East Side Union High School District
Biographical Narrative: Journal Prompts
The opportunities are endless with a worksheet containing 24 biographical narrative writing prompts. Although there are no directions or specifications for the writing process, the prompts promote the use of narrative writing...
Teaching Tolerance
Poetry and Storytelling Café
Academics take turns as actors in an engaging poetry cafe. Elementary learners work in small groups to create original poems or stories addressing community issues and read their work in front of a live audience. Scholars also reflect...
New York City Department of Education
Grade 4 Literacy in English Language Arts: A Call to Action
You have the power! Scholars learn that they have power of the pen in their writing. After reading and viewing various sources about standardized testing, they express their own opinions about the testing by writing letters to the...
Teachers & Writers Magazine
Persona Poetry and Mask-Making
Looking to engage scholars in poetry with hands-on activities? What better way than making masks? Readers analyze literary devices in poetry, examine Native American masks, create their own masks, and then write poems to tell its story!
Curated OER
Six Trait Writing with Kenneth Grahame and Ogden Nash
Third graders complete a unit of lessons on the process of six trait writing. They identify good writing traits, read and evaluate poems, literature, and myths, utilize a rubric to evaluate their own writing, and evaluate classmates...
Curated OER
Judging a Book by Its Cover
Students explore the relationship between the form of books and the content inside. In this book exploration lesson plan, students use a piece of their creative writing as inspiration; they author a written book and design a cover that...
EngageNY
Revision and Illustration: Strengthening the Writing in my Rainforest Field Journal and Adding a Labeled Drawing
Let me draw you a picture. Scholars read a quote from Roger Tory Peterson and discuss his views on drawings. They then create their own drawings of an ant or butterfly to add to their science journals.
Fluence Learning
Writing About Literature: Nature in the Writings of John Muir and Emily Dickinson
As an assessment of their skill in crafting a compare and contrast essay, class members read and compare the portrayals of nature in excerpts from naturalist John Muir's My First Summer in the Sierra and from poet Emily Dickinson's...
Fluence Learning
Writing Informational Text: Community and School Gardens
Two informational texts feature community gardens of the past and present and how seeds grow. Scholars read, discuss what they have read, complete a timeline, define words, and compose a brief essay about the texts' main idea.
Fluence Learning
Writing About Literature: Exploring Themes About Conformity
Feeling the pressure to confirm is something any adolescent can relate to. Explore an essential theme with a response to literature assessment that prompts learners to identify main ideas with evidence and supporting details.
Curated OER
Crazy Critters Creative Writing
Learners brainstorm animals with unusual characteristics such as a giraffe with a short neck or a zebra without stripes. They write paragraphs about their animals and work in peer editing groups to refine their stories.
PBS
Stories of Painkiller Addiction: Learning About Opioids
Feeling high is not the only side effect of abusing prescription opioids. Middle and high schoolers learn more about specific painkillers, including Fentanyl, Oxycodone, and Clonazepam, as well as their common brand names and extensive...
Joy Uzarraga
Famous American Research Project
Designed specifically for lower elementary pupils, this is a great biographical research project in which students research a famous American, and then design creative poster boards to help them "become" the famous...
Curated OER
Mandala Portfolio Project
Here's a great idea for writing portfolios. Kids decorate all four sides of their portfolio, introducing themselves, their families, goals, dreams, and favorite things. Detailed directions for all four panels and a rubric are included in...
Hawaiʻi State Department of Education
Creating Narrative
Plot, setting, characters, and conflict are common to both drama and narrative stories. Kids create narrated tableaus that show their understanding of the plot, setting, and conflict of a story they've recently read. The lesson...
Curated OER
Step into the Painting: Social Studies, Literature, and Art
Travel back in American history to the era of slavery and abolition. After reading about the Underground Railroad, young historians examine a painting depicting the event, and write a narrative from the point of view of a person in the...
Virginia Department of Education
Genetic Variation and Mutations
Young scientists demonstrate their creativity while completing several activities, to assess genetic variations and mutations. Instructors provide a list of options and scientists choose to write a comic strip, create a book,...
Digital Writing and Research Lab's – Lesson Plans
Teaching Close Reading through Short Composition/Revision
This activity may have writers evaluate short compositions, but their subjects are quite tall: great Americans. Pupils read one another's compositions and closely examine how specific phrases and diction contribute to shaping American...
Curated OER
Group Product-Pitch Presentation
Are you just about to teach persuasion in your class? If so, you should consider this short unit. In small groups, learners create a product, develop a magazine ad for the product, and pitch this product to the class using a visual...
Curated OER
Creative God or Goddess
Who causes sinkholes? Or acid rain? High schoolers try their hand at myth-making as individuals create a god or goddess responsible for the modern-day phenomenon. They introduce their deity in an essay that reveals the name, parentage,...
EngageNY
Organizing Evidence from Multiple Informational Texts to Prepare for Writing: What Makes an Earthquake a Natural Disaster?
Fifth graders prepare for their end of the unit essay assessment by continuing to look at what makes an earthquake a natural disaster. They complete a graphic organizer and write a topic sentence. To finish, they view a model essay and...
Pace University
Short Stories
A reading of Kevin Lamb's short story "Lost in the Woods" launches a study of how writers use elements such as foreshadowing, mood, character development, setting, and conflict to engage readers. Class members then demonstrate what they...
Curated OER
Animal Diary
Students create a diary of an animal. In this creative writing lesson plan, students read the book Diary of a Worm and conduct a brief research session on their animal. Students fill in a template with facts and create an animal diary.
Curated OER
The Catcher in the Rye Creative Comprehension Projects
This kind of stuff knocks me out, it really does. I mean, five fun project ideas for The Catcher In the Rye? When you're done reading all this stuff you'll wish the author was a terrific friend of yours.