Curated OER
Writing Effective Thesis Statements and Introductory Paragraphs for Research Papers
After reading on the topic of their paper, high schoolers work in pairs to assess how to write powerful, precise thesis statements. The introduction contains three statements: a universal statement, a bridge statement, and a thesis...
Student Handouts
Four-Square Writing Method
Pupils produce paragraphs with planning and precision with the four-square writing method, which allows learners to organize the topic, supporting, and summary sentences of their paragraphs.Ā
Curated OER
Concise Writing Exercises
Are your pupils' essays full of long, wordy sentences? Help them to write more concise sentences with this practice worksheet, which provides twenty long sentences for your young editors to proofread. Use the activity as a homework...
Curated OER
Poetry Writing Unit: Writing a Film Poem
Film poems? To concluded a poetry unit, writers select one of their own poems and create a film that brings to life the sounds and images of their work. Included with the detailed unit plan are daily lessons, student examples, a list of...
Shmoop
ELA.CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.11-12.1
Focus on writingĀ argument essays with your high schoolers. The lesson suggested here focuses on The Jungle, by Sinclair Lewis; however, the idea could be adapted for other texts. Check out the quick quiz provided at the end of the...
TV411
Avoid Mushy Writing: Be Specific
Replacing, bland, inexact generalizations with specific statement and precise information is the focus of a worksheet that models how to transform general statements into specific ones. After examining four models, learners have an...
Curated OER
Things Fall Apart: Research, Writing & Presentation Project
A great resource for your unit on Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart.Ā Small groups conduct research about related topics (list included), write papers, present PowerPoint slide shows, and take a student-created test. Fill in a few gaps to...
Curated OER
Car For Sale!
Car For sale! In this GED prep instructional activity, writers develop a classified advertisement to sell a car. After a discussion of precise words and phrases, telling details, and sensory language, sellers draft their ad for review,...
Curated OER
Creatively Creating Expository Essays
Young scholars, after reading Fahrenheit 451, brainstorm inventions that could have been in the novel. They present their invention to the class and writing an expository essay about their creation.
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Quick Writes
Students write on a variety of topics, maximize creative and expository writing skills, develop focused writing, organize ideas, incorporate detail in writing, and exhibit varied and precise word choice.
Curated OER
Getting Down to Business
Students write, edit, and rewrite business letters to their choice of vendors with comments of criticism or praise.
Curated OER
Transcendentalism and Epiphany in Ray Bradbury's Dandelion Wine
Twelfth graders examine the characteristics of transcendentalism. In this transcendentalism lesson, 12th graders determine what this type of writing entails before reading a passage from, Ray Bradbury's, Dandelion Wine. They cite three...
Curated OER
Writing a Personal Narrative
Pupils analyze a variety of rhetorical devices including metaphor, hyperbole, metonomy and imagery. They read samples of autobiographies, work in groups to complete writing skills activities and produce individual personal narratives.
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Celebrity Letter Writing Assignment
Students create a biographical portfolio of the three important people. They write letters of request, asking for autographs of people in assorted fields. Students are explained that an autograph could be one of the following: A...
Curated OER
Do College Rankings Matter?
How do you know which college is for you? Upper graders consider multiple factors about the college application process, the college system, and how colleges are ranked. They read a New York Times article on the subject then compose blog...
Curated OER
If I Could Talk Like the Animals. . .
Students read and discuss a film review of the animated movie Antz and then write a monologue from the perspective of a non-human organism.
Los Angeles Unified School District
Capitalism and Socialism
Capitalism, socialism, communism ... these may seem like a whole bunch of isms to your scholars. High schoolers won'tĀ confuse them after completing an informative resource. Your class masters how to use primary sources to critically...
Curated OER
Compare and Contrast Poems vs. Lyrics
Combine your pupils' love of music with their growing knowledge of poetry! First, have them bring in their favorite songs for a discussion on word choice and literary devices. Then, use a Venn Diagram to compare and contrast the...
Curated OER
Persuasion and Parallel Structure
Discuss the definition of parallel structure with your high school class. In small groups, they read a section of "The Declaration of Independence" to identify examples of parallel structure. Each learner writes an essay explaining the...
Sandra Effinger
Bulletin Board Project
Imagine a project that informsĀ and entertains. Replace book reports with a bulletin board that highlights all the important elements of a novel. Readers research the author, create a timeline of events in the story, write a character...
Curated OER
News View
Students read and analyze three different news sources that describe the same event. They compare/contrast the similarities and differences of the news sources, and write an essay describing the main event.
Curated OER
Jewish Assimilation In Contemporary American Literature
Students form groups to help each other read, analyze, and conduct research on important background information about Jews and their assimilation into modern American society. They write their own stories of assimilation.
Curated OER
Said Is Dead
Learners revise writing to improve organization and word choice. They check for logic, order of ideas and precision of vocabulary. Students list different verbs for the word "said." They write dialogue in which the speakers tell a story...
Curated OER
I See and I Think (It's A Wonderful World)
Students analyze song lyrics (by listening to the song) to pick-out descriptive vocabulary. They use this descriptive vocabulary to create a drawing of the images they "see" in the song. They compare their drawings to find similarities...