Louisiana Department of Education
How to Write a Memoir
Who are we and what shapes our identities? Seventh graders work to answer this question as they learn how to write a memoir. Full of non-print resources and supplemental texts that range from fiction to non-fiction, scholars write their...
ReadWriteThink
Scaffolding Methods for Research Paper Writing
Rome wasn't built in a day, but researchers can be with proper scaffolding. This writing unit has scholars write a research paper through scaffolding of various parts of the process. Learners begin with identifying a topic and crafting a...
ReadWriteThink
Biography Project: Research and Class Presentation
I Have A Dream ... that after the lesson, all individuals master the reading, writing, researching, listening, and speaking skills the biography project helps them develop. Martin Luther King, Jr. serves as a topic example for a model...
Library of Congress
Thomas Jefferson's Library: Making the Case for a National Library
The United States Library of Congress, the largest library in the world. But such was not always the case. The library was destroyed during the War of 1812. In a persuasive letter to Samuel H. Smith, Thomas Jefferson offered to sell his...
Teach Hub
New Year’s Resolution Classroom Activity
Create a sense of accountability among scholars with a lesson that focuses on making and keeping New Year's resolutions. Writers compose a five paragraph essay focused on three resolutions—promises to self improvement, to...
Curated OER
Build Your Dream Science Lab
Would your ideal science lab be filled with bubbling beakers and zapping Tesla coils? Or would it contain state-of-the-art computer technology and data analysis? Dream big with an innovative lesson that connects math and language...
Civil War Trust
Contrasting the North and South before the War
Learners create a standing cube with four panels that display information on the North and South's economy, geography and climate, society, and means of transportation before the Civil War. Through discussion and reading...
Odell Education
Building Evidence-Based Arguments: “Doping can be that last 2 percent.”
Even the most thrilling sports career can end in an asterisk if the player uses performance-enhancing drugs. Focused on the topic of doping in sports, a seventh grade unit breaks down the arguments for and against steroids in five...
Curriculum Corner
7th Grade ELA "I Can" Statement Posters
Help your seventh graders relate the ELA Common Core standards to their own learning with these "I Can" statement posters. Each standard has been translated into a statement that pupils can understand and placed on its own page for...
Curriculum Corner
7th Grade ELA Common Core Checklists
Track your class's progress on all of the ELA Common Core standards with these handy charts. Along the left side, each seventh grade identifier is listed along with the full text of the standard. As you teach, reteach, assess,...
Nancy Fetzer's Literacy Connections
Expository Paragraph
Upper elementary and middle school writers learn how to craft an expository paragraph by following the six steps detailed in a 48-page instructional guide. Learners learn how to write six different types of informational paragraphs:...
Curated OER
Create Your Own Country Project
Young scholars demonstrate their knowledge of geography with this fun, collaborative social studies project. Working in small groups, students develop their very own countries, writing descriptions...
Curated OER
Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice
Use the historical account of Claudette Colvin to study civil rights and connect past injustices to modern issues. As learners read, they examine chapter titles, record quotes, and participate in discussion. Next, they research...
Scholastic
Scholastic: News Writing With Scholastic Editors
An excellent site for learning about news writing. This site is an in-depth workshop that takes you through the news writing process step by step by providing examples and tips.
Curated OER
Mc Graw Hill: Part 2 Reading: Informational Text: Quote Accurately
Learn about quoting accurately and making inferences on this site. A link provides a model with text and supported inferences.
American Rhetoric
American Rhetoric: News and Information Index
This website is a news and information index that offers links to news sources, newspapers, magazines and journals, search engines, polling data, legal resources, and citation guides.
Beacon Learning Center
Beacon Learning Center: Information Elimination: Lesson on Narrowing the Topic
This is a tutorial which focuses on how to narrow the topic for expository writing, how to determine what information to keep or eliminate, and what questions to ask yourself. Students respond to questions throughout. A comparison is...
University of California
University of California: Sections of the Research Paper
This site presents and defines the general parts of a research paper: title, abstract, introduction, material and methods, results, discussion, acknowledgments, and literature cited. Several helpful questions are presented to the reader...
University of Sydney (Australia)
University of Sydney: Using Quotes Effectively
This 2-page resource provides guidelines for how to use quotations effectively in essays. Includes a list of ten common mistakes that writers make when using quotations in essays and how they can be avoided.
Other
Easy Bib
This citation site provides a means for formatting bibliographical information via MLA, APA, Chicago, and other referencing methods. Students can also find tools for note-taking and research on EasyBib.
Sophia Learning
Sophia: Research Paper Format
This tutorial focuses on the format for an MLA style research paper. It offers a video which details the MLA style requirements including internal documentation and a bibliography. It also provides a slideshow outlining the basic...
Sophia Learning
Sophia: Topic Sentences
This slideshow lesson focuses on topic sentences; it defines them, gives the characteristics of effective topic sentences, tells what they are NOT, discusses how to create them, and provides examples of effective topic sentences.
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Holt, Rinehart and Winston: Writer's Model: News Article Example
This two-page news article includes a left-hand column with pointers on placement of critical features. Clicking on the "Writer's Guide" link in the upper right-hand corner of the page enables the user to get tips, directions, and...
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Holt, Rinehart and Winston: Writer's Model: Report of Information
The example report of information provided at this site is six pages long. Clicking on the "Writer's Guide" link in the upper right-hand corner of the page enables the user to get tips, directions, and explanations on the essay.