Curated OER
Warm Up with Winter Writing
Try these cool writing lesson ideas that promote creativity and increase vocabulary.
The New York Times
Writing Fiction Based on Real Science - NYTimes.com
Refuse to alienate your scientific-minded young scholars during your creative writing unit. Learners explore how literary writing can reflect observable fact, and be based in actual science. The links include examples of fiction and...
K20 LEARN
Windows To The Soul: A Creative Writing Project
The eyes have it in a project that combines art with creative writing. Class members list three adjectives or characteristics of a person they admire. Then draw a picture of a pair of eyes that they feel reflects these characteristics....
Teaching Tolerance
Community Newsletter
What does it take to develop and publish a newsletter? Young academics create a newsletter with original artwork for their school or community. They explore social justice themes and spread messages of tolerance and inclusion. Scholars...
Curated OER
Writing Fiction: Using Older Characters
Out with the old and in with the new? Not so in this lesson plan, which explores the idea of writing older characters in fiction. Students learn the value of varying their characters, exploring different perspectives, and avoiding...
Curated OER
Fictional Hereos
Pupils are introduced to the definition of a hero. As a class, they compare and contrast the difference between non-fictional and fictional hereos they have read about. They read a story, create a story map of one of the heroes and...
Teaching Tolerance
Puppet Show
It's a play, it's a story, it's a puppet show! A lively resource provides academics with a creative outlet to express their views on diversity and social justice. Scholars are responsible for writing, creating, and performing a puppet...
Curated OER
Informative Writing for the Winter Season
Informational writing lessons can be creative and motivating for students.
Dream of a Nation
Writing a Narrative Essay
Imagine using narrative essays to encourage change. This multi-week unit plan does just that. After reading a series of articles from Tyson Miller's Dream of a Nation: Inspiring Ideas for a Better America, class members examine the...
EngageNY
Reading Closely to Expand Understanding of Adaptations
Third graders work to determine the main idea, recall key details, and answer questions using an informational text on the topic of animal adaptations. Using the non-fiction text "Staying Alive: Animal Adaptations" (provided) the teacher...
Curated OER
A Tale of Two Schools
Students create different photographs using photographic techniques of camera angles, lighting, and composition. They write non-fiction stories about people they interview and create two school newsletters that portray a fictional...
Curated OER
English Literature: An Overview
Relate literary works and authors to the major themes of English literature from the Anglo-Saxon period through the 20th century. Working in groups, high schoolers will evaluate period philosophy, religion, and politics that influenced...
Curated OER
Peer writing evaluation (myth)
Students compose myths. In this creative writing lesson plan students use their knowledge of the features of myths to compose their own, then share with a peer for feedback.
MENSA Education & Research Foundation
Early American Novel: Exploring the Emergence of a Genre
Need an extra challenge for your best readers? Check out a unit that uses Hannah Webster Foster’s epistolary novel, The Coquette, published in 1797, as the anchor text. The resource is packed with project ideas; each with its...
Curated OER
The Rest Cure: Gender in Medicine and Literature
Read and discuss "The Yellow Wall-Paper" and the gender issues that the story brings up. Use articles from the time period to analyze, complete with specific discussion questions. After two days, scholars write an essay based on topics...
PBS
Reading Adventure Pack: Folktales
Following a reading and thorough discussion of books—Anansi the Spider: A Tale from the Ashanti by Gerald McDermott and The Moon Book by Gail Gibbons—scholars complete three activities. First, they use playdough or cookie dough to create...
Curated OER
Tango Stories
Students listen to tango music and research the country it came from. In this music lesson, students find that tango music comes from Argentina. They listen and dance to the music and then write stories.
Curated OER
Story vs. Plot
Students, after reading and discussing the two texts by Flannery O'Connor, "Good Country People" and "Greenleaf," analyze the plot, tone, characters, themes and setting in each story. They write their own short stories dealing with a...
Curated OER
Celebrate A People!
Students explore African-American students literature as an integral building block in empowering all students to a better awareness when reading and writing. They use as a productive Social Studies tool for overall understanding of the...
Curated OER
Splish, Splash Poetry
Students write weather shape poems and sing weather related songs. In this creative writing lesson, students read the book, It's Raining, It's Pouring and list weather words they heard in the story. Students use the writing process to...
Curated OER
Teddy Bear Project
Students take home an Australian Teddy Bear home and draw pictures, photograph, write or verbalize stories of what the bear did at their home. They make a book that is sent to their partner class.
Curated OER
How Do Artists Get Their Ideas? Culture and Environment as Sources of Ideas
Students share the difficulties they have in determining what to write or draw for a project. In groups, they view examples from three different artists and discuss how their personal experiences affected their art. They brainstorm a...
Kids Yoga Stories
Valentine's Day - LOVE
Open your heart with a refreshing yoga session designed for Valentine's Day. With visual cues of hearts and other festive decorations, participants begin a series of yoga poses designed to open their heart chakras and to reflect on...
Curated OER
Language Arts: Survival Diaries
High schoolers are able to compose a dialectical journal entry which analyzes information presented in a text. They are able to compose a creative journal entry which develops characters, presents events in logical order, and includes...