Curated OER
A Year in Review: The Memoir
If you are planning a unit on memoir and autobiographical narrative, you should consider this resource. Using Internet research skills, pupils review works by James Frey and Henry David Thoreau. In response to these works, learners...
Curated OER
Researching African Americans Who Made a Difference
Celebrate Black History Month with this instructional activity, in which middle schoolers create an essay about a famous African-American. Writers conduct research online, take notes to write an essay in proper format, and use ideas,...
Curated OER
Running Out of Time: Letter to a Character
Once your learners have a firm handle on the characters in Running Out of Time, invite them to write letters to chosen characters about the events of the novel. Pupils then share with others who wrote to the same character.
Starfall
Hide and Seek
For this language arts worksheet, learners write a story using an illustrated word bank with nouns, adjectives, and verbs.
Starfall
Favorite Day
In this language arts activity, learners write a story about their favorite day of the week. There is an illustrated word bank. Students chose from nouns, verbs, and conjunctions.
Curated OER
Volcano Group Creative Writing
In this creative writing worksheet, students explore volcanoes. Students work in groups and have twenty-five minutes to write a narrative about volcanoes using twelve words provided.
Annenberg Foundation
Exploring Borderlands
What motivated Europeans to explore the New World, and what effects did their exploration have on Native American populations? The second installment of a 16-part American Passages series prompts pupils to watch a video and read several...
Annenberg Foundation
Modernist Portraits
How did literature reflect people's attitudes in post-World War I America? A lesson explores the topic using a variety of activities. Individuals watch and respond to a video; read author biographies and engage in discussion; write...
Annenberg Foundation
Spirit of Nationalism
What were the virtues and values that helped form America? Pupils watch and discuss a video, read biographies of early Americans, chart the differences between early American religious movements, write journals and letters, draw, and...
Starfall
Join The Circus
In this literacy learning exercise, students use a picture and word bank to draw a picture depicting what they would like to do in the circus, then write about it.
Curated OER
Environment Group Creative Writing
In this creative writing worksheet, students work as a group to write a story using 13 words that are associated with the environment. They have 25 minutes to write using words such as poacher, rainforest, smog, ozone, evolution, and...
Curated OER
Planet Earth Group Creative Writing
In this creative group writing activity, learners have twenty-five minutes to write a brief story about planet Earth using the words listed in the word bank.
Curated OER
Great Authors Group Creative Writing
In this creative writing activity worksheet, students collaborate to write a story using the words characters, captivate, focus, intrigue, imagination, plot, recognition, style, and wisdom.
Curated OER
Flag Day Group Creative Writing
In this Flag Day creative writing worksheet, students collaborate to write a piece pertaining to the holiday using the 12 words listed.
EngageNY
Mid-Unit Assessment: Analyzing a New Narrative about a Natural Disaster, Part II
See it through my eyes. Scholars complete mid-unit assessment part II by writing an essay describing how the narrator's point of view influences how the story is told in the text In the Middle of the Storm. Pupils also complete a...
EngageNY
Mid-Unit 2 Assessment: Analyzing a New Narrative about a Natural Disaster, Part I
Scholars complete a mid-unit assessment by analyzing a narrative text, In the Middle of the Storm. Learners determine the gist of the text, identify synonyms, make inferences, and answer text-dependent questions to demonstrate...
Curated OER
The End?
This lesson asks young readers to predict what will happen to Harry Potter. While the question has been answered by the last book and film in the series, the concept and links provided by The New York Times’ Learning Network are...
Film English
My Shoes
Engage your pupils in short story and short film. Using a still from the film as inspiration, pairs compose short stories, which they later share and compare with other members of the class. They then watch the film and respond to a...
Curated OER
A Great Beginning
Check out this detailed resource for some beginning of the year activities. After examining examples, class members uses the computer lab to create a personal brochure enhanced with clip art or photos to introduce themselves to the...
EngageNY
Writing and Revising Our Texts: Using Peer Critique to Improve First Drafts
Mail me a postcard. Individuals design a postcard to show what Meg Lowman from The Most Beautiful Roof in the
World might have written to her friends at home. They then continue to work on writing a science journal entry.
Curriculum Corner
8th Grade ELA Common Core Checklists
How close are your eighth graders to mastering the ELA Common Core standards? Keep an eye on progress with these charts, which include every eighth grade identifier and full standard text. As you move through the year and teach, reteach,...
Candlewick Press
A Classroom Guide to Peter H. Reynolds's Creatrilogy
Help young readers find, identify, and use their voices with a set of empowering activities based on Peter H. Reynolds' trilogy of books. Sky Color, Ish, and The Dot focus on recognizing moods and treating each other kindly, and their...
Starfall
Where Will Skaterdog Go Next?
Skaterdog is going somewhere, all right - but where? Engage your students' interest with this activity, which allows them to write Skaterdog's story in two modalities: first, as a three-pane comic strip, and then in a three-line story.
Starfall
My Pumpkin Patch
In this literacy activity, students practice writing about the subject of harvest and pumpkins. They also color in the picture.