Curated OER
Parts of a Friendly Letter
The art of writing a letter has not been lost to email and texting! Teach kids how to format a friendly letter with a presentation about the parts of a letter, as well as prompting them to write a letter about their favorite holiday.
Cleburne Independent School District
Grade 6 English Language Arts and Readiness: Persuasive
What is the best way to compare and contrast viewpoints on the same topic? A persuasive writing unit plan addresses targeted skills, vocabulary, instructional strategies, and suggested resources that would be perfect for developing writers.
Curated OER
Writing Police Reports: Emergency!
Students practice writing emergency reports. In this emergency reports lesson plan, students participate in a visit from a police officer or emergency technician. Students then write a historical report based on the fictional account the...
Curated OER
Story Pyramid and Summary
Students read a short selection of a story individually or as a class. On their own, they create a story pyramid for the selection and write a one page summary. They use text from the story for their supporting details. To end the...
Curated OER
Sample Lesson on Taking Notes
Have your middle schoolers define the terms outline, summary, paraphrase, plagiarism, citation, reference, and bibliography. They identify the main ideas, topic sentence, supporting ideas in technical writing and create note cards using...
Curated OER
Ant Writing
Students become effective writers. They need to practice strategies for working through the writing process. By presenting the students with a creative problem, they must choose a position and support it accordingly.
Curated OER
Jim Murphy, The Great Fire - Grade 6
The Great Fire by Jim Murphy provides the text for a study of the Chicago fire of 1871. The plan is designed as a close reading activity so that all learners have the same background information require for writing. Richly detailed, the...
EngageNY
Building Background Knowledge and Summarizing: “Refugees: Who, Where, Why” Part 2
What are some universal aspects of refugees' experiences worldwide and throughout history? Scholars read the text "Refugees: Who, Where, Why" and create two class anchor charts. Finally, they each write a paragraph that provides an...
Curated OER
Solving the Puzzle
Students create a map showing the United States borders at a specific period in history and produce three questions to be answered by examining the map. They also write a productive paragraph explaining who, what, when, where, how/why a...
EngageNY
Grade 11 ELA Module 2: Unit 1, Lesson 5
I have an idea! Scholars examine closely how Du Bois develops a central idea in paragraph four of the chapter "Of Our Spiritual Strivings." They also begin finding significant and relevant evidence to support a topic and complete...
Curated OER
Pumpkin Patch Fun!
Students research a website to find out about pumpkins. In this pumpkins lesson plan, students research the site, make a review sheet for another group to complete, draw a pumpkin, and write a summary about their learnings.
Curated OER
Great Basin Tribes- Use of Land for Sustenance
Students explore four Native American tribes from Nevada. For this Native American history lesson, students identify and generate important corresponding attributes of the Southern Paiute, Northern Paiute, Washoe, and Western Shoshone...
Curated OER
Sum Stuff
Students are introduced to informational text. Students explore nonfiction as a genre. They identify the components and text structure of text nonfiction. Students read a nonfiction passage and write a summary of the passage.
Curated OER
Information from Posters
Budding journalists examine and evaluate an informative poster advertising a public meeting to discuss city park issues. They write a paragraph explaining what they found to be effective and ineffective about the poster, then imagine...
Curated OER
Harvesting Energy from Food: How do Plants Help Humans?
Beginning botanists view slides of plant vascular tissue. They watch Magic School Bus Gets Planted, which you can find online, and then write a summary of what they have learned about plants. This lesson could be used with upper...
Foreign Policy Research Institute
Teaching the 9/11 Anniversary
Here is a lesson on terrorism and 9/11. While outdated, it could be easily revised for today's teens. It includes targeted vocabulary, a background information activity, critical thinking questions, and step-by-step procedures for...
Curated OER
The Black Snowman
Sixth graders write a paper. In this writing and retelling instructional activity, 6th graders read the book The Black Snowman and answer comprehension questions. Students learn how to write good paragraphs and how to retell a story....
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Sequence of Events Storyline
Seventh graders practice sequencing the events in a story they have read. After reading a short story, 7th graders sequence the events of the story using a timeline. Their timeline is used to create a summary paragraph of the story...
Curated OER
Writing a Movie Review
Students view a classic movie in class while taking notes. They write a summary/ review of the movie which includes the name of the movie, who wrote it, the characters and a retelling of the story. They include their opinion and how the...
Curated OER
Magical Creatures
Students investigate entertaining characters within stories. In this writing lesson, students review nouns and adjectives and discuss magical characters. Students ask themselves questions about their selected characters and write a...
Curated OER
Summarize This!
Students explore how to summarize a reading passage. They read non-fiction books. Students use a Venn Diagram to compare and contrast the two animals they read about. They write a summary using the information in their Venn Diagram.
Curated OER
Writing A Summary - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Young scholars explore short stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. In this literature lesson plan, students read one of his short stories listed and then summarize the story in a written piece.
Curated OER
Venn Diagram and Summary Paragraph
In this summarizing information worksheet, students use the Venn diagram to compare and contrast two ideas in social studies. Students then write a summary of any social studies text.
Curated OER
Summary Lesson Plans
Students can learn how to write summaries with the help of graphic organizers, and summarization lessons.