Tap into the imaginative minds of young learners with a creative writing activity. After reading the myth Giants and Mosquitoes, this student guide supports young writers as they brainstorm and develop their very own creation myths....

It's no secret that children can be very opinionated, but rather than fight against this natural tendency, embrace it with this primary grade writing project. After a shared reading of a children's book about...

Examine the characteristics of an effective persuasive paper. In a group, eighth graders discuss the analogy of a debate being like a persuasive paper. After brainstorming topics, they write an argument and then debate it. Secretly, the...

Ask your learners to dream up a myth set in modern day. These mythology writing prompts require individuals take on the role of an ancient Greek citizen who just woke up to a totally different world. Through this lens, class members...

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...

Should primary graders have their own computers? Should animals be kept in captivity? Young writers learn how to develop and support a claim in this short unit on persuasive writing.

Water covers around 75 percent of the earth, yet humans struggle to find enough fresh water to live. The fourth of 10 lessons focusing on Fresh Solutions requires brainstorming. Young scientists consider various problems related to fresh...

How should America respond to acts of domestic terrorism? What motivates or prompts a terrorist attack? After reading an opinion piece on the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, your learners will critically analyze factors that could have...

Anchors aweigh, it's time to write! After viewing an anchor chart detailing the parts of a position paper, pupils share their plans for their essays with a partner. Next, they write the rough draft of their body paragraphs. 

Lesson 7 focuses on building academic vocabulary and writing an explanatory letter with supported textual evidence. For the first five minutes of the instructional activity, the educator reminds the class of how to read and refer to the...

Follow the format of Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles with a journal-writing activity. Readers choose a character and examine the character's life and circumstances through brainstorming, research, and discussion before...

A variation of the Walkabout Review process, carousel brainstorming directs groups to rotate through a series of stations posting ideas on the topic or question posted at each stop. 

The perfect resource for a beginning journalism teacher or someone designing a journalism unit, this activity prompts students to write a newspaper article. It covers all aspects of the writing process, such as a guided warm-up...

What do you think of when you hear the word adult? Or friend? Learners brainstorm with a group of peers to list the words they think of when they hear seven words from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's The Little Prince.

How do good writers exhibit emotion in their work without using an emotion word (angry, sad, happy, etc.)? This plan offers learners model texts that describe an emotion without using an emotion word. A well-formatted writing activity is...

"The Dinner Party" is the anchor text in a lesson designed to encourage writers to use sensory details in their stories. After brainstorming descriptive words and phrases for the five senses, class members read Mona Gardner's...

Need a musical lesson for your drama or performing arts class? VH1 has put together a really neat lesson, in which learners use biographical information about Alicia Keys to write and perform a one-act musical related to her life. This...

Use folk tales as inspiration for learning about and using personification in creative writing. Learners brainstorm together in order to practice personification before writing their own poems or paragraphs about a household object.

Equip your high school writers for the rigors of timed persuasive writing by employing the preparatory ideas available in this exercise. Learners use persuasive essays, provided by the educator, to acquire how to identify persuasive...

Eighth graders demonstrate their understanding with the final assessment in a literary analysis unit based on Karen Russell's short story, "St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves." Having prepared for the assessment in the last few...

At the beginning of the lesson, the class discusses the central idea of a poem. After that, the teacher reads a poem, embedded in the plan, to the class. In groups of two or three, learners create their own poem in response to the...

Grab a debatable (or controversial) moment from your current reading, and use this task to progress the persuasive writing skills of your high school scholars. Divide your learners into four small groups and let them collaborate, debate,...

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...

Have your class members consider how their lifestyle choices may differ from those of their grandparents when they were younger. After brainstorming and discussing differences in lifestyle, pupils watch a Coca-Cola advertisement that...