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"Knot" the Whole Truth: Writing a Modern-Day Story with a Tall Tale's Voice
Beyond Paul Bunyan and his blue ox, tall tales can be a great way to teach young writers about word choice and voice in their writing. Using Jerry Spinelli's Maniac Magee and the Six-Trait Writing process, they begin to write their own...
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Tall Tales Today
Students explore the attributes of American tall tales. In this folklore instructional activity, students read several tall tales, describe the elements of tall tales, and then use hyperbole to write their own tall tales.
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Creative Ways To Teach Characterization Lessons
Teaching characterization can be a creative, engaging experience for students.
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The Lorax Explorations
Students read and debate the purpose of Dr. Seuss' The Lorax, analyze its story elements, and write their own The Lorax II.
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Write a Round-Robin Story
Learners discover the elements of a story (introduction, plot, climax, resolution, denouement). In groups of five, one student writes an introduction and passes it to the next person, who writes the plot and passes it to the next person,...
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Scripting The Great Train Robbery
Take writing prompts to another level in this activity, which allows pupils to create scenes of dialogue based on the 1903 silent film, The Great Train Robbery. Useful for a language arts/history cross-curricular activity, the...
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Telling A Story
Students brainstorm all the possible scenarios that would help them tell a story in detail with the whole class and with partners. They create web outlines to create a name story and then illustrate it with creative grammar usage and...
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Creative Outline for Your Short Story or Book
Young scholars discuss the information listed about how to make an outline for a short story or book. They then begin writing their short story and edit it and revise before turning it in to be graded.
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Writing A Thanksgiving Day Story
Learners write a Thanksgiving Day Story using some or all of the words included in the worksheet. These stories can be fiction or non-fiction (Personal Essays). They are graded on sentence structure, paragraph structure, grammar,...
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Storytelling
Students compose a story and tell it to the class. In this storytelling lesson, students work in small groups to create an illustrated story. Students are given a checklist of elements to include in the assignment. Students then create...
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Writing a Fable
Students are introduced to the definition of a fable in that it is a story that has a moral for people to apply in their lives. They then read a fable together so they have a better understanding. Next, students write their own fables.
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Come On, Rain!
Students read and analyze the story. For this language arts lesson, students read Come on, Rain! and examine how mood and tone are created, the use of figurative language and the characteristics of the genre. Students research the time...
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On the Scene: Analyzing Scenes in Film and Literature
Students examine how a scene in a movie or in literature is constructed. In this film and literature lesson students answer questions based on film clips then create storyboards depicting a scene from their life.
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Panther Exam: Writing a Play
Students demonstrate their knowledge of panthers by writing a play on the subject. For this animal life lesson, students view a slide-show on school computers of a veterinary exam of a panther. Students utilize this scenario to write a...
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Creating a Short Story
Students examine how to outline their story, to write a story and then edit their work. They illustrate their story using drawing features like squares, circles, and other shapes or a drawing program if they have it on the computer.
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Avoiding Primer Language
In this avoiding primer language worksheet, students combine four or five simple sentences into one effective sentence with only one independent clause.
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Conflict
Students outline the action in their narrative writing assignments by brainstorming about conflict. In this conflict analysis lesson, students define conflict and discuss the different types of conflict. Students brainstorm about a...