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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

How Do Authors Use Imagery to Shape Their Writing?

For Teachers 6th - 8th
Esther Forbes' award-winning Revolutionary War novel, Johnny Tremain and excerpts from Julie Otsuka's When the Emperor Was Divine are used to model how imagery brings alive the setting of a story. The young writers then craft their own...
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Lesson Plan
Berkshire Museum

Backyard Rocks

For Teachers 2nd - 6th Standards
You don't have to travel far to learn about rocks, just step outside, pick up a stone, and begin investigating. After taking a class walk around the school grounds collecting rocks, young scientists practice their skills of observation...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Shakespeare and Poe Teach Six-Trait Writing

For Teachers 5th - 8th
A Six-Trait Writing instructional activity helps your middle schoolers liven up their word choice and shows them how to evaluate their own writing. Class members take a close look at the language used in poems by Shakespeare, Kipling,...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Indescribably Excellent Descriptions

For Teachers K - 12th
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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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

"Snapshot" Exercises & Sensory Detail Word Bank

For Teachers 2nd - 12th
Read a sample of creative descriptive writing to your science class. Discuss how writing can be used to record and communicate observations that scientists make. Reading selections and thought-provoking questions are suggested. Also...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Borrowing Narrative Skills from Mr. Fletcher: Using a "Prompts in Reverse" Technique to Inspire Your Writers

For Teachers 3rd - 8th
Help your class find their writing voices with this lesson which uses the work of Ralph Fletcher to guide a "Prompt in Reverse" activity. Using the chapter "First Pen" from Fletcher's Marshfield Dreams, learners decipher what they...
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Lesson Plan
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Curated OER

Mapping Your Identity: A Back-To-School Ice Breaker

For Teachers 3rd - 12th
Identify the unique personal attributes of your class members. Begin by viewing the Visual Thesaurus and discussing displayed attributes associated with famous American leaders. Using these identity maps as models, pupils generate nouns...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Dear Diary

For Teachers 4th - 8th
Work on narrative writing with this lesson, in which middle schoolers analyze the characters from a selected piece of literature and write narrative diary pieces as the character. They work to understand the point of view of the...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Expository Writing (Informational Brochure)

For Teachers 4th - 9th
Design an informational brochure to urge people to move to a specific community. The purpose of this activity is to expose pupils to expository writing. After creating the brochure, they write a three-paragraph persuasive or...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Awesome Animals

For Teachers 6th
Sixth graders write descriptive narratives about animals. In this descriptive writing lesson, the teacher models how to write a paragraph with interesting sensory words and exciting verbs. Students choose a picture of an animal they want...
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Lesson Plan
Nancy Fetzer's Literacy Connections

Expository Paragraph

For Teachers 5th - 8th Standards
Upper elementary and middle school writers learn how to craft an expository paragraph by following the six steps detailed in a 48-page instructional guide. Learners learn how to write six different types of informational paragraphs: to...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

The Rooms in a Home

For Teachers 1st - 12th
Enhance your foreign language students' skills to describe a house. After reading a description of rooms in a house in their target language, they work to answer corresponding questions correctly. Additionally, they view a PowerPoint...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Lesson: That Long Jakes

For Teachers 1st - 6th
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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Lesson Plan
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Curated OER

Let's Go Exploring!

For Teachers K - 12th Standards
Use a Courbet painting of a cave or tunnel opening to reinforce the importance of descriptive writing. Writers of all ages use sensory details to describe what the scene depicts as they pretend to be in the painting. Then they imagine...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Peanut Butter and Details

For Teachers 3rd - 8th
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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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Sequencing

For Teachers 5th - 9th
Are you looking for a way to teach sequence of events in your narrative writing unit? Bring this lesson to your middle school class, as it prompts young writers to create a narrative sequence map of events that have happened at school...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Analyzing Messages in Various Media

For Teachers 3rd - 8th
Explore communication through media by analyzing different advertisements and artwork. Budding artists view videos, websites, plays, and other artistic endeavors while discussing the true meaning of the work with their classmates. They...
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Activity
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Brockman Elementary School

Living History Timeline

For Teachers 4th - 8th Standards
As part of a living history research project, learners research a chosen historical figure that they will study and physically represent in a gallery walk. This resource includes a project description, letter to parents, rubric, and...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Lesson Plan 8: Setting and Mood

For Teachers 6th - 9th
What mood does this story evoke? How are setting and mood linked? Young novelists explore the different emotions brought about by writing, starting by journaling things that inspire their own feelings. Examine the word mood, looking into...
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Activity
Curated OER

Express Yourself Lesson Seed 11: Setting

For Teachers 6th Standards
Encourage your learners to examine the setting in Theodore Taylor's The Cay. Pupils work in small groups to put together a description of the setting before reading two more chapters of the book. They use their double-entry journals to...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Building Believable Characters

For Teachers 4th - 8th
Students use descriptive strategies such as physical descriptions, background, and comparison of characters when writing narratives. They develop the topic with supporting details and precise diction to paint a visual image in the...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Poetry: What's on Your Plate (Part 2)

For Teachers 6th - 8th
Students write a short paragraph using strong descriptions.  In this using modifiers lesson, students define modifier, adjective, adverb, metaphor, and simile.  Students then write a journal entry in which they write about a favorite...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Sense Poetry

For Teachers 5th - 8th
Access your young poets' senses and emotions with this activity, which guides them through the process of writing a "sense poem." After working on a sense poem as a class and modeling the procedure, individuals work on their own poems...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Identify Intended Media Messages

For Teachers 3rd - 8th
How does media convey different messages? Use this instructional activity to explore media by identifying and analyzing selected images. Middle schoolers analyze a poster and discuss the intended meaning of the imagery and how it makes...

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