In this lesson plan, If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, by Laura Numeroff, is used as a mentor text to highlight the trait of organization. The content focus of the lesson is to highlight that authors' story structures can be imitated. Story...

[Free Registration/Login Required] Lesson uses Amazing Gorillas! by Sarah L. Thomson and In the Wild: Leopards by Stephanie St. Pierreto to teach students how to use textual details to create a title for informational text. Ideas for...

Online lesson which allows elementary students to us the technique of drawing as a tool to create meaningful writing skills in fiction.

Inspired by Julianna's understanding (from the novel Flipped by Wendelin Van Draanen) that "A painting is more than the sum of its parts," students will describe a memorable place that evokes a certain feeling or emotion. Students will...

[Free Registration/Login Required] This collection of first grade reading and writing resources contains lesson plans and worksheets that can be used during the research process.

In this reading comprehension instructional activity unit, students are guided in learning how to find the main theme or idea of a text and understanding how details in the text convey that. Includes lots of exercises and examples, as...

Lesson in which young scholars engage in an entire-group revising process, using a story which has already been written by the group. An excellent follow-up lesson to the "prewriting and drafting" lesson.

A series of six screencast lessons explaining the process of argumentative writing. The first [4 min. 22 sec.] focuses on overall structure and purpose. The second [6 mins, 18 secs] explains how to state a claim. The third [6 min. 3...

This site from the University of Ottawa provides a wonderfully designed website that not only gives you exhaustive information on paragraph writing. Students will engage in starting with outlines, writing topic sentences, dividing their...

A lesson plan in which students read a text and write main ideas and supporting details in boxes on a graphic organizer. Materials are included. [PDF]

Students name unnamed chapters in a novel they are reading. They discuss possible chapter names considering accuracy, word choice, and connotation, before settling on a choice.

Students can count on using the 3-2-1 strategy to help them successfully comprehend and write about an informational text.

After reading the book Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst, young scholars have the chance to express the way they feel when they have a bad day. They will make personal connections as well as...

This lesson plan explores Curious George in relation to images conveying character. Included in the lesson plan is an overview, practice, objectives, resources, preparation, and more.

Students use this writing prompt generator to choose a writing topic and three adjectives to use in an original piece.

Let the power of imagination and inference serve as a "time machine" to bring Benjamin Franklin into the classroom! History and science come to life in a dialogue with Franklin the inventor, developed through lesson activities that...

This activity and discussion guide uses the book "Picture Day Perfect" to teach multiple common core state standards for language arts. Included in this lesson are discussion questions, a craft project, printable worksheets, and an...

[Free Registration/Login Required] For this lesson, students will use What Do You Do With A Tail Like This? by Steve Jenkins and Robin Page to identify the main topic and key details using the illustrations and text. Students will work...

Students will be able to describe familiar items and with prompting and support provide additional details by making Flubber. Making Flubber encourages students to engage in descriptive dialogue which helps develop the ability to provide...

Descriptive details are used as students develop a guessing game poster for others to try and guess their chosen solid. Included in this detailed lesson plan are videos, samples of student work, a printable worksheet, an assessment...

This lesson engages students in describing the main character from Patricia Palacco's book, My Rotten Redheaded Older Brother. Students will analyze a picture of the main character and the teacher will write all of the students'...

This video [4:00] from the American Masters film Zora Neale Hurston: Jump at the Sun examines Zora Neale Hurston and her famous novel "Their Eyes Were Watching God." In this resource, students delve into the novel's title in greater...

A humorous and detailed tutorial for using Microsoft PowerPoint 2000. Includes meeting PowerPoint, creating slides, making changes, adding images and charts, adding motion and sound, timing and rehearing for a presentation. Tutorials can...

This lesson, based on the 11-minute animated story "The Night Manager" from the PBS KIDS series MOLLY OF DENALI, helps children create or improve text by adding details or updating content. When a group of winter visitors arrive, Molly...