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Making Predictions:
Pupils of all ages practice making predictions about what will happen next in a fairy tale as the teacher reads it aloud. They demonstrate how to support their predictions with information and facts from the story.
San José State University
MLA Formatting Guidelines: Ellipsis for Omissions
If you would like a concise overview of MLA formatting, this two-page handout provides it. It addresses page layout, parenthetical citations, and works cited (including when and how to use ellipses to indicate an omission), but it does...
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Web It!
Looking for a way to bring prewriting into your informative writing unit? Use this lesson to reinforce writing skills in your eighth grade language arts class. Young writers use a web graphic organizer as a prewriting tool for expository...
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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...
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Exploring Nature: Powerful Forces
Students observe samples of artwork which use line, shape, and form to show movement and depict natural forces of nature. They create their own piece of artwork that shows a natural force and movement and then write a descriptive...
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Bats
Learners investigate bats. In this animal science lesson, students use several websites and suggested bat books to write an informative paragraph. Learners should be able to write with 90% accuracy.
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Finding the Main Idea: Little Women
Whether or not your class is reading Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, you can use this exercise as the basis of a mini-lesson on how to determine the main idea of a passage or as a pre-test to assess mastery of the skill. A graphic...
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Fun With Sun Protection
Students create sun protection devices by modeling sunglasses invented by native people of the Arctic and study about protecting the body from sun exposure. They write a small paragraph explaining and justifying why they believe a...
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Simple Machines
Here is a good four-page worksheet designed to get your young inventors thinking about a simple machine they could design and build. They must answer some basic questions about their machine, draw a sketch of their idea, and write a...
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Develop a Paragraph
In this paragraph writing activity, students review the definition of a paragraph and then read the opening sentences for a paragraph on cooking. Students cut out the sentence strips and arrange the sentences in the order of topic...
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My Favorite Thing to Do
Students realize that a paragraph is a short piece of writing that has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Every story, essay, article, or book is like a patchwork quilt made of little paragraphs stitched together
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Five Paragraph Essay
Eighth graders are introduced to the mechanics of writing a standard-form essay. They draft, edit and polish a five-paragraph essay about spending the day as an animal of their choice.
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Essay Writing
Students complete essay writing activities. In this essay writing lesson, students use an outline activity to learn about the advantages and disadvantages for various essay writing types. Students also break down the paragraphs into...
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Writing a Comparison/Contrast Paragraph: Using Vivid Verbs
In this vivid verbs worksheet, students complete three activities that help them use strong, vivid verbs in the comparison and contrast writing.
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Writing Sparks
In this writing sparks worksheet, students write a short story as they imagine that they've woken up one morning to find out they had grown two extra pairs of arms.
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Writing Sparks
In this writing sparks worksheet, pupils write a short story about a situation in which they had to face their worst fear and how they overcame it.
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Writing Letters Using Appleworks
Young scholars discover how to write letters using Appleworks. Following a demonstration by the teacher, they compose rough drafts of their letters. Working independently, students correct their drafts and type the final versions.
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What Does Christmas Mean to Me?
Students write an essay entitled "What Does Christmas Mean to Me?" For this writing lesson, students express their feelings about Christmas in an essay. Students discuss ways they have given to others during the Christmas season, then...
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My Name Is Me!
Students write about themselves. In this personal writing lesson, students write their name vertically down a sheet of paper and think of a self descriptive word that matches each letter of their name. Students write a descriptive...
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What's the Main Idea??
Learners determine how to form a simple topic sentence in order to summarize a reading passage to increase comprehension. They apply the strategy to reading a passage from a textbook by writing a topic sentence for paragraphs about the...
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Life Cycle of Butterfly
Second graders investigate life cycles of insects by writing a story. In this butterfly life lesson, 2nd graders create a checklist of the many steps a caterpillar takes before growing wings and flying. Students utilize creative...
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Could You Elaborate on That?
Fourth graders engage in a lesson which teaches the parts of an expository essay and how to organize and write an expository piece from a given topic. After a lecture/demo, 4th graders utilize a worksheet imbedded in this plan which...
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China: Dim Sum: Writer's Workshop Mini Lesson: Dominant Impression: Writing a Descriptive Paragraph Lesson
Pupils write and illustrate a descriptive paragraph entitled "My Favorite Place" highlighting a dominate impression or dominant feeling in their paragraph.
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Paragraphs
Young scholars observe paragraphs in newspaper articles and the chapters in their reading books writing down reasons for each new paragraph. They then discuss why writers organize their work into paragraphs.