Curated OER
Character Sketches
Students are introduced to the types of characters found in short stories. They read a short story in class and produce sketches of the protagonist and antagonist. Finally, they create their own characters and write about them in their...
21 x 20 Media
A+ Writing Prompts
Shake it up! Shake your tablet to bring up a unique writing prompt for journaling or blogging with your class. Shake again and a new one appears. Prompts can come from different categories (sketches, scenes, texts, words, news) to help...
Curated OER
My First Book
Introduce young writers to the process of writing a book. Start by reading a book of your choice and discussing the essential elements of any book such as the cover, story, and illustrations as well as who is responsible for each...
Curated OER
Palace Adventure
Young language arts learners write and illustrate a short fantasy story based on the book Corduroy. First, learners need to develop a character. Then, through their writing and illustrations, they take their characters on adventures...
Curated OER
Jeffrey and Sloth: Six Traits of Writing
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...
EngageNY
Two Graphing Stories
Can you graph your story? Keep your classes interested by challenging them to graph a scenario and interpret the meaning of an intersection. Be sure they paty attention to the detail of a graph, including intercepts, slope,...
Curated OER
Telling a Story
Writers explore storytelling and focus in on verb tenses. They will work with a partner to generate a story and then switch partners and retell the story. They also complete past perfect continuous and past continuous verb tense worksheets.
Curated OER
Narrative Sketches
Second graders read "Tuesday" for inspiration. They draw three pictures that illustrate the beginning, middle and end of a story with very short notes to describe the sketches. They use the sketches as an organizer to use before writing...
Curated OER
Imagining Your Science Fiction Short Story
Twelfth graders brainstorm ideas for their own science fiction story. Using worksheets, they sketch the plot and setting for their story. They create appropriate characters and develop their interactions among each other. They share...
Curated OER
Hairy Monster Stories
Students work together to create a hairy monster. They discuss the elements of a character sketch. They use a rubric to guide them as they write a sketch of their hairy monster.
Curated OER
Stories of Stonehenge
Students research Stonehenge and make a creative project in this lesson. They research the location, origins, and purposes of Stonehenge. They also view pictures of Stonehenge. On watercolor paper, they sketch a scene of Stonehenge.
California Education Partners
Follow the Water by Arthur Dorros
Assess scholars' reading and writing capabilities with an exam that challenges learners to respond to an informative text. Through note-taking and peer discussion, pupils analyze a passage from the story, Follow the Water from Brook to...
Charleston School District
Sketching a Piecewise Function
How do you combine linear and nonlinear functions? You piece them together! The lesson begins by analyzing given linear piecewise functions and then introduces nonlinear parts. Then the process is reversed to create graphs from given...
Curated OER
Sketch Book Making: Places for Creative Communication
High schoolers create sketchbooks, explore the uses of journals, write (across the curriculum) from others' points of view, and compare forms of communication from the 1800s to today. A nice blend of individual, whole class, and...
Curated OER
The Ultimate Survivor Using Hatchet by Gary Paulsen
What items would you need to survive if you were stranded in a remote place? Using chapter 10 of Gary Paulsen's Hatchet, middle-schoolers work through a Six Trait writing activity to create a story about their own survival in a similar...
Curated OER
The Verbal Sketch
Students use perspective observation sketches to understand verbal description. In this subjective writing lesson, students practice writing subjective conversations using the cartoon worksheets.
Curated OER
Biographical Sketches
Students examine historical figures by reading about their lives. In this biography instructional activity, students research the Internet to find out about a chosen figure that is important to the United States. Students create a...
Curated OER
Literary Odyssey
Students read and compare excerpts from The Odyssey and The Adventures of Telemachus. They create an original story based on a secondary character from The Odyssey as well as a sketch of one of the pivotal scenes from the story.
Curated OER
Story vs. Plot
Students, after reading and discussing the two texts by Flannery O'Connor, "Good Country People" and "Greenleaf," analyze the plot, tone, characters, themes and setting in each story. They write their own short stories dealing with a...
Curated OER
Frontier Life Story
Students undertake a similar (but not quite as drastic) adventure as that of Frontier House as they explore the day-to-day realities of frontier life through a Laura Ingalls Wilder story, and reflect on which time period suits them...
Curated OER
Reading and Sketching Graphs
In this graphs worksheet, students answer 15 multistep questions about graphs. Students determine distance traveled, time, velocity, and create scenarios to fit the graph.
Curated OER
The Anne Frank Story
Learners read Anne Frank or other first person or autobiographical accounts of experiences during the Holocaust and produce biographical sketches of the authors.
National Arts Centre
Create a Set Design
Groups create a set for a play or story they select, build a model, and share their stage with the class. The team explains the rationale for their choices and the mood they feel their staging creates.
Curated OER
James and the Giant Peach Plot Analysis
It's all about the plot, main events, and story mapping with this lesson. As the class reads the novel James and the Giant Peach, they create an excitement graph that actually charts key events and moments of excitement. After creating...