Curated OER
What a Difference a Year Makes: Billy's Letter
Seventh graders read, "Where the Red Fern Grows" and write a RAFT letter from the point of view of the character Billy to his grandpa reflecting on the death of his dog and his adjustment to life in town.
Curated OER
Learning About Hurricanes
Students write a research paper on hurricanes. In this weather lesson, students use a science text book to write down facts about hurricanes on note cards and then outline their essay. Students use the outline to create an organized essay.
Curated OER
Focus on the Topic When Writing
In this focus on the topic when writing worksheet, students read how to select and narrow a topic, check resources and write a thesis sentence.
Curated OER
Form an Opinion Based on Facts
Explore fact and opinion through higher level thinking and literacy. Kids listen to the beginning of A Picture Book of Helen Keller by David A. Adler and identify facts in the text. They follow along as the teacher models how to form an...
Curated OER
Reading to Learn: How Do We Sum That Up?
Students explore the topic of summarizing. They read the book, Dolphins at Daybreak, to practice summarizing. They determine what information is important and choose sentences to summarize the passages they read. They write a summary...
Curated OER
Functioning as a Team
Students work as a team to build a freestanding bridge from newspapers and masking tape and analyze the effectiveness of their group. In this teamwork lesson, students view and summarize a video on Service Learning Projects. Students...
Curated OER
Exploring the Controversial Plan to Drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
Students examine the Bush Administration's plan to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from varying points of view. They work in small groups in order to perform their research, but they compose individual journal writes...
Curated OER
Guide to Writing Your Letter Back to England
Fifth graders write a letter back to England from Jamestown. They describe their trip and how they are fairing in the New World. They also discuss how they feel about John Smith.
Curated OER
Writing A Biography
Students choose an interesting person to research for a biography. They gather the information they want to include in their paper from various sources. Students write an outline to use as a guide when writing their biography.
Curated OER
Writing a Short Story -History
Students write a short story set in a selected period of history. They conduct research on a selected period of history, write and edit a rough draft of their short story, and submit a final draft of their story that includes details...
Curated OER
Fables
In this fables worksheet, students learn about the different parts of a fable. They learn how to retell a story, analyze the characters, identify the moral and dramatize the story.
Dorling Kindersley
Punctuation Practice
Need some punctuation practice? Challenge your third or fourth graders' editing skills with a helpful instructional activity on punctuation. After naming different types of punctuation marks, they rewrite a paragraph that has multiple...
Curated OER
The Personal Letter: The Outsiders
After completing S.E. Hinton’s The Outsiders, eighth graders compose a personal letter to their teacher detailing what they liked about the novel and the activities assigned during the course of the unit. A clever way to get feedback,...
Ohio Literacy Resource Center
Arguing with Aristotle Ethos, Pathos, Logos
Introduce your classes to the Art of Rhetoric with a lesson that focuses on Aristotle's persuasive appeals and how they have been used, both ethically and unethically, to influence opinion.
EngageNY
Grade 9 ELA Module 2, Unit 3, Lesson 7
After viewing an informational video that introduces Bernard Madoff and the concept of a Ponzi scheme, class members begin reading "How Bernard Madoff Did It," Liaquat Ahamed's New York Times book review that explains Madoff's crime, and...
EngageNY
Grade 11 ELA Module 2: Unit 2, Lesson 6
How did the women's rights movement create a ripple effect, improving the lives of future generations? Scholars read and analyze paragraphs 11-12 of "An Address by Elizabeth Cady Stanton," in which the author emphasizes the importance of...
Curated OER
Not Just the Facts
Encourage your learners to explore the differences between hard news and news analysis. They outline a complex news analysis about the upcoming presidential election, then endeavor to write an analysis of the same topic, using local...
Curated OER
Whose Home Is This?
After reading a short and informative paragraph on animals and their environments, learners look at pictures of four animals, and write a short description of how each one has adapted to its environment. A suggested activity is that each...
EngageNY
Grade 10 ELA Module 2: Unit 1, Lesson 18
Examine how Martin Luther King Jr.'s final paragraphs of "Letter from Birmingham Jail" summarize the ideas throughout the piece. Readers discuss word usage and new vocabulary and complete guided questions to better understand how the...
EngageNY
Grade 11 ELA Module 2: Unit 1, Lesson 23
Work together for the higher good. Scholars look at paragraph 10 in the "Atlanta Compromise" speech in which Washington pledges African American cooperation. Readers determine the connection between two central ideas and how they build...
K20 LEARN
Spiders, Spiders, Everywhere: Poetry Analysis - Theme And Metaphor
Walt Whitman's poem "A Noiseless Patient Spider" provides high schoolers an opportunity to reflect on the importance of perseverance and fortitude. After drafting a Quick Write about a time they tried and tried again to accomplish...
EngageNY
Grade 11 ELA Module 2: Unit 1, Lesson 13
Some words leave a lasting impact. After reading paragraph 11 of the text "Of Our Spiritual Strivings," scholars closely examine how Du Bois describes the impact prejudice left on the African American community. They discuss the...
Curated OER
The Human Body
A 'People Scavenge' activity gets students out of their seat and in search for their peers, in order to discover differences among themselves. Prior to the hunt, students will complete a skit based on a portion of the Bible. The students...
Curated OER
The Compound Sentence: Correcting Run-ons and Comma Splices
Do some of your writers need an extra lesson on correcting run-ons and comma splices? This worksheet clearly defines the terms, provides models of run-on sentences, comma splice errors, and how to correct them. The second page of the...