Better Lesson
Better Lesson: Audience, Tone, and Style in Informative Text
Students will read samples of informative writing and highlight examples of how tone and style are used by the authors. Students will then apply this knowledge by writing their own informative text. Multiple examples of student work and...
Texas Education Agency
Texas Gateway: Teaching Expository & Persuasive Texts: Writing Expository Essays
In an expository essay, a type of informational text, the writer clarifies or explains something by using facts, details, and examples in a clear and concise way. To write an effective expository essay, students need a basic...
Better Lesson
Better Lesson: Writing an Opinion Based on Facts From a Text
Students will plan a paragraph that states their opinion and cites evidence to justify their opinion about an informational text. This lesson uses biographies since students can easily be able to write down factual information from the...
CPALMS
Florida State University Cpalms: Florida Students: Why Did the Author Write That?
This tutorial explains point of view in informational texts. Students will learn how to analyze multiple accounts of the same topic or event and identify similarities and differences in different points of view.
Sophia Learning
Sophia: Comparing and Contrasting Texts
Two PowerPoint presentations and a video [2:57] on comparing and contrasting literary and informational texts as well as how to write a literary analysis. Includes links to external resources.
Better Lesson
Better Lesson: A Storm of Ideas
The first step in writing an informational text on the topic of students' choice is helping the student choose a topic of interest. Students will brainstorm ideas that will be possible final topics.
TES Global
Tes: Non Fiction Unit 4 Formal/impersonal Writing: Tourists
[Free Registration/Login Required] Young scholars will analyze tourism brochures to determine features related to nonfiction writing in this unit. Tourism websites may be used in lieu of the brochures. Cotswold and the North Leigh Roman...
Writing Fix
Writing Fix: All About Posters
As young writers become more skilled through the Writers Workshop lessons, they can begin working to become more skilled with non-fiction writing. A series of mini-lessons, graphic organizers, and samples of student work are all provided.
University of North Carolina
University of North Carolina: Writing Center: Handouts: Evidence
What kinds of evidence best support the points you make in a paper? Where can you find the evidence you need? This handout answers all these questions and more, including the difference between primary and secondary sources. You'll also...
CPALMS
Cpalms: Compare/contrast Life Cycle Texts
[Free Registration/Login Required] Students will learn to compare and contrast texts about life cycles using a Venn diagram. Then, using the Venn diagram, students will write an expository paragraph including an introductory sentence,...
PBS
Pbs Teachers: Story Writing With Arthur
This series of 12 downloadable activities teach students some basics of story writing, using books or videos from the PBS "Arthur" series as a springboard. Activities include creating story maps, asking questions about characters and...
Writing Fix
Writing Fix: Unlikely Diary Keepers
The writer will assume the role of a living creature (like an arthropod) or an abstraction (like a fraction). Writers will do research on what they have chosen as their roles, and learn new facts about these roles. The writer will...
ReadWriteThink
Read Write Think: Listen, Look, and Learn: An Information Gathering Process
This lesson models an information-gathering process for primary learners as they listen to and look at resources, seeking information pertinent to the questions on an information wheel. Guiding the listening, looking, and learning...
Writing Fix
Writing Fix: A Revision Lesson: Introductory Prepositions and Series of Three
After giving students the writing topic "A Special Day that I Remember, give students ten to fifteen minutes to write on the topic. Then tell them they will be revising their "Special Day" prompt writing, but first they will listen to...
Writing Fix
Writing Fix: The Wacky "I Will Not" Chalkboard
Students can use this writing idea from the book Wacky We-Search Reports by Barry Lane to demonstrate understanding in any content area. Students use the idea of writing "I will not " sentences to show their knowledge of various...
Other
Suny: Conventions of Writing Papers About Literature
A professor's excellent explanation of how to write a professional sounding essay. Covers all aspects of an essay, and detailed examples give information on exactly how to write the essay.
Read Works
Read Works: Grade 2: Three Lesson Unit: Main Idea
[Free Registration/Login Required] A series of three lesson plans designed to teach students to identify main ideas through headings and chapter titles, and then to write appropriate titles of their own. Lessons are based on the books...
Better Lesson
Better Lesson: Revising Our Argument for Presentation Part 1
Young scholars will compare and contrast the written form of Sojourner Truth's "Ain't I a Woman" to a live reading of the poem by an actress. Follow-up activities provided.
![Depaul University: Center for Urban Education: K Plus (Spanish) [Pdf] Graphic](https://d15y2dacu3jp90.cloudfront.net/images/attachment_defaults/resource/large/FPO-knovation.png "Depaul University: Center for Urban Education: K Plus (Spanish) [Pdf] Graphic")
Polk Brothers Foundation Center for Urban Education at DePaul University
Depaul University: Center for Urban Education: K Plus (Spanish) [Pdf]
Translated into Spanish, this graphic organizer can be used by student to collect facts about a topic. Students will collect information but record the "gold standard" of facts only.
ReadWriteThink
Read Write Think: Writing Reports in Kindergarten
Lesson which provides three types of reports for early elementary students to share. These allow young students to see themselves as writers with something useful to contribute from an early age.
Writing Fix
Writing Fix: If You Give a Student an Animal
In this lesson plan, the book If You Give a Moose a Muffin, written by Laura Numeroff, is used as a mentor text for word choice. The content focus of the lesson is to teach the students to take ownership of scientific and descriptive...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Metamorphosis Stories of Change
The goal of this activity is for students to learn how to tell a story in order to make a complex topic (such as global warming or ozone holes) easier for a reader to grasp. Students realize that the narrative impulse underlies even...
Better Lesson
Better Lesson: Ew, Gross!
In this lesson, students will be able to gather information from provided resources to answer a question. Using the book "Owls", the teacher will read the book while asking guiding questions. After the book, the students will have to...
National Endowment for the Humanities
Neh: Edsit Ement:portrait of a Hero
Discussing real life heroes and heroines and viewing their pictures will help students learn about reading and writing biographies. A writing rubric assessment is included in this series of activities designed to teach about heroes and...