Eighth graders investigate varous writing skills as part of larger course of study. The lesson is essentially a rough guide for conducting a class for writing. The main focus of the plan is organizing ideas using various strategies that...

Fifth graders demonstrate research techniques in addition to endeavoring to display focus and stay on topic. Using books and stories, they gather, organize, and share information about a topic. Additionally, they explain to the class...

Improve high schoolers' public speaking with an engaging activity. Class members select three personally relevant quotes from a list. They then write a short speech for each quote, explaining how the quotes are personally relevant....

Here is an app version of a powerful tool that allows you and your students to have one place where you can capture, organize, and share items in multiple media formats.  The different uses for this app are as varied as your ideas...

Discuss the concept of main idea in a story or other reading material. Middle schoolers identify the main idea in a passage using a technique that eliminates unnecessary words not relevant to the main idea.

Does your language arts class have a hard time with writing transitions? Use this organizational writing lesson to create three effective transition sentences that middle schoolers will use in their research of renewable resources.

Second graders explore the Rain Forest. In this research lesson, 2nd graders go online to gather information about Rain Forest animals. Students print and use the information to write about the many parts of the Rain Forest. Students are...

Use the platforms of the 2004 presidential candidates to bring persuasive writing to your class. Young voters identify the three issues most important to them in the election and research the issues and candidates' positions. They write...

Have your middle schoolers participate in numerous activities designed to spark their awareness of literature. They express ideas and concerns clearly and respectfully in conversations and group discussions. Next, they view a music...

Read The Quicksand Book by Tomie dePaola while taking notes about the story.  Perform a read-aloud, and work your way through the text with your youngsters. With this plan, learners also write about ideas from a previous day, and...

Students examine the concepts of organization and classification. In this library skills instructional activity, students practice ordering and sorting skills by playing an interactive Internet game. Students then practice their...

Sixth graders use short reading passages to identify, explain, and discuss the author's purpose for writing. After a lecture/demo, they utilize a graphic organizer embedded in this plan to organize their writing ideas.

Research the lives of famous women in this social studies lesson. Middle schoolers use various sources to research a famous woman and create a presentation about the accomplishments of the woman. They can find the central idea throughout...

Famous quotations by American Presidents are the focus of this Six Trait writing activity, which could be used in a U.S. History class or in language arts. After reading the picture book Theodore by Frank Keating, have your 7th graders...

Want to explore the process of writing a persuasive essay and tie it in with the upcoming elections? Class members use Venn diagrams and the hamburger model of persuasive writing to write a five-paragraph essay on elections and...

3D printers, selfie sticks, smart watches. GPS, self-driving cars, YouTube. Imagine life without inventions. Believe it or not, these items were all invented in the last 10 years. Inventions, and the inventors responsible for them,...

Students write persuasive letters based on "The Tell Tale Heart." They brainstorm topic sentences, main ideas, and details. They analyze the character and determine if he is innocent or guilty. They create a map listing their reasons to...

Students examine the concept of developing ideas and organizing their thinking. They create concept maps and graphic organizers using Inspiration software, and develop a concept map for their own subject area.

Students take a closer look at the organization of written pieces. In this writing skills lesson, students examine transitions, repetition, parallelism, and other organizational patterns in writing. 

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...

Learners research the adaptations of desert animals and build their research skills. In this the adaptations of desert animals lesson, students describe major factors that desert animals have on their habitat. Learners explore...

Explore how to weigh the value of positive and negative coping skills in life situations with middle schoolers. They will be able to recognize the coping skills that they have used that been negative ways of coping with stress and look...

Fourth graders read a poem or short paragraph and have students picture it in their minds. They relate the topic to something in their experience and illustrate, 4th graders generate questions with a graphic organizer, use Prewriting2...

Second graders explore the roles, responsibilities and skills of community leaders as they discuss the definition of community. They brainstorm businesses in the community and explore the importance of each profession represented in the...