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Five Paragraph Essay
Eighth graders are introduced to the mechanics of writing a standard-form essay. They draft, edit and polish a five-paragraph essay about spending the day as an animal of their choice.
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Tapping into the Experiences of Senior Citizens
Through casual talk and structured interviews, 6th graders tap into the wealth of their senior pals' experiences. They write descriptive essays and narratives based on conversations with relatives or neighbors. They read selected...
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Pictures of the Past: I Remember When...
Students, after discussing and analyzing the value of reminiscence for people of all ages, write a reminiscence essay on their own lives and then create a story form the perspective of an older person.
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Animation Pre-Production
Does your class love reading cartoons? Use their talents and interests to examine the process of writing a story they wish to tell through a cartoon. They develop the beginning, middle, and end of a story based on their original...
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Civil Rights Video Essay
Students research an event or a person from a decade in American history when the civil rights movement was an important focus. They create a multimedia project based on the research.
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Create Your Own Country Project
Young scholars demonstrate their knowledge of geography with this fun, collaborative social studies project. Working in small groups, students develop their very own countries, writing descriptions of their physical location, social...
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Lost Treasures of Tibet: Mandalas
Students examine the history of mandalas from Tibet. After reviewing the Designing a Mandala handout, they use geometric symmetrical shapes to create their own examples. Next, they write poems or essays and explain the meaning of the...
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Multi-sensory Writing
Middle schoolers 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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Thankful List
Young scholars practice using free association as a pre-writing technique as they list things that they are thankful for. They share the lists of words and apply them when they write a descriptive essay or poem after identifying...
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Dance: Discovering the Culture of Gullah
It's wonderful to see a lesson that incorporates art, movement, and writing. These three forms of creative expression are explored as learners dance to music from the Gullah people of West Africa. They analyze several paintings, listen...
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Exploring Color Vocabulary
Students explore color terms and related meanings and metaphors in cultural and literary contexts. They use the main colors to explore synonymous color terms and related metaphorical meanings of color words. Students recognize the...
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"Memories of Mom" Memento
Students brainstorm a list of writing topics for a "Memories of Mom" book, choose one of the topics as the subject of a daily essay and combine a week of daily essays into a book to give their mothers for Mother's Day.
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Newspapers: A Connection to Our Past
Students discuss current events and importance of understanding historical context for events today. They research current event and its historical context, and plan, shoot, and edit iMovie video essay using AppleWorks storyboard.
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Like It Or Not?
Write a review of the film adaptation of Holes. After viewing the film, your young reviewers make recommendations about viewing the film. Using details to support their opinions, they highlight the important parts of the movie without...
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Build an Outdoor Compost Heap
Learners study how to create a compost heap. In this composting lesson, students create a compost heap. Learners write an essay describing the process.
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A Photo Essay
Young scholars create a photo essay and present it to the class. The students bring photos to use for their essay and develop a story using the photos. The young scholars write captions including characters, setting, and plot for each...
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Maine: A Place Apart?
Learners list phrase that describe Maine from both an insider's and outsider's point of view. They create an exhibit on Maine's history and write an essay about Maine's image as "a place apart."
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Me: A Visual Essay
Students familiarize themselves with photo editing and montage techniques. They create a montage that tells the viewer about themselves.
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Our Geometic World
Students walk around the neighborhood and identify various polygons and lines in buildings, nature and other objects. They design a building using various geometric patterns, shapes and lines. Students complete a descriptive writing of...
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PALM TREES Technology :Literacy Challenge Project
Do you have a class set PDAs? Seventh graders use the Note Pad function on their PDAs to brainstorm writing prompts. After three minutes of listing their favorite foods, class members use the Note Pad Eraser to reduce their list to the...
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Meet the Corps of Discovery
Students assume the persona of one of the members of Lewis and Clark's expedition team. They research a member of the expedition team, write a first-person introduction of that team member, and share that introduction in a 2-3 minute...
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Rings of Passion: Five Emotions in World Art
Students examine pieces of art and write a short essay on what emotions they feel by viewing it. They view a video clip and complete chart as they watch. They discuss how the writers of the program showed emotions in the clips.
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Just Off Mainstreet by Elmaz Abinader
Eighth graders read writings from Elmaz Abinader. In this author analysis instructional activity students read an essay from Abinader and discuss the story "Just Off Mainstreet." Students re-read the text and complete close reading...
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Pilgrims: The First Americans
Fifth graders become familar with the pilgrims and first Thanksgiving through essays about important people of the time. In this Thanksgiving lesson, 5th graders choose an important figure from the time of the Pilgrims and write a two...