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Use The Polar Express to Develop Rich and Detailed Writing
Bring The Polar Express into your middle school classroom to spark the creativity of your emerging writers.
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Details, Details, Details
Writing can become one-dimensional if authors don't involve all their senses. First, scholars observe a strange object which, ideally, they can touch and even smell. Without using certain words (you can create a list or have the class...
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Can You Figure Language?
Eighth graders study similes and metaphors and how to explain and create them. After a lecture/demo, 8th graders access websites and worksheets imbedded in this plan to create their own writing.
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Locational Writing
Students go outside to the playground and write a piece in the style of beat poets based on what they see and hear outside.
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A New Point of View
Analyze point of view and how it affects a literary work with this lesson. Middle schoolers create a written piece that focuses on point of view. They review the literary term "point of view," and explore examples of the term in text....
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Using Descriptive Language
Students examine the use of adjectives in a product review, then write their own descriptive review. In this writing and word usage lesson plan, students first analyze the choice of adjectives in a New York Times article about the...
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Reliving History through Slave Narratives
Helpful for an American literature or history unit, this lesson prompts middle schoolers to examine slavery in the United States. They read slave narratives that were part of the Federal Writers' Project and then conduct their own...
Penguin Books
The Curriculum Guide for The Secret Hum of a Daisy by Tracy Holczer
The death of a parent can turn a child's world upside down. A curriculum guide for The Secret Hum of a Daisy explores defining moments in the main character's life, including the loss of her mother. Chapter-by-chapter discussion...
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Writing a Personal Narrative
Students learn characteristics of an effective personal narrative. In this personal narrative lesson, students discover ways to show rather than tell, adding richness and detail to their writing. Students evaluate a news article for...
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Describe a Journey
Students describe the sensory experience of a character's journey in an essay. In this precise details writing lesson, students explain the effects on the senses of weather, time of day, landscape, and other experiences. Students use...
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We Write to Read
Students are introduced to cursive handwriting as a symbolic language system. In this cursive handwriting lesson, students apply the Peterson sequence approach and practice gross motor patterning and action word rhythm. Students then...
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Writing to describe
Students examine descriptive writing. In this writing lesson, students listen to an audio version of the diary of Lt. Polly Hatchard and her expedition to the South Pole. Students explore the components of descriptive writing and...
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Sense Poetry
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...
Southern Nevada Regional Professional Development Program
Using Maps to Inspire Personal Narratives
A solid description of one way to teach narrative writing, this resource outlines the writing process from concept to completion. Class members create concept maps of moments in their lives and follow the writing process to publish their...
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Dear Diary
Learners analyze a piece of writing by creating diary entries based on a character. In this reading comprehension instructional activity, students read an assigned book with their classmates and create a sketch of what they believe the...
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Poetry: What's on Your Plate?
Students create original poetry on the subject of food. In this poetry writing lesson, students use sensory details about a food item to create a class poem. Students then write short poems with one sensory detail and add another...
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Every Dog Has Its Day
Students explore the use of imagery in writing. In this writing lesson, students create a writing piece that features sensory images without resorting to the use of clichés.
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The Malnourished Paragraph
Students revise writing to improve style, word choice, sentence variety and subtlety of meaning after rethinking how questions of purpose, audience and genre have been addressed. They recognize the importance of details in writing.
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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...
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Multi-sensory Writing
Students use their senses to help describe special place they have been. They write short sensory-image essay that incorporate all five of their senses, and identify sensory language while reading different pieces of literature.
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Personify This
Eighth graders study personification in published works of poetry, then create their own through the use of diamante or cinquain poetry. They read and discuss poetry by Shel Silverstein, William Jay Smith, and Elinor Wylie.
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Accentuate the Expositive: Unit 2 Expository Writing
Students analyze narrative passages in order to improve their writing skills. In this narrative writing activity students use the same style of writing that they have analyzed in their own narrative passage.
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Visual Aural Impressions
Students view a piece of impressionist art, listen to a piece of jazz music and then write a piece about the picture in the style of beat poets. They compare their writing and look for differences in their perceptions.
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Writing Descriptions of "My Favorite Place"
Young scholars write a descriptive writing piece. In this writing activity, students use a visualization exercise to add more descriptions to their writing.