Can letter writing really create social change? Pupils create and mail formal letters addressing a specific organization to promote social change they wish to see. Class members reflect on the process and responses they received in small...

Examine with your class the practical uses of journals and discover how journal writing can help academically and personally. Pupils discover the different types of journal writing and decide which style works best for them.

Involve your readers in finding works of literary genius. Have each individual write down compelling sentences that they read or hear, whether in a newspaper, advertisement, book, movie, song, or any other place! Once each person has a...

Readers of The Joy Luck Club, use a double-0entry journal to record and reflect on passages from Amy Tan's novel.

Step into the great outdoors and develop young scientists' skills of observation with a nature journaling lesson plan. Given a specific focus or goal, children practice making and recording observations of nature through written...

An introductory lesson shows learners how pervasive and influential advertising is in our culture; particularly, how teenagers are actively targeted by advertisers. As teenagers, your students already have all the information they need...

Who are you? Scholars draw a shield on the front of their journals that includes four items with which they identify and discuss them with a partner. Readers then use topic suggestions from the board to write about themselves on the...

Learning is never-ending. Scholars learn about effective conclusions as they continue watching a video of an opinion speech. After analyzing the speech's conclusion, they work in small groups to write an ending for their own speeches. 

Scholars scour thematically aligned texts to gather a bank of words they can use in an original acrostic poem. 

The second segment of a seven-part series reviews the challenge of determining whether gargling with salt water helps a sore throat. Individuals journal what they know about the challenge and what they are trying to figure out to...

Scholars become familiar with tagline literature with the help of the story, Alexander and the Horrible, No Good, Very Bad, Terrible Day by Judith Viort. After a read-aloud and whole-class discussion, leveled groups complete...

Break down the parts of argumentative writing with a critical thinking activity. High schoolers read an article of your (or their choice), and use a graphic organizer to delineate the ways the author structures his or her arguments.

Building on the previous activity in this series of lesson seeds, this plan focuses on the use of dialect in Theodore Taylor's novel, The Cay. Class members examine specific lines of text, use their reading journals to respond to the...

Develop an understanding of the open-ended questions that are a part of the college Common Application. Future college learners collaborate, discuss prompts acquired from the application, and philosophize on their plan of attack for the...

Academics take turns as actors in an engaging poetry cafe. Elementary learners work in small groups to create original poems or stories addressing community issues and read their work in front of a live audience. Scholars also reflect...

Consider the possibility of a new U.S. draft with this lesson plan, which encourages class debate and persuasive arguments. Middle and high schoolers discuss how such a draft might be enacted and how they would feel about it. They write...

High schoolers examine the New York Times review of the film adaptations of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings and explore the elements of scriptwriting. They read the article about the film adaptation screenplay and examine a...

Jack London's heart for adventure has come to define the spirit of America and its frontier. Selected passages from the foreword The Cruise of the Snark take eighth graders through London's construction and voyage of his ship before...

The Renaissance is the theme of a five-week unit designed to boost reading comprehension, spelling, vocabulary, and expository writing skills. Scholars listen to and discuss daily readings and engage in skills practice activities...

Fifth graders prepare for their end of the unit essay assessment by continuing to look at what makes an earthquake a natural disaster. They complete a graphic organizer and write a topic sentence. To finish, they view a model essay and...

Depending on your perspective, solitude can be lovely or very, very lonely. Kids take a look at the simple landscape illustrated in Antoine de Saint Éxupery's The Little Prince, and write a short journal entry about their...

Let's eat! Scholars read pages 24-25 of The Inuit Thought of It to discover the foods eaten by the Inuit. They sketch a visual gist of the section in their journals and write a summary paragraph about the text.

Students read and discuss "Defending Affirmative Action With Social Science," examining the admissions policies in public universities and colleges. They write persuasive essays either for or against the admissions policies in their state.

Show a Powerpoint presentation about descriptive writing. Fourth graders brainstorm a list of writing topics and place them in graphic organizers. Then they write their own paragraphs describing topics of their choice and create...