Middle schoolers are given a line drawing that only that students sees. They are asked to describe the drawings to the reset of the class to see if they can draw it as the teacher describes it. Middle schoolers work with a partner, and...

In this pre-writing worksheet, students trace straight lines from a picture of a race car to a finish line flag. Worksheet has a reference web site for additional activities.

Work on narrative writing with this lesson, in which middle schoolers analyze the characters from a selected piece of literature and write narrative diary pieces as the character. They work to understand the point of view of the...

Students recognize flags as a symbol through writing and imagery. For this artifact lesson, students investigate Tibetan prayer flags and their significance. Students create personal prayer flags and write about their life experience of...

Looking for a great lesson plan on how to write a biography? Here, middle schoolers draw from magazine articles, novels, historical figures, and current events to choose a person, or character to write about in a biography. They follow a...

Second graders identify homophones as words that sound alike but have different meanings. They, given a pair of homophones, are to explain the meanings of the words using gestures, role playing, or drawing a picture with their partner.

Introduce your young readers to fiction written by women authors. For each story, they explore the way these daughters discover and claim their own identities. Individually, class members use the literature to examine their role in their...

Conduct research focused on improving a current technology by having students work in groups to investigate improvements that could be made to a particular piece of technology. They list the current problems and attempt to develop...

In a detailed, creative writing task, potential poets analyze how race, identity, and society categorize and (mis)represent us. The learning begins with an imaginative anticipatory set where students describe unique situations that...

Sixth graders experience the stages of process writing, work cooperatively, to critique and to incorporate software tools to enhance writing and problem solving skills.

Use the Internet, write an expository text, and have students share their knowledge of the planets in our solar system. They compose an expository writing piece and publish it to a web page.

After going over the five steps of the writing process, pupils fill out "Getting to Know You" worksheets. They trade papers with each other, and have the task of writing a descriptive paragraph about the person whose worksheet they...

After watching part of a Club Write Kids video and discussing the editing process, each group of learners writes a letter to a favorite author. They ask for a copy of a page of manuscript that has gone through the editing process. Prior...

A reading of Whale Journey, a fact-filled picture book by Vivian French, launches a study of the life cycle and migration of three generations of gray whales. The interdisciplinary lesson offers opportunities extensions into all subject...

Do your language arts students love to draw? Use this lesson to reinforce poetic techniques with illustration. After drawing what they think poem would look like with no words, middle and high schoolers work on several different...

After brainstorming, middle schoolers write an expository essay for a writing project. They focus on supporting points, organization, and writing conventions to develop a well-integrated paper. In addition, they revise, proofread and...

Identify the author's organizational pattern for expressing ideas. After reading an article on the California Gold Rush, middle schoolers determine the author's purpose for writing a passage of informational text. A full list of...

How do cultural and historical background impact thought? To explore this essential question, class members view of portion of the film, The Passage to India, read an excerpt from The Magician’s Nephew, and Nissim Ezekiel’s...

Students read a multicultural book called "This Is the Way We Go to School" by Edith Baer and Steve Bjorhman. They become culturally aware of the different nationalities around the world and different ways that they may do things on a...

Amateur poets explore alphabetical poetry. They choose a topic and brainstorm vocabulary that relates to the topic using each letter of the alphabet. The class then generates ideas for a group alphabet poem. After creating one as a whole...

How does one use a graphic organizer to plan writing? Introduce your writers to different types of graphic organizers by dividing the class into groups and assigning each group a particular organizer. Then, as they research chocolate...

Does your language arts class have a hard time with writing transitions? Use this organizational writing lesson to create three effective transition sentences that middle schoolers will use in their research of renewable resources.

Teach your upper graders how to use an idea web to develop a topic for writing. After reading a variety of stories about friendship (a list of stories with the theme of friendship is included), model using an idea web. Class members...

Take writing prompts to another level in this activity, which allows pupils to create scenes of dialogue based on the 1903 silent film, The Great Train Robbery. Useful for a language arts/history cross-curricular activity, the lesson...