Curated OER
Outlines and Organization: Sample Outline
Provide your essay writers with a sample essay outline. Richly detailed, this two-page handout not only describes the necessary parts of an outline, but also explains the purpose of each section. A model outline is also included.
Curated OER
Persuasive Essay
Next time you assign your young historians to write a persuasive essay, use this document as a starting point and support them with a rubric, tips for writing a successful persuasive piece, and a general essay outline.
Curated OER
Hemingway's Short Stories - Essay Questions
Ernest Hemingway is one of America's great writers. After reading one (or several) of his short stories, visit this list of 24 questions relating to at least 10 of his short stories. Some of the questions are basic recall questions, and...
Florida Department of Environmental Protection
Water's Journey Expedition
Step into a scientist's shoes to go online and discover the Florida Springs Expedition, and participate in two activities focusing on how humans impact the environment. The first activity asks scholars to summarize the six...
Curated OER
Persuasive Writing II
Help your young writers use logic in their persuasive writing. Discuss the characteristics of a persuasive paper, and have pupils work together to explore and solve a syllogism. They will write a short persuasive paper which includes a...
University of North Carolina
Verb Tenses
Twelve categories of verbs exist in the future tense, ranging from simple present to future perfect progressive, but only three have a place in academic writing. Those three tenses make up the content of an informational handout that...
New York City Department of Education
Grade 4 Literacy: John Muir Unit
Learn how to correctly analyze and score a written performance task. Example work shows annotated think alouds for grading. Teachers also have access to graphic organizers for helping writers succeed,
Curated OER
The Great Gatsby - Study Help
In this literature activity, students respond to 8 short answer and essay questions about Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. Students may also link to an online interactive quiz on the novel at the bottom of the page.
Curated OER
Young Learner's Writing Workshop 1
Students become familiar with writing an essay in English. They are given an overview of basic essay writing styles. Students develop skills that are used when analyzing texts as the basis of their essays.
ReadWriteThink
Analyzing Famous Speeches as Arguments
A speaker, a message, an audience. After analyzing these elements in Queen Elizabeth's speech to the troops at Tilbury, groups analyze how other speakers use an awareness of events, and their audience to craft their arguments....
University of North Carolina
Oral History
There's no better way to learn something than to hear it straight from the horse's mouth. A handout on oral history, part of a larger series on specific writing assignments, explains how to conduct interviews and use the information...
Anchorage School District
Hints for Writing a Conclusion
Writing the conclusion of an essay can often seem like a superfluous or daunting task. Support your young writers in understanding the various types and purposes of a conclusion paragraph, such as summarizing key points of a paper or...
Novelinks
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer: Cubing Strategy
The toss of a die determines what questions your pupils will answer in this lesson plan. Learners respond to questions based on Bloom's taxonomy, discussing The Adventures of Tom Sawyer with classmates along the way. They finish by...
National History Day
Challenging the Status Quo: Women in the World War I Military
Why are some so resistant to change? The status quo is often to blame for a lack of forward movement in society. Following the events of World War I, women in America suddenly had a voice—and were going to use it. Scholars use the...
University of Chicago
Using Artifacts for Clues About Identity
Learn about the ancient Near East through a close examination of ancient artifacts. Lead your class into analysis by first observing an artifact as a class. Pupils can then work in pairs to analyze the other artifacts and compile a list...
Learning to Give
Create a Volunteer Spirit
Motivate young citizens to make a positive difference through volunteering. Scholars examine the local and school community to discover ways the class, as a whole, can volunteer their time to help one or the other, then reflect on their...
National Endowment for the Humanities
Kate Chopin's The Awakening: Searching for Women and Identity in Chopin's "The Awakening"
The final lesson of a three-part series on Kate Chopin's The Awakening has scholars investigate life as a woman in late nineteenth-century America. They research the role of women in society through the eyes of the characters in the...
Peace Corps
Culture is Like an Iceberg
What influences the way you dress, or celebrate holidays, or connect with your friends? Explore the cultural traits that are not easily seen with an engaging discussion. Using the model of an iceberg, learners place features of culture...
EduGAINs
Preparation for Transitions and Change— Guidance and Career Education
Every hopeful in your class has gone through some kind of life change, from parents' divorce to a death in the family to moving up into another grade. Encourage them to discuss these changes, the skills they used and acquired...
Oklahoma State Department of Education
Narrative Prompt
Reading about history is nothing like experiencing it firsthand. Encourage your eighth graders to do the next best thing with a historical narrative prompt, in which they describe the experience of a first-time traveler on the...
Scholastic
Persausive Writing
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...
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
The Old Man and the Sea Ernest Hemingway
Accompany a reading of Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea with a thorough literature packet. Although the materials are meant to prepare readers for a timed essay, the background information and the activities are...
University of North Carolina
Art History
Art analysis might help uncover some of life's most puzzling questions, such as the mystery behind Mona Lisa's smile. The handout, from the Writing for Specific Fields series, is particularly useful for those interested in pursuing art...
Portland Public Schools
Teaching Tone to Teenagers
Tone is a tough topic to teach to teenagers. But never, fear, help is here in the form of a unit plan that takes advantage of their interest in music to set the stage for a series of activities that lead them to understand how setting,...