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Summary Lesson Plans
Students can learn how to write summaries with the help of graphic organizers, and summarization lessons.
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Terrific Topic Sentences
Capture the interest of your reader with terrific topic sentences. To practice hooking the reader, your class will be given writing prompts, and they must create topic sentences for each prompt provided. Encourage them to use different...
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How Do I Write an Article Critique?
Your middle and high schoolers have written tons of summaries, but can they give a strong critique of an article they've read? Identify the differences between summary writing and critiquing. Choose an interesting article and have...
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Narrative Nuts and Bolts
After viewing slides and reading about child labor, young authors compose an original narrative story. They practice note-taking skills and work to effectively engage a reader by incorporating plot, logical order, complex characters,...
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Character Traits: Yang the Youngest and His Terrible Ear
Lensey Namioka’s Yang the Youngest and His Terrible Ear provides an opportunity for young readers to observe how writers bring their characters to life. Each class member selects a character to trace through the novel, recording...
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Music Theories
Explore the inception and evolution of hip-hop music as a springboard for writing music reviews and researching other genres of music. Learners will read and discuss the Times' article, From Underground Music to Fashion Statement to then...
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Summarizing
Fourth graders listen to the teacher discuss the definition of "Summary." They read a story aloud with their classmates. After finishing the story, 4th graders are asked to choose the best summary statement.
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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.
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Water-The Liquid Gold
Students investigate the necessity of water for the survival of plants, animals, and people. They explore the affect that water has on human and natural environments through literature, field trips, and discussions.
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Cite Right
What do you need to cite, and how can you avoid plagiarizing? This presentation is aimed at beginning writers, and it details some of the ways people plagiarize (even accidentally) and what sort of information needs to be cited. The best...
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Doyle Online Writing Lab: Paper Editing Worksheet
Both the writer and the reviewer contribute to this editing worksheet. Before handing the paper to a partner, the writer lists specific areas of concern for the reader to address. The editor addresses these concerns and offers detailed...
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The Artist's Statement
Wouldn't it be great to be able to get inside an artist's mind, or be able to question the artists about who they are, why they create, and why they think their work is important? An illustrative resource asks artists to provide the...
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Critiquing A Speech Contestant
What makes a speech effective? Middle schoolers critique a speech for content and presentation. They view a video of a middle school student presenting an informational speech, They outline the content of the speech and critique the...
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Introduction to Writing Traits and Writing Strategies
Intended for an audience of teachers, this presentation lays out the six traits of writing, the writing process, and the teaching process for traits and strategies. If you are trying to understand the writing process more fully, you...
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Brain Break: Vocabulary and Context Clues
Young scholars utilize various sources to build and refine their vocabulary skills. They work together to solve a crypto-quote and daily puzzle from the newspaper.
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Gathering, Evaluating, And Organizing Information for a Report
Students gather and organize information for a research report on a topic of their choosing. Each students selects a subject for their research. Using traditional and electronic data they reference four or more appropriate resources...
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Creating a Travel Brochure
Students use the internet to research a country of interest to them. Using graphics, they create a travel brochure about the country encouraging people to travel there. They present their information to the class while showing their...
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Story Pyramid And Comparison
High schoolers investigate the details of a chosen story of literature. They use a pyramid graphic organizer to record information. The information is used to write a summary of the story. Students use a rubric while writing the summary...
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There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly
Fourth graders examine the new vocabulary associated with the book, There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly before listening to a teacher read aloud of the book. They complete a choral reading of the story, sequence it, and write...
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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...
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"Let's Get to the Point--Summarize!"
Students get rid of unnecessary information. They pick out the most important information. Students write a sentence that covers everything that is important information from the passage. They fill out a check list to check behind...
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United We Stand
Students recreate and simulate the secession of the South during the Civil War by having their class secede from the school. They write an essay comparing and contrasting the similarities and differences of everyday life before and after...
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Peer Edit Sheet
HUH? WHAT? YES! Peers are prompted to label parts of a peer's writing where they find information inadequate, confusing, or effective.
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Gray Whales: Hitchhikers: Free Rides on Gray Whales
Students read about Gray Whales and circle any unfamiliar terms.