You'll C-E-R a difference in classroom achievement after using a helpful lesson. Designed for economics, civics, government, and US history classes, participants practice using the CER model to craft arguments about primary and secondary...

Is a college education necessary for success in today's world? The class investigates the question, along with others at the end of the sixth workshop in a 15-part series. The lesson has four parts with multiple activities and...

Lights, camera, action! Math educators consider how to improve their instruction by examining a model of the five-practice problem-solving model involving a movie theater. Participants examine cognitive demand in relation to problem...

Imagine seventh graders developing a school wide plan to promote respect in their school. That's the vision behind the second lesson in the R-E-S-P-E-C-T series. In preparation for designing a school-wide media campaign, class members...

How can opinions slant facts? Workshop participants learn how to examine primary and secondary sources and identify the author's point of view. They also examine how visual art impacts the meaning and rhetoric of sources. Full of...

What do a cheetah, Audi commercial, and air have in common? They're all topics of an engaging inquiry-based, hands-on workshop for educators about background knowledge, reading strategies, the CER model, and argumentative writing. The...

How have educational standards evolved? Educators of adults examine expectations in the 10th workshop out of 15 to better determine how standards have grown. Participants respond to a variety of sample questions to determine how they...

Are video games sports? Pupils investigate this question as well as various nonfiction selections to learn more about claims and the support that defines them. All of the selections mimic the rigor on state tests and encourage close...

Why is it important to use precise language? Participants explore this question in the fourth activity in a series of 15 on effective instruction. Perfect for all content areas, the activity promotes appropriate language choice through...

A nine-slide presentation provides educators with practical ways they can help young people develop a growth mindset, a key competency in social-emotional learning.

In this lesson, Ralph Fletcher's writing style is introduced to student writers. Students will write a rough draft about a time they ate, or a time when they saw someone else eat, something unusual. Then students will read and analyze...

[Free Registration/Login Required] During this guided creative writing lesson plan, students will develop written pieces and writing stamina. Students will write for short timed periods with the goal of writing progressively more...

Authored by the Tsehai Russell and Della Wright, CLR fellows, this resource provides a 5-day unit of informative writing lessons. Focus lessons related to facts and opinions and paragraph writing. This series is supported by the Academic...

Given a descriptive writing prompt, 3rd graders will include precise word choices and sensory language in a piece of writing about their favorite place.

This lesson engages students in working with narrative reading and writing. Students will listen to different stories and fill out story maps for them. Then students will plan a personal narrative about a "surprise" on a graphic...

This lesson plan provides a descriptive writing prompt for kindergarten students about a single event or about several events. Students will use a combination of dictating, drawing, and writing to narrate their stories.

This lesson engages students in listening to one or more narratives, Then students will engage in the writing process to develop their own personal narrative. Exemplar narratives are provided.

Third graders will invent a gadget using one or more simple machines and write about it.

This is a great writing lesson for math teachers. The picture book Take Me Out of the Bathtub by Alan Katz demonstrates his love of familiar songs and nursery rhymes by writing new lyrics that can be sung to them. For this assignment,...

Students are so used to hearing stories that start with the words Once upon a time and when writing their own stories, they often begin with these same words or with variations like One day I. Inspired by the novel Crispin by Avi This...

After giving students the writing topic "A Special Day that I Remember, give students ten to fifteen minutes to write on the topic. Then tell them they will be revising their "Special Day" prompt writing, but first they will listen to...

After students are given time to think about the topic -"Alone Time with an Adult I Care about," they are given ten to fifteen minutes to write between five and ten sentences on the topic. They ten are told they will revise their...

This writing lesson teaches young scholars how to become self-editors by learning to judge and critique their work.

In this lesson plan, students will learn about the season through decriptive words and phrases incorporated in two different books, Have You Seen Trees? by Joanne Oppenheim and The Seasons of Arnold's Apple Tree by Gail Gibbons. They...