Curated OER
Writing to Persuade
Middle schoolers discover effective writing techniques to create persuasive essays. In this writing lesson, students investigate ways to express facts and points of view through persuasive essays. Finally, the middle schoolers write...
Curated OER
Persuasive Techniques in Advertising and Make Your Own Advertisement
Are you looking for a collaborative and fun way to teach persuasion? This could be a great resource for you! After reviewing advertising techniques and searching for examples of propaganda, have your class create and present their own...
Curated OER
Writing Pattern Books
Have your older students assist young children with writing in this community service and literacy lesson plan. Middle schoolers become partners with a local elementary school. They assist the grade school children in writing a pattern...
Curated OER
What's My Point: Persuasive Writing
Why do readers need to know an author’s purpose? How do you figure out what that purpose is? Guide your pupils through a series of activities that show them how to identify various techniques and structures used in persuasive writing....
EngageNY
Narrative Writing: Planning Narrative Techniques
It's all in the technique. Scholars revisit the model narrative they covered in lesson four to analyze the author's writing techniques. Readers compare techniques they spot in the narrative to those in the essay rubric. They then work to...
ReadWriteThink
Persuasive Essay: Environmental Issues
Young environmentalists learn how to craft a persuasive essay about an environmental issue they consider important. After studying the components of a persuasive essay and examining a student model, writers brainstorm possible topics and...
Curated OER
Telling Our Stories of Giving - Writing to Persuade
After identifying the parts of a persuasive piece of writing, young writers explore different prewriting activities for the persuasive essay. They have the option to write a news article, personal narrative, or persuasive essay to...
EngageNY
Selecting Evidence to Logically Support Claims
It's time to make a rule sandwich! After exploring the writing assignment's rubric and analyzing a model essay, learners are guided through the prewriting phase using the sandwich technique. Pupils create their sandwich addressing the...
Channel Islands Film
Arlington Springs Man: Lesson Plan 1
Learning to craft quality questions is a skill that can be taught. Class members use the Question Formulation Technique to learn how to create and refine both closed-ended and open-ended questions. They then view West of the West's...
PBS
Master of the Airwaves: How FDR Used Radio to Ease the Public’s Fears
The political and economic climate during the 1930's was uncertain and tumultuous. But Americans' minds and hearts were eased with the reassuring words of their president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and addresses over the radio. High...
Curated OER
The Art of Advertising
Get your class thinking about advertising with this lesson plan. Over the course of 15 days, your class will discuss advertising techniques, study the concepts of pathos, logos, and ethos, and analyze the persuasive techniques of...
Curated OER
What Are the Issues?
Investigate and report on three issues related to a current election. Elementary aged learners research information about specific issues, develop an opinion, and write a persuasive essay using supporting details and evidence to support...
Channel Islands Film
Magic Isle: Lesson Plan 3
Middle schoolers complete a writing assessment task to demonstrate their ability to craft a narrative based on a variety of informational texts. They view West of the West's documentary Magic Isle, read three print resources about the...
EngageNY
End of Unit Assessment, Part 2: Final Draft of Literary Analysis
Row, row, row, row four. Classmates take a look at row four in the writing rubric and begin the exercise by identifying any unfamiliar words. Literary scholars then use feedback from their initial drafts and the writing rubric to begin...
MENSA Education & Research Foundation
The Writer’s Toolbox: What You Need to Master the Craft
Strengthen your high schoolers' writing with a series of steps for writing successfully. With sections on organizing an essay, choosing a topic, crafting a thesis statement, and revising a draft, the lesson encourages your class to...
Curated OER
Revise and Edit Writing
Seventh graders write, revise, and edit a letter and a story. In this revising and editing lesson plan, 7th graders learn the differences between revising and editing by doing the two to a letter and eventually a story.
Curated OER
A Creative Presentation
Bring writing to life with this lesson in which elementary and middle schoolers create a display of the imagery they identify in a series of Gary Paulsen books. They read the suggested materials, identify imagery and descriptive...
Curated OER
Putting it Together: Analyzing and Producing Persuasive Text
Young orators demonstrate what they have learned about persuasion and persuasive devices throughout the unit by analyzing a persuasive speech and then crafting their persuasive essays. Class members engage in a role-play exercise, use...
EngageNY
Assessment Part 3: Advocating Persuasively in a Fishbowl
Class members complete the final part of the The Omnivore’s Dilemma end-of-unit assessment. The portion includes a fishbowl activity where learners demonstrate their persuasive advocacy abilities. As each pupil speaks, their peers assess...
Channel Islands Film
Lone Woman of San Nicolas Island: Lesson Plan 2
After watching West of the West's documentary The Lone Woman of San Nicolas Island, class members imagine how Juana Maria/Karana may have felt about living alone on the island for 18 years and craft a blackout poem or a narrative in her...
Curated OER
Product Persuasion
Learners examine various products and analyze the marketing strategies used to entice consumers. They bring in a product they like to use, and using persuasive writing, they write their own advertisements for their products.
Curated OER
Connotation and Denotation: How Word Choice Affects a Paragraph
Review the terms denotation, connotation, diction, and mood in paragraph writing. After defining the terms, middle schoolers practice writing examples of both connotation and denotation. They complete a connotation and denotation graphic...
Curated OER
Web It!
Looking for a way to bring prewriting into your informative writing unit? Use this lesson plan to reinforce writing skills in your eighth grade language arts class. Young writers use a web graphic organizer as a prewriting tool for...
Curated OER
Do Heroes Have to Wear a Cape?
Young writers choose a person from American history, their community, or their family to use as the subject of a persuasive essay. The process begins with a discussion of the characteristics of a hero, the completion of a prewriting web,...