Gwinnett County Public Schools
Analysis of the Tuck Everlasting and The Birchbark House Text Exemplars
Looking to introduce some text-based questions into your ELA lessons? Practice the kinds of skills the Common Core demands with the seven text-based questions and the essay prompt provided here. Designed to be a three-day lesson, day one...
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Pedometer Activities to Enhance Cross-curricular Learning
Students complete different activities involving pedometers such as writing a creative story, calculating step averages, researching pedometers, calculating calories, and much more.
Core Knowledge Foundation
Unit 1: Memoir - Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson
The memoir, Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson, is the focus of a unit designed for fourth graders. Scholars begin each lesson with a warm-up, then listen to a read-aloud of a section of the book. Pupils complete word work,...
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Multi-sensory Writing
Students use their senses to help describe special place they have been. They write short sensory-image essay that incorporate all five of their senses, and identify sensory language while reading different pieces of literature.
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15 Seconds of Fame
Students write an autobiographical essay. In this writing lesson students read a narrative, Panic in Paris, and review the elements of a narrative as a class discussion. Well-known stories are used as examples for writing their own...
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Personify This
Eighth graders study personification in published works of poetry, then create their own through the use of diamante or cinquain poetry. They read and discuss poetry by Shel Silverstein, William Jay Smith, and Elinor Wylie.
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Descriptive Writing
Fifth graders develop compositions on self-selected topics. They choose a topic based upon their ability. Individual pupils earn points for each activity completed. Students use descriptive writing as they support their composition...
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Message in a Bottle
Sixth graders write a short story about being stranded on a deserted island. After a brief geography review of locations at various latitudes and longitudes, 6th graders draft their story about being stranded. They use sensory and...
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Accentuate the Expositive: Unit 2 Expository Writing
Learners analyze narrative passages in order to improve their writing skills. In this narrative writing instructional activity students use the same style of writing that they have analyzed in their own narrative passage.
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Descriptive Writing
Third graders have fun using descriptive words in an expository format to describe a food that they hate. They utilize a planning worksheet that's imbedded in this plan before they begin their drafts.
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The Best Season - Fill In the Blank
In this seasons worksheet, students use 5 words from a word bank or their own words to complete a paragraph about the seasons. They write an original sentence about their favorite season on the lines below the paragraph.
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What's On Your Plate?
Young scholars explore the use of sensory details in writing. In this journal writing lesson plan, students write four journal entries after group discussion about a variety of topics such as their weekend, poverty in the United States,...
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Fifteen Seconds of Fame
A reading of Panic in Paris launches a review of the elements of narrative writing. Class members work in groups to find narrative devices in the book and record their findings on a provided worksheet. Using the completed pages,...
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The Personal Narrative - Part One
Read to write! The class lists sensory details based on the plot of a story they have recently read. They create a drawing of a bracelet and use the bracelet's jewels or charms to list sensory details included in the story. They then use...
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Flying Freudian Fun: A Look At Ethical Decision Making
There are not many more apt examples of ethics gone awry than William Golding's Lord of the Flies.. Ninth graders focus the ethics of decision making with the examples provided in the plot. They focus on the...
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Acoustic Poems
Young scholars explore acrostic poems. In this interactive poetry lesson, students visit the ReadWriteThink.org website to view characteristics and samples of acrostic poems. Young scholars develop acrostic poems by using the interactive...
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Visual Aural Impressions
Middle schoolers view a piece of impressionist art, listen to a piece of jazz music and then write a piece about the picture in the style of beat poets. They compare their writing and look for differences in their perceptions.
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Sense Poems
Students explore 5 senses poetry. In this poetry writing activity, students visualize a special day and brainstorm related vivid adjectives and phrases. Students create mindmaps of the five senses to go with their...
Civil War Trust
Civil War Soldier: Experiencing the Battle of Franklin
Fighting a war over home soil makes a living nightmare even more real. Class members describe the experience of a Civil War soldier during the Battle of Franklin, poised right at a major turning point of the war, after researching the...
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Introduce Vocabulary: I Love You the Purplest (Joosse)
Use Barbara Joosse's heartwarming story I Love You the Purplest (which can be found on YouTube if you don't have it) to practice vocabulary in context with emerging readers. This sensory text is an excellent opportunity to...
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Sensory Descriptors
Students feel items in a bucket and describe them using descriptive words. For this sensory descriptive lesson plan, students use words such as smoothe, rough, and bumpy.
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Haiku: Observation and Writing in the Japanese Garden
Students observe a Botanical Gardens. Upon returning to the classroom, students write their own Haiku based on their observations.
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Writing Descriptions of "My Favorite Place"
Students write a descriptive writing piece. In this writing activity, students use a visualization exercise to add more descriptions to their writing.
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Internet: Writing Friendly Letters Via Email
Students view a Powerpoint presentation on writing and sending email. After examining a Website about the parts of a friendly letter, they compose and send their own letters via email. Teachers set up an email/pen pal account so...