A fun, modern twist on journaling! Instead of responding to prompts in their composition notebook, writers use the Internet to complete blog entries. A sample blog (with prompts) is shown here, and writers are assessed on conventions and...

Writers participate in a unique form of environmental writing and deepen their connections to nature through journaling. They generate new ideas and thoughts that they can use for continued nature journaling and explore a variety of...

Do your writers have the writing bug? Give them this short prompt as today's writing activity. They have to decide how they'd spend $100,000, but they can't spend it on themselves! There's also a rectangular box at the bottom of the...

Give your middle school writers the opportunity to form an opinion and provide strong supporting details. Writers will respond to the statement "It is better to give than to receive." This is a particularly good assignment to use if your...

Through reading and writing, learners explore common elements found in fairy tales. After discussing traditional fairy tales, class members listen to The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs by John Scieszka, a hilarious retelling of the...

Emerging writers identify allusion in poetry by listening to recorded poems, like Anyone Lived in a Pretty How Town. They also discuss what makes writing satirical and how writers use allusions to make satirical points.  

Create a class anthology with your young writers. In this personal narrative lesson, each writer reflects on actions and events from their own lives and chronicles them in a three-part written sequence. They create a table of contents...

Young writers discover that personification is when a writer gives an object the qualities of a person. After practicing identifying personification in many of the slides, individuals compose their own poem that uses this technique. They...

Introduce your young writers to the basic five-paragraph essay. The fun part of this presentation is the stance of the essay used to illustrate the format. The writer of the model essay contends that the Twilight series is a terrible...

November is NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month! If your class is participating (or simply doing a narrative writing unit), this peer review lesson is part of a larger unit which can be easily found online. Once your writers have...

Evaluative or Analogical? The wolf in the story of "The Three Little Pigs" and the wolf in "Red Riding Hood" represent what can happen to the unprepared. Despite his defeat in the end, the Big Bad Wolf is a good example for kids because...

Grading essays after reading a novel written by a lyrical master (think Nabokov, Morrison, Chabon) is a deflating experience. Why can’t your student’s display the same skill in diction as your favorite writers? Because you did not use...

To accomplish great things, and to produce great essays, writers plan. Introduce your young writers to the prewriting stage of the writing process with a template that asks them to brainstorm and list as many ideas as possible....

A unit on persuasive writing guides elementary learners through the writing process. The first part examines the elements of persuasive writing, including expressing an opinion, connecting ideas, using supporting facts, and writing...

Would you rather eat a cricket or a worm? Have your young writers decide and write about why. Choose from 35 different writing prompts to spark interest and creativity. Even your most reluctant writers are sure to enjoy. Each prompt also...

In the past, if writers weren't sure of a person's gender, they simply used masculine pronouns. Today, however, as a handout on gender-inclusive language explains, writers must choose pronouns carefully. To promote the use of gender...

Strong writers support their points with direct evidence and details. A series of free-response questions from the 2011 AP® English Language and Composition exam require the use of details to obtain a good score. The first prompt...

In writing, an argument can be considered valid if writers have evidence to support it. Free-response questions from the AP® English Language and Composition exam ask writers to craft three argumentative essays. One prompt asks test...

Communication is the key. Prompts from the 2005 AP® English Language and Composition Free-Response Questions Form B allows scholars two opportunities to analyze the use of communication to express thoughts. First, pupils look at...

Are there unspoken rules everyone should follow? Questions from the 2004 AP® English Language and Composition Form B ask scholars to give opinions on how unspoken rules help people belong in society. Pupils also analyze a writer's...

Beyonce's "Halo" and Bruno Mars' "Grenade" provide eighth graders with an opportunity to consider how a writer's choice of words can create a very different tone even when the subject is the same. After a close reading of both lyrics,...

Going through puberty isn't easy, or for the faint of heart. Prepare middle schoolers for the challenges of the changes with activities that ask them to assume the role of a reporter for the Human Body Olympics. Writers craft a news...

In the first lesson plan in a two-part series, high schoolers pick a social issue important to them and examine an article about the topic, the arguments and evidence used to support the writer's stance, and craft two counter-arguments...

I came, I saw, I conquered! Parallel structure, employed by writers even before Julius Caesar, is the focus of a instructional activity that teaches young writers the power of this rhetorical device. Class members analyze speeches by Dr....