"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...

Why didn't Rapunzel's hair stop growing?  Why did it take the fairy godmother so long to intervene in Cinderella's affairs? Young writers consider unanswered questions like these and compose news articles investigating the true...

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.

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...

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...

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...

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...

Young scientists discover how sea otters' habitats have changed due to human impact. Through conversation, video observation, and story reading, scholars identify how human interactions change a specific ecosystem in both positive and...

Feeling conflicted? Work out those issues with a language arts lesson plan on internal and external conflict. Using "The Interlopers" by Saki, class members identify the conflicts between the characters before writing their own...

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.

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...

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...

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,...

Class members read "Satyagraha," the concluding section of Marc Aronson and Marina Budhos' Sugar Changed the World: A Story of Magic, Spice, Slavery, Freedom, and Science, and analyze how the authors support their claim that terrible...

Explore legends and storytelling with your learners. After listening to some legends, pupils work collaboratively and then individually to come up with original legends about animals.

This activity may have writers evaluate short compositions, but their subjects are quite tall: great Americans. Pupils read one another's compositions and closely examine how specific phrases and diction contribute to shaping American...

Off to Adventure! is the theme of an English language arts unit comprised of a variety of challenge activities. Scholars enhance skills and reinforce concepts by taking part in a grand book discussion, giving an oral...

This mini-lesson about informal letter writing is packed with a lot of information about writing a friendly letter. Class members begin by working in pairs to answer questions after reviewing letter models. Then, take part in a grand...

Get creative as you teach a lesson on positive peer and social interactions. Discuss good social interactions through a scenario, brainstorm a positive response to the scenario, then creat a comic book superhero that exemplifies the...

Collaborate with another class (or school) and have your learners share ideas about their reading through the use of email. Perhaps you'll create a specific question or a few questions for writers to choose from. Not only will they...

Students brainstorm a list of potential uses for micro-video technologies. After reading an article, they analyze the development of a new pill-sized camera. In groups, they create a children's book that shows them the various systems of...

Combine math, creative writing, and leprechauns in a fun St. Patrick's Day activity! Using a bag of gold coins and marshmallows, kids write a math story about a leprechaun that includes a multi-step equation to solve.

Create a silly cooking themed story using nouns, adjectives, verbs, and more! Pupils fill in the blanks using their knowledge of different types of fruit, vegetables, grains, protein, and dairy, then read the story aloud to hear a...

Vamos a escribir! Your older learners will love writing a children's book for learners at the elementary level. The resource suggests having small groups write their stories and create PowerPoint slides with illustrations, but this can...