Are you teaching a high school language arts class and stumped for writing topics? Five pages of writing prompts for all kinds of writing should help you out. Many of these prompts refer to texts that are not included in this resource,...

Are video games sports? Pupils investigate this question as well as various nonfiction selections to learn more about claims and the support that defines them. All of the selections mimic the rigor on state tests and encourage close...

Focusing on Doppo's "Unforgettable People" and late nineteenth century Japanese literature, this resource also leads to discussions of form being dictated by content. Explore the development of new literary styles first-hand by...

After reading Julius Caesar 1.2 and 1.3, break your class into pairs for this role-play. Each pair will receive one of four prompts (or more, if you create additional examples), in which one person tries to persuade the other to do...

If you are teaching Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound, you can't afford to miss this source. An extensive list of ideas outlines numerous discussion topics, writing prompts, comprehension questions, oral presentations, and projects. Have class...

We often see other countries depicted in movies, but getting a close look at a typical day in the life of a young person from another country isn't as common. Give your pupils such a look with a resource that helps class members...

Students investigate the concept of writing a five paragraph essay. They go through the steps to develop an essay from prewriting to a final draft using a writing prompt of Olauda Equiano. The handout for the assignment has questions for...

Complete the steps of the writing process. Emerging writers present final drafts of essays that include thesis statements, appropriate paragraphing, elaboration, and style. They participate in a peer editing activity that requires them...

Elementary schoolers explore writing conventions. First they play a ball toss game to practice spelling high frequency words. (A link to a 2nd grade list is attached.) The class works together to correct spelling, punctuation, and...

As part of the introduction to Edward Bloor's Tangerine, class members generate a KWHL chart listing what they know, what they want find out, how they plan to find this information, and what they have learned or still want to learn.

Family and friendship are two very important themes of the historical fiction novel The Orphan of Ellis Island by Elvira Woodruff. From video clips and writing prompts to reader's theater and family interviews, this resource...

The last instructional activity in this unit about human rights consists of a final assessment. To demonstrate the skills your class has acquired throughout this unit, they will work with a new article entitled "From Kosovo to the United...

Give youngsters the tools to approach cyberbullying and hostile language on the Internet. This lesson plan includes a variety of handouts and worksheets that will prompt discussion and inquiry with your class members around harmful...

Young poets use word cards to prompt a metaphor poem comparing to very dissimilar items.

Lesson 7 focuses on building academic vocabulary and writing an explanatory letter with supported textual evidence. For the first five minutes of the lesson, the educator reminds the class of how to read and refer to the accordion...

How did the ancient people of Egypt preserve their dead so well that their bodies are still recognizable today? Learn the painstakingly complex process they used for preservation. Young scholars read and summarize a narrative detailing...

Passport photos are notoriously unflattering but here's an activity that encourages youngsters to create a poetic picture of themselves using each category on the passport as a prompt for a poem.

Ready, set, write! Scholars work on the end-of-unit assessment by completing a writing prompt. They then look at the model performance task from instructional activity two to create a rubric for scoring the exercise. Using turn and talk,...

The world's largest measured earthquake happened in 1960 in Chile, reaching a terrifying 9.5 magnitude on the Richter Scale. The second lesson in the 20-part series introduces earthquakes and fault lines. Scholars map where previous...

Readers analyze an excerpt from Kate DiCamillo's novel Because of Winn-Dixie. They read silently, and then hear it read aloud. Definitions for underlined vocabulary words are in the margin, and other potentially difficult words...

How can you interest your reader? Here is a great lesson on reading and discussing the characteristics of a narrative. Elementary schoolers explore writing techniques to hook the reader. They identify their hook and share their...

Conduct a written literary discussion and diminish stress about public writing. Class members, already arranged into literature circles, compose and post responses to novels, signing with initials or class number. The process continues...

You can't publish a story until after it has been revised and edited! Budding authors investigate the writing process while drafting an original story. They select a topic, complete a rough draft, edit it, revise it, and finally publish...

Encourage readers to determine if Hamlet's madness is actually divinest sense. Class members analyze the words of the play before studying related texts, including T.S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," scenes from...