Benjamin Franklin Tercentenary
Franklin’s Fair Hand American Journalism
Scholars know him for his role in the American Revolution, but Ben Franklin was also a journalist and printer. Learners investigate his standards for what was fit to print using primary sources—including writings where Franklin explains...
PBS
President Theodore Roosevelt: Foreign Policy Statesman or Bully?
Can a negative perception of a president's foreign policy harm his or her historical legacy? A project that winds the clock back to the date of Theodore Roosevelt's death puts students at the editorial desk of a fictional newspaper....
Weekly Story Book
Folk Tales and Fables
Pages and pages of engaging activities, worksheets, and writing projects on teaching folktales and fables await you! You don't want to miss this incredible resource that not only includes a wide range of topics and graphic organizers,...
Newseum
Reporting Part I: What Matters to Me
Young reporters have an opportunity to craft a news story about a topic that interests them. Class members brainstorm events and issues that affect them and possible sources of information. Individuals then select a topic, research it,...
EngageNY
Peer Critique and Revision: Editorial Essay
Get those red pens ready! Using the Peer Critique protocol, scholars provide and receive feedback on their editorial essay drafts. They then use class time to work on revisions.
EngageNY
End of Unit Assessment: Text-Dependent Questions and Draft Editorial: The Mary River Project on Baffin Island
Scholars complete an assessment, read an informational article, and answer text-based questions. Also, pupils use the Painted Essay technique to write a draft editorial about a topic they studied throughout the unit, the Mary River Mine...
National Endowment for the Humanities
A Defense of the Electoral College
Each presidential election year, the debate about the electoral college rages. Michael C. Maibach's "A Defense of the Electoral College" offers young political scientists an opportunity to examine a reasoned argument for why the...
Teaching Tolerance
Film Festival
Everybody's a critic—even your pupils! Using the included resources as a guide, screen films related to social justice and ask film enthusiasts to critique them. Publish the reviews for your school community or develop a film festival...
Newseum
Editorials and Opinion Articles
Reading the news is fun, and that's a fact! With the lesson plan, scholars differentiate between fact and opinion as they read editorial articles. They complete a worksheet to analyze the information before writing their own editorials...
Student Handouts
Why Does an Author Write?
To get to the heart of a writer's purpose, just remember to have some PIE (Persuade, Inform, or Entertain)! And appropriately, here is a PIE chart that leaves room for pupils to identify each letter of the acronym and any other ideas or...
Curated OER
Editorial Writing as a Catalyst for Discussion of Important Issues
Young scholars decide which issues are most important to their student body and work in cooperative learning groups to write editorials. In this editorial writing lesson, students brainstorm a list of the most important issues and bring...
ReadWriteThink
Read Write Think: Book Report Alternative: A Character?s Letter to the Editor
Contains plans for four 50-minute lessons that ask students to write letters to the editor from the points of view of characters in books they have read. In addition to student objectives and standards, these instructional plans contains...
ReadWriteThink
Read Write Think: Writing Effective Letters to the Editor
Contains plans for four lessons that teach students how to write letters to the editor, including what one is, a review of persuasive writing and letter format, and the importance of writing many drafts. In addition to objectives and...
Annenberg Foundation
Annenberg Learner:workshop 4: Teaching Persuasive Writing
The fourth workshop [58:24] features the classrooms of two teachers: sixth-grade language arts teacher Jenny Beasley and fifth-grade teacher Jack Wilde. Both are teaching units on persuasive writing that allow students to write about...
University of Arizona
Pulse: Industrialization, Chemicals and Human Health
While students gain an understand of basic environmental toxicology, they explore the health impacts of industrialization on society in these lessons. This is a cross curricular unit that addresses standards for eleventh grade in math,...
PBS
Pbs Teachers: Freedom From Oppression (Editorial Writing Lesson Plan)
A lesson plan designed to investigate instances of genocide both historical and recent. Directs students to take on roles as members of the press and create editorials that describe genocidal tragedies and that also outline steps...
Other
Snn Newsroom: Reporter's Toolbox: Writing Editorials and Columns
Advice and examples of editorial and feature column writing, along with an explanation of the role that editorial writers and columnists fill. Explains how to structure this type of writing in order to present clear arguments.