Education World
Take Five: Writing a Color-Coded Paragraph
Use a traffic light to model a very basic paragraph plan. The Go, or topic sentence, is written in green and expresses an opinion about the topic. Information that supports the opinion of the Go sentence is written in yellow and the...
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Hot Dog Writing
Use a hot dog as a metaphor for good reading, and make your class drool! Writers identify the parts of a paragraph, linking them to parts of a hot dog. Then, they translate this knowledge into a well-written paragraph. While a check-list...
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Developing a Topic for Writing Using an Idea Web
Teach your upper graders how to use an idea web to develop a topic for writing. After reading a variety of stories about friendship (a list of stories with the theme of friendship is included), model using an idea web. Class members...
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How to Research and Write an Essay
Research and write a 500-word essay. Pupils research a topic and write an essay based on their research. They use the given directions and examples to help them research, organize, format, and write their essay. There's a short chart...
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Language Arts: Writing Skills Development
Young scholars improve writing skills by expanding their self-perceptions. Next, they develop idea lists for writing topics. Their ideas become the basis for a class newspaper. following the creation of a group composition, students...
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Stepping in: Good Samaritan or Fool?
Pupils write an opinion piece, including facts of this situation and any other statistics about helping others during a fight. Students offer suggestions about how to break up a fight, or when not to try (based on what national experts...
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Writing - Combining Ideas to Write Descriptive Paragraphs
Pupils develop a strategy for combining various ideas into well formed sentences which then combine to produce effective descriptive paragraphs.
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Blueprint Writing
Eighth graders write a narrative composition about funny incidents in their home lives. In this narrative writing activity, 8th graders define what a blueprint is and draw one for their home. Students write about events that happened in...
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Civil War Essay
Upper graders explore equality by writing an essay. They read the story Pink and Say by Patricia Polacco, and discuss the meaning of the story and its relevance to Civil War events. Learners investigate the five writing process steps and...
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Main Idea and Supporting Details
Second graders write topic sentences. In this writing lesson, 2nd graders construct a paragraph consisting of a topic sentence and 2-4 additional sentences. Students analyze their writing and publish a final copy.
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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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Making an Argument: Effective use of Transition Words
Work on using transition words in context by prompting elementary and middle schoolers to write their own persuasive essays using transition words. They explore new forms of transition words and examine how they are used in an editorial...
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Mannerly Writing
Writers draft paragraphs comparing and contrasting the author's viewpoint in two poems. They also discuss the differences between an informational text and a poem regarding manners. Rubric and assessment are provided.
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Picture This
Elementary writers practice writing descriptive paragraphs by adding adjectives and sensory words to their writing. They use a picture of a monster for their descriptive paragraph. This 12-page lesson should increase your charges...
Scholastic
What’s the Good Word? Etymology Project Guidelines
Who named the shapes, or the days of the week? Should words be removed from the dictionary if they're no longer commonly used? Are there too many words in the English language? Language arts students explore these and additional...
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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...
Teacher Web
1920's Magazine
What a creative and engaging project to incorporate into your studies of the 1920s! Your young historians will work in groups to design a magazine discussing the political and cultural topics of the decade, each member writing one...
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Self Biography
Get to know your students with this project. Each individual writes an autobiography that is at least seven pages long with major facts, visual facts, focal stories, and chronology. The lesson includes a point breakdown for the...
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Enhancing Writing Through Technology
Students participate in a class survey of their favorite activity to do in the snow and organize the results in a graph. They write a paragraph about the graph using language from a class-developed word web and include both an opening...
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Paragraph Unity
Young scholars explore how to develop a complete paragraph using a piece of paper folded into a large fan. They SEE how each sentence relates to the topic.
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Introductions and Conclusions
Students discuss the importance of writing clear, well structured essays. They explore the use of introductions and conclusions when writing an essay. Students compose an essay using both introductions and conclusions.
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Organizing Ideas
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...
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Just Get to the Good Part
Learners summarize nonfiction text. After reviewing the steps for summarization, students independently read a nonfiction article. They write a summary paragraph using the six-step process outlined by the instructor during guided practice.
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Creative Writing
Fourth graders participate in an observation hike in this instructional activity. They orally share observations from their hike, and develop a paragraph in a shared writing exercise. Finally, the write their paragraph about process...