Let's get visual. Pupils plan visual displays to accompany their upcoming opinion speech presentations. Additionally, they practice editing sentences for clarity before revising their speech drafts.

Partners practice reading fluency by reciting sentence strips to each other with proper expression and intonation. Partner A chooses a strip at random and reads it silently, then aloud with expression. Partner B reads the same sentence...

It's important that writers leave their readers with a strong and satisfying conclusion. Help your young writers develop the skills to compose a concluding sentence with the steps outlined here. After class members have had a chance to...

Ask your class to puzzle out the meaning of various affixes. Learners read sentences and develop a new word with an affix to replace the underlined words. They write down the words and help to categorize them by affix.

Great minds think aloud! Pupils participate in the Fishbowl protocol, discussing their opinions about the Mary River mine proposal. As they share their thoughts, peers provide feedback about their thesis and supporting ideas.  

Stop ... grammar time! Pupils complete worksheets to practice using the correct verb tense and identify correlative conjunctions. Next, scholars apply their new grammar skills to edit their draft opinion speeches.

Make a game out of word parts. Pupils work in pairs to advance along the board. One partner reads a sentence from a card, and the other identifies the correct affix that fits with a word in that sentence.

As writers continue to revise their argument essays, the focus shifts to editing grammatical conventions, parallel structure, and varying syntax to add interest. After examining model sentences that demonstrate sentence variety, writers...

Junior high writers investigate other student’s sample writing and critique on how it could be improved. Skill emphasis is place on elaboration, voice, and sentence variety. The student writing is provided, but the checklist for revision...

As the unit on research writing draws to a close, class members continue to revise and edit their papers, this time focusing on grammar, spelling, and punctuation (colon and semicolon).

The focus of the day's instructional activity is methods for creating a formal style and objective tone in an argument essay. After examining models, pairs engage in peer review of their essay drafts and continue to revise while...

Ask your learners to synthesize what they know about Waiting for the Biblioburro by writing a well-organized paragraph. Young writers focus on using transition words and including specific details in their paragraphs. The plan allows for...

And that's a wrap! Scholars create their concluding statement drafts by examining model text with exemplar conclusions. In pairs, they discuss how transitional words and phrases add to sentence structure and consider how their concluding...

Let's join together and make a sentence. Scholars take the next step in revising their argumentative essays by combining independent clauses to make complex sentences. Writers use a Colon and Semicolon Handout to practice different ways...

All is fair in claims and counterclaims. Scholars continue to work on their argumentative writing pieces by ensuring their papers fairly address claims and counterclaims. Writers review the importance of argumentative writing conventions...

Gen Z, those born between 1997 and 2012, according to research, is the "most racially and ethnically diverse generation in U.S. history." Gen Z high schoolers are challenged to consider how they identify themselves. They select a photo...

Summarizing text is a balancing act between being brief but thorough. You need to be short and to the point, but also cover all the important details, a task that presents a challenge for many young learners. In this lesson based on the...

How well do you know your affixes? Find out how proficient your learners are with a game that requires them to define various affixes and use them to create words that will go into sentences.

Develop concepts on how to change your improving wordsmiths' writing from blah to wow with the activities and ideas in this resource. The instructor provides the class with examples of writing that lacks detail and precision, and then...

Scholars learn to find meaning in words using affixes with a language arts activity. In pairs, children sort cards with printed sentences that include words with the prefixes mis- and pre- and the suffixes -er, -ness, and -able. Then,...

Touchdown! Try out this game to help your learners differentiate between fact and opinion. In pairs, pupils switch off reading cards to one another. Learners determine if the sentences on the cards are facts or opinions and continue...

Given a deck of cards with different words printed, pairs draw cards and work together to locate definitions for each multiple-meaning word. Learners complete a worksheet that challenges them to write the word, two of its definitions,...

Using a familiar decodable text, pairs take turns reading sentences. The partner who isn't reading follows along silently, helping if needed. They alternate sentences until the entire book is finished and then reverse to read the other...

Young readers get to the root of unfamiliar vocabulary with a collaborative learning activity. Given a deck of root word cards and copies of a graphic organizer, pairs of students take turns flipping over cards and brainstorming...