Sensory details can enhance the reading experience, especially during a guided imagery reading. Young readers close their eyes and listen to a passage from Sharon Creech's Walk Two Moons before responding to discussion questions and...

Engage young writers in family tradition with this writing assignment for Like Water for Chocolate, by Laura Esquivel. Using sensory details, learners write a narrative about a family tradition involving food. Scholars also talk with...

"The Dinner Party" is the anchor text in a lesson plan designed to encourage writers to use sensory details in their stories. After brainstorming descriptive words and phrases for the five senses, class members read Mona...

You can't read Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory without craving the rich treats described in Dahl's vivid prose. Young writers try their hands at sensory language with a lesson plan that prompts them to write about...

Consume, gobble, devour ... serving up strong verbs! Writers focus on using dialogue, strong action verbs, and sensory details in their writing. After analyzing a model narrative, they apply their learning to their own hero's journey...

The engagement is in the details. Young scholars learn the benefit of weaving descriptive and sensory details into the fabric of their writing through the activities in this lesson. As their hands explore items concealed in bags, a...

With descriptive writing, the pleasure is in the details. Young writers learn how to add sensory details to a paragraph about themselves. They read a short paragraph and identify the sensory details used. After revising their draft...

Introduce fourth graders to poetry with a three-week unit that has them examine the structural elements of poetry, analyze poems, and craft their own original poems rich in sensory details and other poetic devices. Young scholars study...

Writers learn about using sensory details as they revise bland sentences with more vivid language. Next, they begin writing the first drafts of their children's books, completing storyboards to effectively plan their writing. 

Sometimes a picture reflects a thousand descriptive words. To illustrate the importance of sensory words in descriptive writing, scholars listen to a song and craft a painting in response. After sharing their work with the class,...

Young writers recount their visit to a restaurant, describing where they went, what they ate, and who was in the party.

Music can help us to access memories and events in a meaningful way, and Francis Scott Key used specific words to convey what he had seen and felt when writing what would become America's national anthem. Help your class connect to...

Young writers craft the story of a special summer day, detailing the event and why the day was so memorable.

With a brief mini-lesson, scholars learn about using strong verbs, sensory details, and precise descriptions. Next, pupils continue working on their children's book storyboards before choosing their strongest pages for peer critiques. 

Combine a study of biography writing with some tips for spicing up writing. After reading two passages, one much more descriptive than the other, pupils examine what makes one more interesting. They then brainstorm some ideas for writing...

Esther Forbes' award-winning Revolutionary War novel, Johnny Tremain and excerpts from Julie Otsuka's When the Emperor Was Divine are used to model how imagery brings alive the setting of a story. The young writers then craft their...

Eight graphic organizers to choose from? That's right! Each of these organizers relates to writing or reading. From narrowing a writing topic, to responding to literature, to planning a writing project, you'll find many purposes for...

Budding poets choose a topic for a sensory-filled poem. Authors describe that topic using detailed language based on the five senses. Then, switch the senses to create a fanciful poem intended to add a touch of fun to the objective. 

Who or what do you miss? That's the question that launches an activity that asks writers to craft a paragraph filled with sensory details that shows how they feel. Next, they listen to Richard Blanco reading his poem, "Translation for...

Today's discussion of The Autobiography of Malcolm X focuses on the precise words, the telling phrases, and the sensory details Haley uses to enliven his story. Writers then work to incorporate these same techniques in the draft of their...

The fourth instructional activity in this narrative writing unit focuses on how Leslie Marmon Silko uses telling details and sensory language in her "Yellow Woman and a Beauty of the Spirit" to bring alive the people of Laguna Pueblo and...

A activity on magical realism has young historians research how Garcia Marquez weaves historical events and his own experiences into One Hundred Years of Solitude. Using historical records and information found in a biography of Garcia...

Robert Hayden's poem "Those Winter Sundays" serves as the anchor text in a five-part lesson that takes the mystery out of poetry analysis by modeling explicit strategies for pupils to employ to conduct a close reading of a poem. After...

Set your class up for success with writing descriptive settings with these two graphic organizers. On the first page, writers note specifc details about their chosen setting and comment on how each character views the setting. The second...