wall Words." It provides practice in making sentences, as well as...

An interesting article on editors helps young writers understand the conventions of written English. They read a news article about an editor traveling America correcting spelling and punctuation errors on signs.  They discuss...

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...

Lesson ten in this unit for the book Bullfrogs at Magnolia Circle, prepares third graders to begin writing an informational paragraph about the adaptations of bullfrogs. First, young writers work either independently or in pairs to...

You can't read Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory without craving the rich treats described in Dahl's vivid prose. Young writers try their hands at sensory language with a lesson plan that prompts them to write about...

Reinforce persuasive and argumentative writing skills with this lesson, which utilizes SchoolNet News Network's website/SNN Monthly magazine. Young writers review journalism writing styles that help them explain that writing a persuasive...

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...

Introduce young writers to the process of writing a book. Start by reading a book of your choice and discussing the essential elements of any book such as the cover, story, and illustrations as well as who is responsible for each...

Young writers generate descriptive words. They use pictures of various landscapes (from books, magazines, or the Internet) and complete a story pyramid. The pyramid (included here) asks to describe the main character, the setting, and...

As part of their reading of Michael Morpurgo's novel Kensuke's Kingdom, young castaways create diary entries describing their own time left alone on an island.

This online resource is composed of a writing sample about teacher appreciation and a writing prompt for learners. You could use this as an in-class journal activity or you could have class members post their responses on the New...

Get the scoop with a fun, engaging newspaper project. After analyzing the parts of a newspaper, including the headline, subtitles, and pictures or images, young journalists get to work by writing their own stories in a newspaper article...

Students explore the writings of Anne Frank. They discuss how Anne did or did not change during her two years in the Secret Annex. Students take a stand on how much Anne has in common with contemporary young people.

Young scholars write a rap or hip-hop lyric about the life of a famous Black American. They explore famous Black Americans in history and explore how the rap form compares to other forms of poetic expression.

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

Help your young writers stay engaged with their writing through the practical use of a thesaurus. They work to reinforce the use of synonyms as a way of making writing more interesting and to determine word meaning by finding synonyms....