After making predictions about Janell Cannon's story Verdi, middle schoolers read through the book and make a new list of descriptions, personality traits, etc. They select an animal and write a narrative story about the animal, paying...

After writing a personal narrative, learners edit their work and that of their classmates. Using the imbedded link, pupils edit their paper. They form small groups and check each other's papers for spelling, grammar usage, sentence...

Are you working on an autobiographical or narrative writing unit? Bring this instructional activity to your class, as it takes young writers through the process of drafting and sequencing an autobiography. After observing and...

They Call Me Güero: A Border Kid's Poems by David Bowles is the focus of a five-week language arts unit unit. Fifth graders listen to various poems and participate in thoughtful discussions, examining vocabulary and learning new words in...

Sixth graders experience the stages of process writing, work cooperatively, to critique and to incorporate software tools to enhance writing and problem solving skills.

Enhance a unit on historical fiction with an engaging writing lesson. Learners bring the Industrial Era to life as they compose their own historical fiction pieces based on primary source images of Pittsburgh steel workers. 

Celebrate Black History Month with this lesson, in which middle schoolers create an essay about a famous African-American. Writers conduct research online, take notes to write an essay in proper format, and use ideas, text, and graphics...

Encourage your middle and high schoolers to share their memories of a recent event. After reading a New York Times article, they discuss Elie Wiesel's memoir, Night. They write their own memoir about a significant event that affected...

Honk if you love bumper stickers! Long used as a persuasive tool, bumper stickers are used to launch this study of persuasive writing. Each class member is given a bumper sticker and asked to formulate three questions the strip might...

Teams select a society to investigate and create a chart comparing and contrasting the status of girls in that society with their own. They then craft and illustrate a personal narrative written from the point of view of a girl living in...

The second instructional activity in a historical fiction series encourages pupils to develop a character profile of a colonial person using research acquired in the previous unit. Learners prepare their historical fiction narrative by...

If you are planning a unit on memoir and autobiographical narrative, you should consider this resource. Using Internet research skills, pupils review works by James Frey and Henry David Thoreau. In response to these works, learners...

Students explore language arts by creating their own stories in class. In this book making instructional activity, students read the story City Pig in class and create storyboard illustrations in order to analyze the story. Students...

One photograph can represent so much more than the images on the film. Eighth graders select a photograph from the Civil War era and conduct additional research based on the subject matter from the picture. Once they complete the...

Combining visual and language arts, here is a resource that prompts middle schoolers to write stories based on pictures of their surroundings. They use digital cameras to take pictures of favorite areas in the school. Next, they choose...

A reading of vignettes written by Peace Corps Volunteers serving in Lesotho and Madagascar launches a study of the difference between narrative and expository texts. As final products, young writers craft both a narrative and an...

This lesson asks young readers to predict what will happen to Harry Potter. While the question has been answered by the last book and film in the series, the concept and links provided by The New York Times’ Learning Network are...

Students research that a narrative film tells a story using camera movement, sound, lighting, editing and other film making techniques. The audience must be taken into consideration when making a film. They explore what makes their hero...

Learners examine the procedures that writers utilize to obtain and develop ideas for writing. Journal writing is fostered as a primary step in the writing process. Learners are encouraged to pay careful attention to using complete...

Carve out some time for your youngsters to write in their journal. Today, they write a story about pets. They learn the value of a journal and how to keep up with it, and they enhance story development by planning their story before...

Young scholars read "A Very Hungry Caterpillar" and discuss factual information in the book. They research whales and use information to write a narrative story. They take their stories through the writing process.

Third graders research Woodland Indians. In this Woodland Indian lesson, 3rd graders have a classroom discussion and write facts about the Miami Indian group. They write a narrative from the perspective of an Indian child.

Middle schoolers complete a writing assessment task to demonstrate their ability to craft a narrative based on a variety of informational texts. They view West of the West's documentary Magic Isle, read three print resources about...

Does your langauge arts class journal frequently? Extend one of your journaling activities by having your writers choose a journal entry and take it through the five stages of writing. They will use the attached graphic organizer to...