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Narrative Writing: Using Exact Words
Review the narrative writing process with your emerging story writers. They read a sample narrative and identify five vague verbs that could be replaced with a more exact, exciting verb. Then they write a personal narrative making sure...
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Strong Descriptive Writing: James and the Giant Peach
Support your writers! Clear procedures and appropriate support make this a superb resource for elementary writing instruction. Ready your class to compose original descriptive paragraphs inspired by the episode in Roald Dahl's James and...
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Vivid Verbs
Spice up your writing! Your amateur writers will benefit from concentrating on understanding and improving verb use in writing. An introductory activity addresses weak verbs. A second exercise helps them see the importance of strong...
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Teaching Descriptive Word Usage
Second graders practice their creative writing by using descriptive words. For this language arts lesson, 2nd graders utilize their best descriptive writing to elaborate on one of 20 different bean bag characters. Students...
US National Library of Medicine
Drug Use and Abuse: Past and Present
Pick your poison: tobacco, alcohol, opiates, cocaine, or marijuana. An online exhibition launches a research project that asks groups to select one of the five drugs and gather information on how the use of the drug and the regulations...
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Writing Strategies
Young writers complete a unit of activities to learn and use writing strategies. They will complete 8 activities to prewrite, use descriptive words, asking and telling sentences, and correct spelling within their writing. Then they watch...
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Writing Strategies: Descriptive Words
Pupils discover the importance of using descriptive words in good writing. They brainstorm words to describe elephants and dogs then watch a video that describes different items. Each student writes a paragraph using descriptive words...
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Using Descriptive Language
Students examine the use of adjectives in a product review, then write their own descriptive review. For this writing and word usage lesson, students first analyze the choice of adjectives in a New York Times article about the iPhone,...
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Technopoet - Poetry Lesson Plans
Practice word processing while writing different types of poems. First, elementary and middle schoolers use Word templates to write poetry. They use rhyming and descriptive words as they work with clipart, text wrapping, and picture...
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"I Spy": Using Adjectives and Descriptive Phrases
Students define adjectives and use adjectives and descriptive phrases to write a descriptive paragraph. They write a description of a sensory item, and read and discuss a five senses chart. Students then complete a chart using adjectives...
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A Hurricane Blowing In
Students write a scene. For this creative writing lesson, students read The Lightning Thief and discuss the sentence fluency and word choice in the writing. Students complete a writing assignment where they create an...
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Eye Spy!
Students explore using descriptive words by playing a What Do You See? game, describing items in a Mystery Bag, and using Eye-Spy binoculars on an on-campus field trip. They read the book, I Went Walking, and write descriptions of a...
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Choosing Words Carefully
Use literacy tools to select precise vocabulary. High schoolers respond to discussion questions that require them to consider the denotation and connotation of words. They then read non-fiction passages and identify words in the passages...
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Exploring Descriptive Language With Different Parts of Speech
Students practice experiencing writing with appropriate language and incorporating the eight parts of speech. They assess that many words have multiple functions when used in different contexts. Each student free writes in response to a...
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Using Descriptive Language
Students explore the technique of descriptive writing. As a class, they observe a poster and describe it using adjectives. They discuss how descriptive words can be used literally and figuratively in the world of advertising. After...
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Descriptive Writing
Third graders have fun using descriptive words in an expository format to describe a food that they hate. They utilize a planning worksheet that's imbedded in this plan before they begin their drafts.
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Wrapping It Up
Class members develop their own glossaries for unfamiliar words in each chapter in Elizabeth George Speare’s The Sign of the Beaver. After recording the word, the page number on which the word appears, and its part of speech, they...
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"The Clever Monkey"
Second graders complete a variety of activities related to the book "The Clever Monkey" by Rob Cleveland. They answer story comprehension questions, and rewrite the story. Students also complete a comprehension and fact or opinion...
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Using Our Five Senses
Students explore human anatomy by creating an oral report in class. In this five senses lesson, students read several real life situations and identify which of the five senses help in certain situations. Students create an oral...
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Two Settings
Learners respond to the text Riding Freedom. They will compare and contrast two settings by filling in a graphic organizer. They explore different settings, discuss the reasons why settings change, and draw conclusions using descriptive...
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Shakespeare and Poe Teach Six-Trait Writing
A Six-Trait Writing instructional activity helps your middle schoolers liven up their word choice and shows them how to evaluate their own writing. Class members take a close look at the language used in poems by Shakespeare, Kipling,...
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The "Write" Stuff: Strategies and Conventions for Imaginative Writing
A comprehensive and immersive series of lessons that examines various aspects of story development leads learners into writing a narrative of their own. Writers develop an understanding of the writing process as they use the learning...
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Bag Stories
Young scholars create a personal experience by writing and illustrating. They make a writing connection to family (or other thematic unit) and use descriptive words in writing. They write using a different perspective.
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Descriptive Writing
Fifth graders use descriptive words to write a recipe. They use the theme of Spring describing what would make for the perfect spring break, vacation, or day. They write their recipe on a recipe card and display their recipes on the...