William Shakespeare penned some of the richest and most fascinating works of literature—or did he? Middle schoolers read three brief informative passages and conduct additional research to evaluate the claim that Shakespeare did not...

Looking for stimulating writing prompts that won't make young writers cringe? A set of five personal narrative writing prompts engages pupils in analyzing, thinking, connecting, and writing about particular topics. Each...

In this writing worksheet, students read a short description of a play script. Then, students read a fable and write a play script of the fable.

Young scholars write rhyming poems using rebus. With pictures instead of words, authors create original work about things they love. 

The world is a stage, and so is your classroom! Hone the skills of the next generation of Tony® award winners with a set of exercises, reference pages, writing prompts, and excerpts from famous plays.

Use drawings as inspiration. Have learners doodle for 10 minutes before beginning the lesson. Then, have them use their doodles to inspire a story. Several writing activities are included here to play with writing. One of my favorites...

Learners view a slide show featuring famous athletes and educational institutions that have played a part in the history of basketball. They participate in a game in which a basketball is tossed from person to person as facts and...

Here is an inventive, and easy-to-implement lesson on the writing of topic sentences. Learners review what a topic sentence is, practice identifying topic sentences in an informational article, then play a really cool game. All of the...

A repetition poem is the focus of a lesson that challenges scholars to compose an original piece. To add meaning to their poem, authors choose words to repeat at the start of most lines.  

Young scholars explore the concept of retelling a story.  In this retelling lesson, students use Play-Doh to create models of the objects in Eric Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar.  Young scholars use these models to to...

To better understand how to compose a clear and well-organized paper, learners read short passages, write summaries, and make colored graphic organizers. This is a fully developed three-day instructional activity with suggested assessments.

Who knew determining author's purpose could be turned into a game? Four teams compete to correctly identify the author's purpose for writing a series of passages.

Practice descriptive writing with a prompt that includes a photograph. Writers craft the whole story of the single second caught in a photo using the provided questions to prompt their imaginations. 

Students write a letter.  In this irrigation activity, students review how humans and the environment can interact with each other, learn new vocabulary words having to do with Mesopotamia, learn about irrigation and view maps of...

Here's a clever classroom game that will help learners with their sentence writing skills. It's a fast-paced game that is played in groups. Each makes up scrambled sentences that the other groups must solve. There are plenty of examples...

Scholars discuss the many ways they use persuasion in their everyday lives and brainstorm specific ideas for encouraging someone to do something. With the list of persuasive techniques they made, young writers complete a graphic...

An engaging video featuring William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet is accompanied by six activities designed to reinforce vocabulary, story elements, and comprehension. Scholars match words to pictures, place events in sequential order,...

Greed is the theme of the West African folktale, Anansi Goes to Lunch and this multidisciplinary collection of lessons. First, scholars listen to a read aloud and participate in a grand conversation about the book's key details and...

Take a journey to India with a read aloud of The Drum: A Folktale from India by Rob Cleveland. Make connections to the story's theme by building and practicing drums, role playing story characters, and practicing skills in phonics, math,...

Close your eyes and picture a time where you decided to tell the truth to someone. What were you wearing? How did you feel? Such prompts begin a guided imagery activity for Zach's Lie. Directions for creating an environment conducive to...

The opportunities are endless with a worksheet containing 24 biographical narrative writing prompts. Although there are no directions or specifications for the writing process, the prompts promote the use of narrative writing...

When should you abbreviate a word, and when should you write it out? Practice abbreviation rules with a resource that provides guided examples before challenging young grammarians to correct ten sentences on their own.

Use a baseball themed color by number worksheet that focuses on basic division to reinforce those math skills.  After solving each problem, young mathematicians color each square according to the key and the corresponding answer.

Sad, depressed, miserable, inconsolable, forlorn: so many synonyms have a lot of variety with their connotations. Through the guided imagery activity, writers explore the use of connotation and its influence on imagery and description by...