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May Writing Ideas
For this writing worksheet, learners explore and discover a variety of ways to help make writing more interesting and creative.
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Colonial Writing Project
Fourth graders write from the perspective of a child in the colonial period. In this writing lesson, 4th graders create a fictional character living in the colonial period and write about daily life from their perspective.
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Writing Lesson 9
Fourth graders explore the writing process by responding to a writing prompt. They practice responding to a given writing prompt. Students write about a daydream. They write two or three paragraphs about the topic.
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Lesson: Mad Lib Leigh!
A fun and quirky painting is analyzed for details in an art/literacy lesson. Youngsters look for colors, shadows, and details and then describe them using vivid language. They use the words from discussion to complete a fun Mad Lib-style...
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Magical Creatures Land
The opening of J.R.R. Tolkein’s The Hobbit provides a model of how to use rich details to create a setting. After reading the description of Bilbo Baggins’ abode, young writers create their own magical home for a fantasy creature. The...
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Describing Paintings: Calm or Stormy
Young writers use nouns, verbs, and adjectives to describe details in two paintings. One depicts a sunny landscape, and the other shows a cloudier view. They write a narrative inspired by the paintings, paying attention to transitional...
School District No. 71
Adding Written Detail: Using Jane Yolen’s Owl Moon as a Mentor Text
Access your senses with a worksheet on sensory language. Based on Owl Moon by Jane Yolen, the worksheet prompts kids to find examples of each of the five senses, as well as phrases for inner emotion.
Have Fun Teaching
Where Am I? (15)
Guess the setting in a series of reading passages that allow learners to make inferences. Five short descriptions prompt kids to match one of four settings, based on context clues.
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Editing - Improving Our Writing
This short, but informative, presentation does a good job of teaching valuable skills associated with editing writing. Learners practice editing pieces of writing, and are introduced to powerful verbs and adverbs to make writing more...
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Indescribably Excellent Descriptions
Students train their eyes to look more closely at detail and imperfections as they write "indescribably" excellent descriptions of places, people, and things!
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Writing Descriptions
In this writing worksheet, students use vivid language to write a description of the person in a photograph (a laughing young woman). Students include details about hair and eye color, age, weight and mood.
Berkshire Museum
Adopt a Schoolyard Tree
Help young scientists connect with nature and learn about trees with a fun life science lesson. Heading out into the school yard, children choose a tree to adopt, taking measurements, writing descriptions, and drawing sketches of it in...
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Acoustic Poems
Students explore acrostic poems. In this interactive poetry lesson, students visit the ReadWriteThink.org website to view characteristics and samples of acrostic poems. Students develop acrostic poems by using the interactive site.
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Monster Writings
Fourth graders practice descriptive writing by describing a fictitious monster they created. In this language arts lesson, 4th graders illustrate an image of a monster character they imagine and practice using their vocabulary to...
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Crazy Critters Creative Writing
Pupils brainstorm animals with unusual characteristics such as a giraffe with a short neck or a zebra without stripes. They write paragraphs about their animals and work in peer editing groups to refine their stories.
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Minnesota-China Connections: Writing Prompts
Students write a short essay in response to a writing prompt related to a theme or issue raised within the Minnesota-China Connection Web site.
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Success Criteria for Writing a Chapter Summary
In this writing checklist activity, students follow the 8 steps described on the activity in order to write clear chapter summaries.
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Color Poems
Students describe colors. In this descriptive writing lesson, students brainstorm color descriptions using all of the senses except sight. Students write poems including similes, sensory images, and interesting word choice. Examples are...
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Cattle Drive
Students explore cattle drives. In this United States history and letter writing lesson, students write a letter to their family predicting possible problems that were encountered by participants in cattle drives. Students design brands,...
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Peanut Butter and Details
Students write the directions for making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, using a lot of detail, and ask another student to follow the directions exactly and make the sandwich.
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Awesome Outlines to Organize Writing
Fourth graders practice writing outlines. Using worksheets imbedded students get lots of practice enhancing their skills writing outlines
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Lesson: That Long Jakes
Cross-media analysis takes time and attention to detail. The class analyzes the painting Long Jakes and the poem "Backward Bill." They pay attention to the similarities and differences in each piece, looking for details that describe the...
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Details and Observations IQ or the Eyes Have it
Fourth graders study Chaucer as a master of details. Then, they create a short story linking unrelated details into a logical plot with a clear setting and established characters. This lesson has some excellent worksheets attached!
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Writing about Art:Comparing Portraits
Students compare and contrast an academic and Impressionist portrait. For this art history lesson, students look at two different styles of painting and write a paragraph as if they are the subject in the painting. They compare and...