Curated OER
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass an American Slave, Written by Himself
The narrative works of Frederick Douglass engage learners in the topic of slavery. They will experience American history in a new way, a Douglass expresses his thoughts in his own words. Pupils then interpret this literary work.
Curated OER
Teach a Mini-Lesson Sentence Variety
Help your developing writers spice up their writing by studying simple, compound, and complex sentences.
EngageNY
Editing Sentences and Creating Visual and Multimedia Displays for a Presentation
Let's get visual. Pupils plan visual displays to accompany their upcoming opinion speech presentations. Additionally, they practice editing sentences for clarity before revising their speech drafts.
Apple State University
Friendly Letter Mini-Lesson
This mini-lesson about informal letter writing is packed with a lot of information about writing a friendly letter. Class members begin by working in pairs to answer questions after reviewing letter models. Then, take part in a grand...
Practice Using Lively Language
Practice Using Lively Language
Combine a study of biography writing with some tips for spicing up writing. After reading two passages, one much more descriptive than the other, pupils examine what makes one more interesting. They then brainstorm some ideas for writing...
ESL Writing
Paraphrase with Synonyms
What's another word for paraphrasing? Ask your pupils to put their minds to work in order to replace underlined words in a series of sentences with appropriate synonyms.
Miami-Dade County Public Schools
Conventions Chart
Help your young writers pay close attention to their conventions and move toward revision with a straightforward chart. Learners can analyze 11 sentences on this page by noting down the first letter in each, the first of words in each,...
Curated OER
Test Review Sheet: Irony, Comma Rules, and Sentence Variety,
Covering vocabulary, literary analysis, and grammar, this instructional activity would be a great study guide or homework assignment for an eighth-grade Language Arts class. Though the five stories by Edgar Allan Poe, O. Henry, and Oscar...
Curated OER
Sentence Combining/Sentence Variety
Challenge your writers to improve their writing by introducing them to 10 strategies they can use to vary their sentence structures. Each strategy is described and examples given. Pupils then create their own sentences using this...
Curated OER
Narrative Writing
Are you the oldest in your family? The youngest? The middlest? How do you feel about your place in your family? After reading such stories as My Rotten, Redheaded Older Brother by Patricia Polacco and Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing by...
Curated OER
A News Story of Your Own: Sentence and Lexical Variety
Given the two-sentence skeleton of a news story about a car theft/joy ride, budding writers create their own version of the story varying diction and sentence structure to heighten interest and complexity in their writing. Resource...
Curated OER
Writing and Presenting a Fable Using Research
Elementary and middle schoolers research animal facts and use them in a fable. First, they pair-share to find animal traits to use in writing a fable. They then complete a prewriting worksheet. After going through the writing process,...
Edmond Public Schools
How to Use Sentence Variety to Strengthen Your Writing
Convey the importance of sentence variety and introduce your class to different sentence patterns. Have class members take notes or take some breaks in the presentation to practice writing the variety of patterns introduced.
Curated OER
Sentence Variety and Modifier Placement
In this sentence variety worksheet, students learn that modifier placement can make sentences more interesting. Students read 10 sentences and add an initial, mid-sentence or terminal modifier as directed. This is an on-line interactive...
Sophia Learning
Sophia: Sentence Openers
This tutorial focuses on adding variety to your writing with sentence openers. A PowerPoint presentation explains sentence openers and gives examples of ways to create interesting sentences, such as beginning with a prepositional phrase,...
Sophia Learning
Sophia: Sentence Openers
This tutorial focuses on variety in sentence openers; it includes a slideshow about adding variety in sentence fluency and length, and why and how to add variety to sentence openers with examples. It also offers an audio clip with...
SUNY Empire State College
Empire State College: Writing Style Seminar
This detailed resource provides a good tutorial on writing style, whether informal or formal. It explains how to get style through word and sentence choice and includes lots of examples. W.9-10.1d & W.9-10.2e Style/tone/conv,...
Texas Education Agency
Texas Gateway: Strengthen Sentence Variety and Sentence Combining: Practice 2
Practice evaluating, adding to, and combining sentences in order to create sentence variety.
Texas Education Agency
Texas Gateway: Strengthen Sentence Variety (English Ii Writing)
[Accessible by TX Educators. Free Registration/Login Required] You will learn strategies for evaluating and combining sentences to create sentence variety when you revise an essay.
Texas Education Agency
Texas Gateway: Strengthen Sentence Variety and Sentence Combining
[Accessible by TX Educators. Free Registration/Login Required] You will learn strategies for evaluating and combining sentences to create sentence variety when you revise an essay.
Online Writing Lab at Purdue University
Purdue University Owl: General Writing Resources
This helpful resource details the process of writing, including how to plan, write, and revise. Content also includes the different types or genres of writing, and exercises in grammar and mechanics.
Texas Education Agency
Texas Gateway: Effective Introduction, Conclusion, and Sentence Variety
[Accessible by TX Educators. Free Registration/Login Required] This lesson focuses on writing effective introductions and conclusions and tying them together. It also discusses varying sentence structures. Practice exercises are...
BBC
Bbc: Skillwise: English: Sentence Variety Grammar Games
Designed to help students practice the elements of sentence design, these games provide different levels of difficulty for users of all ages. The sentence variety games include: Is This a Compound Sentence, Logging Sentences, Make a...
Texas Education Agency
Texas Gateway: Strengthen Sentence Variety/sentence Combining: Practice 2
[Accessible by TX Educators. Free Registration/Login Required] In this lesson, you are going to practice recognizing sentences that need to be revised to add variety and revising sentences by using additions and sentence combining.