Lesson Plan
Scholastic

Scholastic: Writing With Scientists

For Teachers 3rd - 5th Standards
After students investigate a topic through research, hypothesizing, observing, and experimentating, teachers can use this instructional activity to help their students prepare short science reports and publish them online. The Writing...
Unit Plan
Scholastic

Scholastic: Writing Workshop: Persuasive Writing

For Students 4th - 8th Standards
This site has a great unit that leads students all the way through the writing process while composing a persuasive paper. Includes a teacher guide, mini-lessons, assessment rubric, and worksheets to help out at each step of the way.
Activity
Beacon Learning Center

Beacon Learning Center: Information Elimination: Lesson on Narrowing the Topic

For Students 3rd - 8th Standards
This is a tutorial which focuses on how to narrow the topic for expository writing, how to determine what information to keep or eliminate, and what questions to ask yourself. Students respond to questions throughout. A comparison is...
Activity
Beacon Learning Center

Beacon Learning Center: Bibliography Blunders

For Students 2nd - 8th Standards
This tutorial focuses on how to complete a bibliography using MLA style. It gives specific directions and examples for various types of entries such as magazines, books, encyclopedias, and web pages. It also gives specifics for the...
Unit Plan
Scholastic

Scholastic: Writing Workshop: Research Paper

For Students 3rd - 5th Standards
A site for both students and teachers to explore the writing of a research paper. Find teacher resources, student interactive mini-lessons, and a review of types of research resources.
Lesson Plan
ReadWriteThink

Read Write Think: Research Building Blocks: Examining Electronic Sources

For Teachers 3rd - 5th Standards
This lesson helps elementary students identify the important components of web site evaluation. It includes a website evaluation question sheet.
Activity
TeachEngineering

Teach Engineering: Couch Potato or Inertia Victim?

For Teachers 5th - 7th Standards
Students design a simple behavioral survey, and learn basic protocol for primary research, survey design and report writing. Note: The literacy activities for the Mechanics unit are based on physical themes that have broad application to...
Website
Sophia Learning

Sophia: Developing Research Questions: Focus Your Research

For Students 9th - 10th Standards
This tutorial focuses on why it is important to have a question in mind before beginning research; how to pick a research question based on personal interests or finding gaps; and choosing a topic that is interesting, researchable,...
Unit Plan
Texas Education Agency

Texas Gateway: Write an Expository And/or Procedural Text

For Students 5th - 7th Standards
[Accessible by TX Educators. Free Registration/Login Required] You will learn how to write an expository/procedural text that synthesizes ideas from several sources.
Lesson Plan
Better Lesson

Better Lesson: There Is Something in Common: Finding Common Themes

For Teachers 3rd - 5th Standards
Students will synthesize information from multiple historical fiction books to find common themes and support them with evidence from the text. Working with a partner who has read a different book, they will share their theme from their...
Activity
FNO Press

Fno.org: Inspired Investigations

For Students 3rd - 8th Standards
An article at From Now On about how to help students do better research by changing the focus of research assignments and teaching students to ask essential questions. Some suggestions include using mind mapping, and using Inspiration to...
Unit Plan
Scholastic

Scholastic History Mystery

For Students 4th - 8th Standards
Students will choose from a variety of concepts and can play a game to enhance their learning.
Handout
SUNY Empire State College

Empire State College: The Research Paper in Progress

For Students 9th - 10th Standards
Follow a student reasearch paper from prewriting to drafting to final copy, and read the student tutor's comments along the way. This site provides links through several successive pages.
Lesson Plan
Writing Fix

Writing Fix: The Wacky "I Will Not" Chalkboard

For Teachers 9th - 10th Standards
Inspired by Barry Lane's book 51 Wacky We-Search Reports, this cross-curricular lesson involves having young scholars Learn how to summarize correctly with this cross-curricular writing assignment and prompt.
Lesson Plan
Writing Fix

Writing Fix: The Wacky "Box of Rocks" Assignment

For Teachers 9th - 10th Standards
Inspired by Barry Lane's book 51 Wacky We-Search Reports, in this cross-curricular lesson plan, students learn how to summarize properly.
Lesson Plan
Writing Fix

Writing Fix: The Wacky Smear Campaign

For Teachers 9th - 10th Standards
Inspired by Barry Lane's book 51 Wacky We-Search Reports, in this cross-curricular instructional activity students learn how to summarize properly.
Lesson Plan
Writing Fix

Writing Fix: Who Doesn't Want to Be a Millionaire

For Teachers 9th - 10th Standards
Inspired by Barry Lane's book 51 Wacky We-Search Reports, in this cross-curricular lesson students learn how to summarize properly.
Lesson Plan
Writing Fix

Writing Fix: The Wacky Classroom Calendar

For Teachers 3rd - 6th Standards
Inspired by Barry Lane's book 51 Wacky We-Search Reports, in this cross-curricular lesson plan students learn how to summarize properly.
Lesson Plan
Writing Fix

Writing Fix: The Wacky Advertisement (With Disclaimer) Activity

For Teachers 3rd - 8th Standards
Inspired by Barry Lane's book 51 Wacky We-Search Reports, in this cross-curricular lesson students learn how to summarize properly.
Lesson Plan
Writing Fix

Writing Fix: Writing Scientific "Recipes"

For Teachers 9th - 10th Standards
Adapted from a lesson plan in the book 51 Wacky We-Search Reports by Barry Lane, this lesson plan asks young scholars to read several recipes to gain an understanding of how they are written and the types of words they use. Then students...
Graphic
Polk Brothers Foundation Center for Urban Education at DePaul University

Depaul University: Center for Urban Education: K Plus [Pdf]

For Students 3rd - 8th Standards
Students can use this information to collect facts about a topic. Students will collect information but record the "gold standard" of facts only.
Graphic
Polk Brothers Foundation Center for Urban Education at DePaul University

Depaul University: Center for Urban Education: K Plus (Spanish) [Pdf]

For Students 5th - 9th Standards
Translated into Spanish, this graphic organizer can be used by student to collect facts about a topic. Students will collect information but record the "gold standard" of facts only.
Graphic
Polk Brothers Foundation Center for Urban Education at DePaul University

Depaul University: Center for Urban Education: Share Knowledge: Fact Bank [Pdf]

For Students 5th - 9th Standards
This graphic organizer can be used to collect facts during a research task prior to writing about the topic or sharing what was learned in a discussion. Students will place facts in the boxes and then number the facts, according to the...
Handout
Grammarly

Grammarly Handbook: Where to Find Information

For Students 9th - 10th Standards
This page focuses on where to find information needed for writing papers: the library or the internet. It offers tips for using search engines and key words.