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Ad lit.org: Help Students Generate Ideas Through Prewriting
Learn how to model a range of prewriting techniques and introduce several mnemonics to help students organize their writing.
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Ad lit.org: Key Literacy Component: Writing
Students who don't write well aren't able to learn and communicate effectively. This article explains what good writing skills are and how to help struggling young writers gain those skills through proper instruction.
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Ad lit.org: Teaching Writing to Diverse Student Populations
Writing is a complex operation requiring knowledge of text structure, syntax, vocabulary, and topic, and sensitivity to audience needs; so it is not surprising that many teens find writing challenging. This article identifies the...
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Ad lit.org: A Summary of "Writing Next"
What does research tell us about effective teaching techniques to help adolescents develop their writing skills? This article summarizes Writing Next, a 2007 study of adolescent writing instruction.
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Ad lit.org: Understanding Why Students Avoid Writing
If parents and teachers understand why some students hate writing , they can targeted solution to address students' reluctance. Learn some reasons students avoid writing, and how increasing the automaticity of writing skills and...
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Ad lit.org: Reading Discussion Guide: After by Francine Prose
The shootings at Pleasant Valley were fifty miles away, but at Central High a grief and crisis counselor is hired, security is increased, and privileges are being taken away. If you break the new rules, the punishment is severe. And the...
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Ad lit.org: Discussion Guide: The Fabled Fourth Graders of Aesop Elementary School
Candace Fleming writes contemporary stories built around Aesop's fables in The Fabled Fourth Graders of Aesop Elementary School. No one wants to teach the fourth graders until the amazing Mr. Jupiter comes along. He undertakes the task...
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Ad lit.org: Reading Discussion Guide: Black Storm Comin' by Diane Lee Wilson
WANTED: Young, skinny, wiry fellows not over eighteen. Must be expert riders. Willing to risk death daily. Orphans preferred.
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Ad lit.org: Reading Discussion Guide: If I Stay by Gayle Forman
Seventeen-year-old Mia has no memory of the accident; but in a blink, she finds herself watching as her own damaged body is taken from the wreck
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Ad lit.org: Reading Discussion Guide: In My Hands by Irene Gut Opdyke
In the fall of 1939 the Nazis invaded Irene Gut's beloved Poland, ending her training as a nurse and thrusting the sixteen-year-old Catholic girl into a world of degradation that somehow gave her the strength to accomplish what amounted...
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Ad lit.org: Reading Discussion Guide: City of the Beasts by Isabel Allende
In the midst of his mother's struggle with cancer, fifteen-year-old Alexander Cold has the opportunity to take the trip of a lifetime. Accompanying his fearless grandmother, a magazine reporter for International Geographic, Alexander...
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Ad lit.org: Reading Discussion Guide: Now You See Her by Jacquelyn Mitchard
Hope Shay's life is about acting. Her parents have supported and promoted her talents since she was a little girl. From community theater, dinner theater, and commercials to auditions around the country and finally a place at a...
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Ad lit.org: Discussion Guide: The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by James Boyne
Bruno is only nine years old when his father, a commandant in Hitler's army, is transferred from Berlin to Auschwitz during the Holocaust. The house at "Out-With," as Bruno calls it, is small, dark, and strange. He spends long days...
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Ad lit.org: Reading Discussion Guide: Love, Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli
Stargirl Caraway explores her new neighborhood with an eye for the unusual. She notices the agoraphobic neighbor, the seemingly homeless young boy, and others who do not fit in easily. Stargirl, never one with an inclination to conform,...
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Ad lit.org: Reading Discussion Guide: Milkweed by Jerry Spinelli
Young Misha Pilsudski lives on the streets of Warsaw, Poland and struggles with his identity. When he enters the Jewish ghetto and sees firsthand the evil acts of Hitler's Nazi soldiers, he realizes it's safest of all to be nobody.
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Ad lit.org: Reading Discussion Guide: Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli
One glance and students know that the new girl at Mica High School is not your ordinary high school student. Stargirl Caraway is a free spirit. She has a pet rat named Cinnamon, plays the ukulele in the cafeteria, and refuses to wear the...
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Ad lit.org: Reading Discussion Guide: Looking for Alaska by John Green
Everybody has a talent. Miles Halter's is knowing the last words of a lot of different people - people like the author Rabelais, whose enigmatic last words "I go to seek a Great Perhaps" inspire the sixteen-year-old to leave his family...
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Ad lit.org: Reading Discussion Guide: Paper Towns by John Green
Quentin Jacobsen has spent a lifetime loving the magnificently adventurous Margo Roth Spiegelman from afar. So when she cracks open a window and climbs back into his life - dressed like a ninja and summoning him for an ingenious campaign...
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Ad lit.org: Reading Discussion Guide: Will Grayson, Will Grayson
In the suburbs of Chicago, two teens named Will Grayson - one gay, one straight - have lived their lives completely unaware of the other's existence. But that changes one fateful night when their worlds collide. Their lives begin to...
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Ad lit.org: Reading Discussion Guide: The Sacrifice by Kathleen Benner Duble
In the year 1692, life changes forever for ten-year-old Abigail Faulkner and her family. In Salem, Massachusetts, witches have been found, and widespread fear and panic reign mere miles from Abigail's home of Andover. When two girls are...
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Ad lit.org: Reading Discussion Guide: Hattie Big Sky by Kirby Larson
This historical fiction book, winner of a 2006 Newbery Honor for children's books, is perfect for girls graduating from the Little House on the Prairie series. Author Kirby Larson based this tale on her own great-grandmother's...
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Ad lit.org: Reading Discussion Guide: Under a War Torn Sky by l.m. Elliott
Just nineteen years old, Henry Forester is the youngest pilot in his Air Force squadron. Still, he's one of their best fliers, facing Hitler's Luftwaffe in the war-torn skies above France. But when his plane is shot down on a mission...
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Ad lit.org: Reading Discussion Guide: Chains by Laurie Halse Anderson
As the Revolutionary War begins, 13-year-old Isabel wages her own fight for freedom. Promised freedom upon the death of their owner, Isabel and her sister, Ruth, in a cruel twist of fate become the property of a malicious New York City...
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Ad lit.org: Reading Discussion Guide: Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson
Ever since she called 911 from a teen party, Melinda has quieted her voice, literally and figuratively. She only finds it when its needed to prevent a reoccurrence of the same horror. This stunning look at sexual assault and peer...