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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Same Theme, Different Story Using Fox by Margaret Wild

For Teachers 5th - 7th
Middle schoolers work with themes in this lesson, which is based on Fox by Margaret Wild. Because the book has multiple themes, it is a great way to transition into exploring literary analysis and writing stories. A Six Trait writing...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

"I Never Knew That!"

For Teachers 6th - 12th
Incorporating To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, narrative writing, and friendly letters, this lesson is ideal for any number of units in your classroom. First, read chapter 10 of the novel, noting Scout and Jem's reactions to their...
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Worksheet
Curated OER

BBC Learning English, Writing (Culture)

For Students 8th - Higher Ed
Include this writing worksheet in your lesson about essay organization. After anwering five questions regarding their culture, middle schoolers use their responses to form the basis of a five paragraph guide to their culture. Each...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Organizing by Writing

For Teachers 7th - 10th
Middle schoolers analyze how to use writing for generating and organizing their thoughts before communicating them. They use the questions on the first handout to organize a three-minute introduction of themselves to their small group....
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

High School Literary Paragraph Development

For Teachers 10th
You can cover literary elements, writing organization, and proofreading skills in this SMART board lesson. Using student paragraphs from a previous assignment, the class reviews the best examples of writing. A SMART board activity guides...
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Activity
Curated OER

Seedfolks Final Writing Assessment

For Teachers 6th - 8th Standards
Wrap up a study of Seedfolks with a final essay. Writers can draft their essays by following the steps and filling in the organizer provided here. The packet begins with a prompt, includes a few basic requirements, and provides an...
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Printables
Wordpress

Access (1st Year) Pen Pal Format

For Teachers 1st - 4th Standards
Help young writers make a good first impression on their pen pals with this personal letter template. Including sentence frames and word banks, this resource supports children as they learn to write personal descriptions using complete...
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Lesson Plan
Bright Hub Education

How to Outline, Plan & Write a Memoir

For Teachers 6th - 8th
Get to know each individual through a memoir project. The lesson plan outlined here is a bit vague, but has some promising ideas for graphic organizers to help writers prepare their work. In order to succeed with the lesson plan, you...
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Writing
Curated OER

Paragraph Development Exercise: Cause to Effect

For Students 9th - 12th
Focus on logical paragraph writing and ask your class to write cause and effect paragraphs. To get started, learners read information about the format as well as an example. While there is some basic information about how to structure...
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Writing
Curated OER

Paragraph Development Exercise: Contrast

For Students 9th - 12th
After reading an example, writers compose a paragraph that focuses on contrasting ideas. The resource starts out with some information about topic ideas and functional ideas, but there could be more explanation. Use this as a warm-up...
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Writing
Curated OER

Paragraph Development Exercise: Problem to Answer

For Students 9th - 12th
Paragraphs need structure, and here is one possibility! Ask writers to begin their paragraph with a problem, explore several possibilities in the middle of the paragraph, and end the paragraph with the solution. A sample paragraph is...
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Writing
Curated OER

Paragraph Development Exercise: Chronological Order

For Students 9th - 12th
People use time to organize their days and structure their lives. Why not use it to structure a paragraph? Chronological order is logical and fairly straightforward. Ask class members to first read the provided example and then write...
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Writing
Curated OER

Paragraph Development Exercise: Comparison

For Students 9th - 12th
Teach class members how to use comparison in their writing to clarify and enrich ideas. Referring back to the brief description and the sample paragraph, writers develop a paragraph that uses comparison effectively. More scaffolding and...
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Writing
Curated OER

Paragraph Development Exercise: Specific to General

For Students 9th - 12th
Details, details, details. That's what comes first in this style of paragraph. Writers think of supporting details, list them, and then compose a general statement that encompasses all of the details. A fairly basic resource, use this to...
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Writing
Curated OER

Paragraph Development Exercise: Climactic or Emphatic Order

For Students 9th - 12th
Exercise paragraph writing by focusing on the impact of each statement or idea. For this organizational pattern, writers compose their paragraphs by increasing the force of each idea so that the most important idea is the concluding...
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Writing
Curated OER

Paragraph Development Exercise: Simple to Complex

For Students 9th - 12th
Looking for an organizational writing pattern to teach your class? Consider showing them how to structure a paragraph using the complexity of ideas as a guide. Provide the example included here to give them an idea of what is expected. 
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

The Shape of Things

For Teachers 4th
Fourth graders develop their writing skills. For this paragraph structure lesson, 4th graders research natural disasters, compile their findings, create mobiles and write stories based on the mobiles.
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PPT
Curated OER

Basic Guide to Writing an Essay

For Teachers 8th - 10th
Introducing your class to essay writing? The gentle tone, concise explanations, and clear examples provided by a 17-slide presentation introduces young writers to the expository essay format. All that's missing is a complete essay with...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Speaker Report

For Teachers 5th - 8th
Fifth through eighth graders think of themselves as newspaper reporters as they listen to a presentation by a guest speaker. As reporters, they take notes during the presentation. Using these notes, they create a rough draft and then a...
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Handout
San José State University

Essay Outline Template

For Students 9th - Higher Ed
Inspire essay organization with this handout and exercise about outlining. Writers read through a brief outline model and then practice writing their own outline by completing a second model. Scholars not only complete the outline, they...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Outlining Main Ideas and Details

For Teachers 6th - 8th
Begin at the end. Present your class with an expository essay and ask them to create an outline of the article, paying particular attention to the main ideas and the details supporting these ideas. After a discussion of what they have...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Sample Lesson on Taking Notes

For Teachers 6th - 8th
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...
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Organizer
Curated OER

It's Happening Where: Graphic Organizer #1 for Newspaper Articles

For Students 6th - 9th
Planning a newspaper or journalism unit? Use these graphic organizer to help your young reporters organizer their articles. The first page instructs users to plan out the structure of their article, while the second page prompts them to...
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PPT
Curated OER

Research

For Teachers 3rd - 5th
This research PowerPoint provides questions to consider when selecting a research topic. Emerging writers consider their purpose for writing and the audience they are writing for, and then practice narrowing down a topic given a list of...