Academy of American Poets
Incredible Bridges: “Cotton Candy” by Edward Hirsch
Read it, hear it, see it, do it! Young poets experience Edward Hirsch's memory poem, "Cotton Candy," by first closely reading the poem silently, then aloud, watching a video of the poet reading it, and crafting their memory poem of an...
Curated OER
Revision
Young poets learn the value of using a thesaurus when crafting and revising poems. They examine poems rich in figurative language and then a revised version with the figurative language removed. To demonstrate what they have learned,...
Curated OER
A Voice for Hard Issues
Ouch! The final lesson in the 12-resource poetry unit models for young writers how poems can be used to voice hard truths.
Curated OER
Mining For Descriptive Gold
Students describe places using language that is as vivid as possible. They will examine the writer's craft in describing a place by reading and discussing "Resurrecting the Miner's World." They will then revise their descriptive pieces...
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Writing Workshop: Writing a Compare-Contrast Essay
Crafting a compare-contrast essay can prove to be a challenge even for experienced writers. Eradicate the mystery with a PowerPoint that details the rationale for and the structure of this form of expository writing. The 20-slide...
K20 LEARN
Barbie™: Blessing Or Curse? Style, Format, And Genre
How does a writer's choice of genre, style, and format impact the effectiveness of an argument about a social issue? After reading a poem and an essay about Barbie dolls, class members choose a social issue important to them, select a...
Student Handouts
Five-paragraph Essay Organizer
Some learners just feel more comfortable with very explicit directions. The directions on this template for a five-paragraph essay are very explicit and detail the content and order of each paragraph to be crafted. Color coding reveals...
Curated OER
Found Poetry Finds Popularity
Writers use non-fiction pieces to craft found poems across all domains for a New York Times writing contest.
Santa Ana Unified School District
Getting to the Core: Early American Poets
How do poets convey emotion and represent their views of life? Pupils learn more about Whitman and Dickinson through the unit and analyze their bold reinvention of craft and style for poets to come. Looking at classic pieces such as...
Annenberg Foundation
Slavery and Freedom
How do nineteenth-century texts by African American and Native American writers contribute to the country's ideals of freedom and individuality? Learners explore the topic by watching and discussing a video, reading biographies, writing...
Scholastic
Step-by-Step Strategies for Teaching Expository Writing
A carefully crafted, logically organized, 128-page packet is an excellent addition to your unit on expository writing.
Curated OER
Rhythm and Improv, Jazz and Poetry
Connect the ideas of jazz improvisation and art to writing poetry. Learners collaborate and write different lines of poetry, imitating the jazz styles of improvisation and freewriting. Take a close look at the poems "Tenebrae" by Yusef...
National Endowment for the Humanities
“House by the Railroad”: A Painting and a Poem for the Common Core
Introduce your class to ekphrastic poetry with an exercise that asks them to examine Edward Hooper's painting House by the Railroad and Edward Hirsch's poem "Edward Hopper and the House By the Railroad." After a close reading of the two...
Teacher's Corner
Cinquain (sink-ain)
The cinquain, a five line, fixed-form poem that features one subject, is the focus of the third exercise in a series of ten poetry writing resources.
Curated OER
Pourquoi Tales
Lead a web search for information on writers and discuss the craft of purposeful writing as a class. Your students investigate "pourquoi tales" which are "why" stories. and then write their own examples of pourquoi stories to share in a...
Curated OER
Memory Book
Young writers create memory books. They think of important events in their lives from the past year. Then they draw pictures that depict these events, and dictate captions to an adult who writes them down in their books for them. These...
Curated OER
Think of an Ending
Good endings are hard to find. And write. This, the final instructional activity in a six-part series devoted to study of the ingredients of a good story, focuses on crafting endings. Class members draft ideas about what should happen to...
Curated OER
Bronte and Rhys' Portrayal of Bertha
Young scholars, while reading and discussing the two texts by Charlotte Bronte and Jean Rhys, compare/contrast the two main characters and juxtapose them as the same character told from two different points of view. They gain insight of...
Curated OER
Writing Traits Instruction
Students assess and critique a wide variety of writing samples for each of the traits of writing strands from literature, composition writing, reading and assessment tools. They create and design a descriptive definition piece of writing...
Poetry Society
A Conceit Poem
Young writers needn't be self-involved to craft a conceit. Directions for how to craft this form of extended metaphor, models, and a worksheet are all included in the packet.
Curated OER
Facing the Ghosts of Our Past
A reading of a New York Times review of the movie Beloved launches research into how the Civil War affected the lives of people living during this period. Creative thinkers select a person from an included list of historical figures and...
Curated OER
Details, Details, Details
Writing can become one-dimensional if authors don't involve all their senses. First, scholars observe a strange object which, ideally, they can touch and even smell. Without using certain words (you can create a list or have the class...
Curated OER
Proofreading, Revising, & Editing Skills Success
Some self-paced writing resources are just better than others. This one is great. The 205-page packet includes exercises on every aspect of the writing process, from crafting sentences and paragraphs, to proofreading, revising, and...
Santa Ana Unified School District
Persuasive Writing
Should students be paid for doing well in school? That is the question at the heart of an argumentative writing unit that walks writers through the steps of crafting a persuasive essay. The carefully scaffolded scripted plans provide...
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