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Web It!
Looking for a way to bring prewriting into your informative writing unit? Use this lesson to reinforce writing skills in your eighth grade language arts class. Young writers use a web graphic organizer as a prewriting tool for expository...
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Lesson Plan 2: Good Novel, Bad Novel
What are the characteristics of a good piece of writing? What makes a story interesting? Give your pupils a chance to define the qualities of good novels and what they see as the qualities of bad novels. Class members record these...
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Grab Your Reader: Great Leads
Get your readers' attention with this Six Traits of Writing lesson plan. First, young writers draft ideas in an organized manner utilizing words, sentences, and multiple paragraphs. They also use voice to fit the purpose and audience and...
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Eliminate Weak Verb-Adverb Combinations
Encourage your writers to use sob instead of cry loudly to trade in adverbs for strong verbs. Improve your middle and high schoolers' writing with this humorously written activity which demonstrates how to remove excessive adverbs.
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Learning Grammar Through Wordplay
Students use wordplay to investigate the grammatical components of a sentence. They read a New York Times article by analyzing the writer's use of nouns and verbs in the article and then constructing original sentences using those words...
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Getting Ready to Write
Students watch an online slideshow that shows Cornelia Funke's transition from an illustrator to a writer. They discuss her writing process from the way she gathers ideas to how and where she writes. Next, they work in groups to choose a...
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The Desert is Theirs: Adapting to Our Environment
Students determine how animals and people adapt to the desert environment. In this desert lesson, students review vocabulary about the desert and how humans have to make changes to accommodate their environments. They listen to and...
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Final Topic Selection
Read The Quicksand Book by Tomie dePaola while taking notes about the story. Perform a read-aloud, and work your way through the text with your youngsters. With this plan, learners also write about ideas from a previous day, and detail...
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Acting Out as we Go
Fourth graders use motor imaging to remember the definitions of words. In this vocabulary activity, 4th graders work in groups to make a pantomime to help them remember a word. Students document the experience in their notebooks.
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Sequential Order for Holes
In this language arts worksheet, students place events from the book "Holes" into sequential order and answer 7 multiple choice questions about the book. This well-designed worksheet would be an excellent homework assignment or in-class...
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American Transcendentalism and Buddhism:
Students study American transcendentalism through readings of Emerson and Thoreau. They make cognitive connections to the similarities to Buddhism in these writings. The connection of the literary movement is explained in the art of the...
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The Kite Runner: The Pomegranate
To better understand the conflict between Amir and Hassan, two characters in Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner, readers assume the voice of one of the boys and craft a letter to the other that explains his feelings and concerns.
Teacher Created Resources
Complex Sentences Made Easy
Support scholars' ability to write complex sentences with a two-page worksheet designed to inform and reinforce. Here, learners obtain a brief overview of what a complex sentence is and how one is made; then apply their new-found...
Carolina K-12
The Revolutionary Times
Be sure to grab a copy of the Revolutionary Times! Scholars take a step back in time to report on topics set in the revolutionary period. Events include the ride of Paul Revere, the Battle of Saratoga, and more.
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I Wonder What An Important Observation Is...
Students discover the importance of descriptions and detail in their writing. They write in their scientific journals and are evaluated by the teacher. They write a descriptive piece and evaluate their own writing as well.
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"Lawd! Lawd! Lawd!"
From British accents to Texan drawls, a character's dialect can be an important part of the reading experience. A Six-Trait writing activity guides learners through the analysis of a character's dialect (Daniel Keyes's Flowers for...
Southern Nevada Regional Professional Development Program
A Mini lesson on Semicolons
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "Letter from Birmingham Jail" serves as an exemplar for a mini-instructional activity on semicolons. Working alone or in small groups, class members first circle all the semicolons in the letter, and then...
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I love My Hair
Learners explore strategies to help focus on writing a personal narrative. In this personal narrative writing lesson, students read a book and discuss how the author lets readers know how they feel. Learners find a moment in their own...
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Getting to Know Characters
This set of worksheets constitutes enough work and materials to be considered a lesson. They guide readers through a process of exploring characters and their motivations, and writing a paragraph about them. Here are seven handouts that...
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Introducing Biographies - Getting to Know You
Students explore several different types of biographies to determine their area of interest, choose one notable person they would like to explore, complete online tutorial on biographies, and use written and Internet resources to...
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George vs. George Essay Pre-writing
To practice pre-writing techniques your class will re-read the book George vs. George and complete a T-chart along with brainstorming ideas on how to organize their essay.
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Narrative Lesson Plan Ideas
Narrative writing lessons can inspire students to write about and share their experiences.
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Alphabet Photo Book
Students use iPhoto to create a class alphabet book. After the teacher reads several alphabet books to the class, students brainstorm the names of objects that start with each letter of the alphabet.
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Alphabet Photo Book
Students brainstorm words that start with each letter of the alphabet, take digital pictures of words that start with assigned letter, and use iPhoto to create class alphabet book.