Throughout 10 lessons, fourth graders learn how to plan, organize, write, and edit their own personal narratives. In the beginning, young writers come up with ideas of personal experiences and the emotions linked with those experiences....

Engage your class in the elements of poetry with a series of lessons and activities. The plans cover simile, metaphor, personification, onomatopoeia, alliteration, and imagery. Learners come up their their own metaphors, identify poetic...

Need a hero? Super! Groups create their modern-day marvel and craft a narrative with all the elements required in such a tale.

Many elements go into an engaging narrative story. Using a helpful resource, scholars analyze a model narrative and deconstruct it using a graphic organizer. Next, they apply their learning from the model to update their plans for their...

Fix your mistakes. Scholars look over their end-of-unit assessments while the teacher focuses on common mistakes made among the class. Learners then make predictions about their next text, Frederick Douglass: The Last Day of Slavery, by...

The intricate craft of narrative writing can make a happy story feel exuberant or a sad story feel devastating. With 42 extensive lessons that include poignant discussion questions, standards-aligned self-reflections, engaging writing...

Once again, class groups examine two model paragraphs and, using the provided rubric, evaluate how effectively the writers use structural techniques to sequence events so that they build a specific tone. Individuals then use what they...

To prepare for drafting their Common Application narrative, class members return to the opening pages of The Autobiography of Malcolm X and examine how Haley engages and orients readers, establishes his narrator and point of view, and...

Explore the literary elements of Mildred Taylor's Song of the Trees with this beautiful Prezi presentation. Focusing on the story's characters, setting, and major plot points, young readers are provided with a complete summary of...

Working in small groups, scholars look closely at a children's book to evaluate narrative techniques. Next, they complete a Children's Book Scavenger Hunt worksheet to analyze the literary elements of their selected stories. 

The final lesson in this narrative writing unit asks class members to craft a multi-paragraph essay reflecting on the structural elements Leslie Marmon Silko employs in her "Yellow Woman and a Beauty of the Spirit."

A language arts instructional activity helps young writers identify elements that make up historical fiction. First, it guides them through elements of fictional pieces with vocabulary cards. Then, pupils work collaboratively to...

Pass the tea! Using the resource, scholars participate in a Tea Party protocol to analyze text and images about inventions that helped meet societal demands. After sharing their observations with each other, they discuss visual elements...

It's time for a celebration! Scholars go on a gallery walk around the classroom to view their peers' completed illustrated children's stories. Using sticky notes, pupils provide feedback about the powerful elements they find in their...

Narrative essay writing is the focus of a series of exercises that model for learners how to not only read a narrative, but how to also examine the techniques fiction writers use to create a setting, develop their characters, represent...

Looking for suggestions on how to organize a creating writing workshop? For topic suggestions appropriate for various grade levels? Check out a resource packet, designed for English language arts instructors, that is packed with ideas...

It's time to start journaling. Scholars look at examples of science field journals. They work in pairs to examine and complete a note catcher about a field journal. They then add to an anchor chart by discussing the different features...

Starting at the very beginning may be a very good place to start, but it can also be very difficult for emergent writers. Help them get started by providing them with a setting, a main character, and a basic plot.

Brightly equipped knights and highborn maidens come to life as young screenwriters use the provided worksheet to script a film version of Edgar Allan Poe's "Eldorado" or "Annabel Lee."

Everything you need to know about informational text features can be found in this resource. Recognizing these types of text features and how they are used in text allows readers to better understand information. Teachers...

To prepare for crafting their own memoir, class members examine poetry by Margaret Atwood, Billy Collins, Robert Hayden, and Claude McKay, stories by Richard Rodriquez and Willa Cather, and Barry Levinson's film Avalon. They examine...

After completing Juliet Marillier's young adult novel Wildwood Dancing, class members rewrite a traditional fairy tale, making three significant changes to illustrate a theme of their choosing.

How do Poe's choices of imagery, rhythm and rhyme scheme, and structure help build the desired single effect of "The Raven"? After listening to a dramatic reading of the poem, class members consider whether Poe's choices do...

Invite your young writers to take the reins with writing dialogue. Using two characters of their own creation, kids work with partners and then individually to write short conversations.