Students build three-dimensional rough draft for a story by creating objects, people, places, animals, etc., with clay, and write story in a journal, poem, or other written form.

Students create holiday story while working in cooperative learning groups, using Chris Van Allsburg's Polar Express as a writing prompt.

Students create movie posters based upon short stories they've recently read.  In this persuasive writing lesson students analyze a poster that  is intended to persuade people to want to see the movie and convince Steven...

Mount a variety of pictures (fantasy, rustic, portraits, action) on large sheets of paper and post them around the classroom. Groups rotate from poster to poster, adding adjectives to describe each of the pictures. Writers use these word...

Who has been messing with my trampoline? Young writers choose local events as the basis for their own “Who Did It?” mystery. They then devise a plot, problem, and cast of characters and write an introduction explaining the problem and...

Eyes on the finish line. Serving as the first part of the end of unit assessment, learners answer questions based on a text about how to write a graphic novel. Using what they've learned, they then create a storyboard about the invention...

Through a series of activities, learners are exposed to how artists use symbolic imagery to create the narrative of a subject’s life. They study The Birth of Alexander and some manuscripts kept at J. Paul Getty Museum. They then draft...

After listening to a story about Martin Luther King Jr., first graders answer questions about the text. They discuss the importance of the illustrations, identify the beginning, middle, and end of the story, and complete a writing...

Scholars read two texts about Miné Okubo’s life. In Riverside’s Miné Okubo and Miné Okubo, readers gather information to write narrative essays describing how Okubo became visible again. The essay serves as part of a performance task.

It's task time! Scholars complete the final lesson plan of the unit by completing a performance task. Readers begin in groups, working on a task card. Once complete, they move to an independent task, writing responses to a prompt about...

Spice up your writing! Your amateur writers will benefit from concentrating on understanding and improving verb use in writing. An introductory activity addresses weak verbs. A second exercise helps them see the importance of strong...

If you found five hundred dollars in the park, would you keep it or turn it in? Exercise both reading comprehension skills and philosophic beliefs in a language arts reading activity about three boys who stumble upon a small fortune...

Anchors away! Scholars take a look at the Group Work anchor chart to prepare for the excerpt four, The Fight with Covey, analysis. The Excerpt 4 Analysis note catcher guides the group as they carry out their analyses. The class...

Create meaningful illustrations to accompany stories in a web-based art and literacy lesson focused on "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi" by Rudyard Kipling. The class takes a virtual art safari with the Museum of Modern Art and then discusses how...

Young scholars discuss a narrative work of art, then write stories describing the action and publish their stories and illustrations in books.

Students write a cultural narrative. For this multicultural writing lesson, students create an expository narrative to teach others about their lives. Students complete the narrative and use a buddy editing strategy to revise their papers.

Students consider how the American Civil War affected Northerners and Southerners. In this primary source analysis lesson, students read the provided narratives of the war and respond to questions about both of the narratives.

Second graders work on expanding their vocabulary. In this personal writing lesson, 2nd graders practice word identification and complete a worksheet by filling in the blanks.

Students read and analyze the twelve short stories in the novel "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes." They create their own detective that has to solve a new kind of crime, and write and edit a short story with their original detective as...

Students assume the personality of a pioneer on a wagon train and create daily journals.  In this journal writing lesson, students read excerpts from The Way West:  Journal of a Pioneer Woman.  Students use their...

Twelfth graders rewrite a story in a different format to understand the effects of the author's style. In this writing style lesson plan, 12th graders read Mark Twain's "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" and rewrite the...

Second graders practice writing. In this five senses writing lesson, 2nd graders describe their experience on the field trip they took to the zoo. They work as a class and independently to come up with different things they saw, smelled,...

Third graders research Woodland Indians. In this Woodland Indian lesson, 3rd graders have a classroom discussion and write facts about the Miami Indian group. They write a narrative from the perspective of an Indian child.

4th-8th graders will explore Wright Morris' photography and create their own black and white photographs. They will then use the photographs to portray a message they want communicated by writing a narrative telling a story about the...