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,...

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...

"The Dinner Party" is the anchor text in a lesson 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 Gardner's...

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...

Students create descriptive writing pieces using Anna's Art Adventure as the basis for discussion. They learn to use descriptive adjectives to describe color, shape, line, and mood in various pieces of artwork. Then they create their own...

Middle schoolers explore the genre of menus by analyzing existing menus from local restaurants, including a review of adjectives and descriptive writing based on the language included in the menu examples.

Listen, look, speak, and move are the routine steps of the English language development lessons found in a We Can Work It Out themed unit. Language proficiency is reinforced through picture cards, poems, and grand discussions about...

Here's a fresh take on a writing prompt. After a reading of Dr. Seuss's If I Ran the Zoo, primary graders imagine a creature for Dr. Seuss's zoo, write a description of their animal, give it a name, explain what it eats, how it...

You don't have to travel far to learn about rocks, just step outside, pick up a stone, and begin investigating. After taking a class walk around the school grounds collecting rocks, young scientists practice their skills of observation...

Help young scientists connect with nature and learn about trees with a fun life science lesson. Heading out into the school yard, children choose a tree to adopt, taking measurements, writing descriptions, and drawing sketches of it in...

Young scientists develop their observation and writing skills as they craft and then post a detailed description of a plant or animal they have spotted and photographed.

Twenty-eight lessons make a unit that focuses on skills practice. Lessons explore r-controlled vowels, past tense verbs, nouns, adjectives, and two-syllable words. Pupils read a story, answer questions, and draft a descriptive essay...

What's the story? Learners create the first of four storyboards about the invention of the television, incorporating narrative techniques and descriptive details. Next, they offer and receive feedback by participating in a peer critique...

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...

Should the standard deviation be used for all distributions? Pupils know that the median is a better description of the center for skewed distributions; therefore, they will need a variability measure about the median for those...

Clement Moore's "Twas the Night Before Christmas" models the power of descriptive language for middle schoolers. They identify the similes and metaphors in the tale and consider what these descriptions add to the story's emotional...

Scholars take part in two exercises to boost their knowledge of personification. After reading a detailed description and excerpts from famous poems, writers list action verbs and objects then combine words to create a humorous...

It was the best of places! It was the worst of places! Middle schoolers practice their descriptive writing skills by creating an e-book about the best of/worst of topics. A series of activities about descriptive writing and worksheets...

Scholars read excerpts from the story, Heidi, in a three-part assessment that focuses on comparing and contrasting characters. Each part contains three tasks that challenge learners to discuss, answer comprehension...

A lot of writers really struggle very much with adding a lot of qualifiers and intensifiers in their writing. Part of a larger series to improve writing skills, a handout on the topic provides tips to help reduce a reliance on these...

Joseph Conrad's novellas The Heart of Darkness and The Secret Sharer are the focus of five lessons in this Curriculum Guide. Lessons are designed to advance analytical reading skills, examine Conrad's use of "The Double" theme, the...

To prepare for crafting a descriptive poem about a character in F. Scot Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, groups describe the texture of objects hidden in small bags. Individuals then select a character from the novel and an object...

Move beyond the five-paragraph essay with a lesson introducing young writers to various forms of expository writing. Class members examine description, cause and effect, problem solution, sequence, and comparison forms. They create an...

What function will describe the insect population growth? Pairs or small groups work together to determine which type of function and specific function will model given scenarios. The scenarios differentiate between linear,...