The New York Times
Getting Personal: Writing College Essays for the Common Application
Develop an understanding of the open-ended questions that are a part of the college Common Application. Future college learners collaborate, discuss prompts acquired from the application, and philosophize on their plan of attack for the...
Curated OER
101 Math Journal Topics
In this math worksheet, students examine the topics available to complete a daily math journal. They repeat the procedure for future lessons.
Mary Pope Osborne, Classroom Adventures Program
The Backpack Travel Journals
Strap on those backpacks, it's time to travel through history with this literature unit based on the first four books of The Magic Tree House series. While reading through these fun stories, children create story maps, record interesting...
Curated OER
Picturing America: Images and Words of Hope from Romare Bearden and Langston Hughes
A carefully crafted three-day lesson plan integrates poetry and visual art. By analyzing and comparing Langston Hughes' poem "Mother and Son" and Romare Bearden's collage "The Dove," readers explore the theme of hope. The lesson plan...
Curated OER
Student Opinion: What Are You Afraid Of?
A great resource for informational texts as well as writing topics, the New York Times website provides writing prompts about various news articles through The Learning Network. This particular worksheet provides a very short reading...
Curated OER
Draft Dilemmas
Consider the possibility of a new U.S. draft with this lesson, which encourages class debate and persuasive arguments. Middle and high schoolers discuss how such a draft might be enacted and how they would feel about it. They write...
Curated OER
Diary of a Dinosaur: Making Writing Lessons Meaningful
Writing about dinosaurs unleashed one student's desire to keep a journal, and led to an exploration of a variety of subjects.
Curated OER
Writing American Diaries
Young scholars examine the concept of historical perspective in writing. They read the diary of Sally Wister, a young Patriot from Philadelphia during the Revolutionary Era. Additionally, they must include different points of view in...
Curated OER
Student Opinion: Are You Popular, Quirky or Conformist?
Approach the topic of popularity with this resource from the New York Times and their Learning Network series. The article is about Alexandra Robbins' "Quirk Theory." Learners respond to the article excerpt either on paper or online....
Curated OER
Classify By Topic
Students explore and evaluate poetry. In small groups, they read and summarize poems, complete a handout, create and perform a dramatization of a poem, and write a journal entry in response to their performance.
Curated OER
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close: Journals
Like the characters in Jonathan Safran Foer’s novel, class members write frequently with a series of journal topics that form the basis of the final writing assignment about their personal “heavy boots.” Alas, no list of topics is...
Curated OER
Using Journals in Writing Classes
Ninth graders develop brainstorming and stream of consciousness writing techniques. Using their journals daily, 9th graders develop their ability to write consistently in their journal without concern for grammar, usage and punctuation.
Curated OER
Honoring Our Pets During National Pet Week
Recognize National Pet Week with reading and writing activities to celebrate the animals in your pupils' lives.
Curated OER
D.E.W. (Drop Everything and Write!)
Learners gather, determine validity and reliability of, analyze and organize information. They employ the most effective format for purpose and audience. Students write fully developed paragraphs that have details and information...
Curated OER
Persuasive Writing Lesson Plan: Dress Codes
Students examine the pros and cons of the implementation of public policy matters and the specific issue of dress codes. They develop a list of pros and cons of a school dress code, examine and discuss a local editorial newspaper page,...
Curated OER
Taste Test - Combining Sentences
Students combine sentences to create compound sentences. They write about creating their own soda, then make their own soda, comparing and contrasting it with a national brand. They write a paragraph containing compound sentences.
Curated OER
Writing to Learn History: Annotations and Mini-Writes
Students use their critical thinking skills to write about historical events. In this historical perspectives lesson, students read documents about historical events and make annotations and marginal notes. Students then respond to...
Curated OER
Technical Writing / Siddhartha
Twelfth graders are introduced to and produce several types of technical writing. They watch a crime video and write a police report, explore websites and draft summary sentences, write a personal vision quest based on "Siddhartha" and...
Curated OER
Revision Lesson
Students, through a series of 4 lessons, explore what it means to revise their written work. They revise a bland story together and then practice revising their own papers by identifying the main action and "exploding" that moment into...
Curated OER
Journal Writing Idea - Pets
Carve out some time for your youngsters to write in their journal. Today, they write a story about pets. They learn the value of a journal and how to keep up with it, and they enhance story development by planning their story before...
Curated OER
Summarizing From Notes (Part 1): Nature Journals Of Lewis And Clark
In this writing worksheet, students fill out an outline about a plant that will lead them to writing a 3-paragraph summary. Students include a topic sentence and 4-5 details for each paragraph.
Curated OER
Narrative Journal Prompts
Need some possible writing topics for your class? Look no further, this resource consists of a list of 24 writing prompts. Perfect for journal writing or quick writes, all 24 prompts ask about pupils' personal experiences and thus elicit...
Curated OER
Writing and Scholarship Planning For College-Bound Students: Brainstorming Time
Students examine the process of scholarship and college essay writing. They develop a list of key words and concepts, complete handouts, and complete an outline of an essay.
Polk Bros Foundation
This Week's Social Studies Journal
This worksheet is ideal for a bell-ringer/writing warm-up in your class to review what was learned in a previous lesson, and includes identifying important terms and facts associated with a historical topic. Encourage learners to...