What would happen if you took a trip in a time machine? Have kids craft narratives about a trip to the past or the future. The prompt includes questions to consider in the writing, as well as lines for kids to jot down ideas on or use to...

The beauty in this resource is the lengthy list of highly charged, controversial-issue research topics. Categories include issues of race, politics, law, environment, education, athletics, gender, and technology. After selecting a topic,...

Emotional appeal or argument? That is the question. An informative lesson helps your class recognize the difference between a logical argument and an emotional appeal and learn how to craft an argumentative response. Writers develop a...

Provide third and fourth graders with a persuasive writing example and this checklist. Have learners read through the persuasive writing example to find the characteristics included in the checklist. Is the passage a good example?...

Elementary schoolers write a friendly letter. For this letter writing lesson interrogative and declarative sentences in their friendly letter. The students write to an intended audience.

Pupils produce paragraphs with planning and precision with the four-square writing method, which allows learners to organize the topic, supporting, and summary sentences of their paragraphs. 

What was one of the big takeaways from 2009? By reviewing the released AP® Calculus free-response questions, pupils and teachers realize that performing mathematics is not all there is to doing well on the exam. Several items require...

Extend your study of The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton with an essay. Pupils can choose one of the three prompts provided on this page and write about either characterization, conflict, or theme. Each prompt includes a brief definition of the...

Bloom's Taxonomy is a great way to address the many levels of comprehension. With explanations and examples of each level, you can create questions that focus on knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation.

Enrich your unit on Arthur Miller's The Crucible with a list of reading questions based on Bloom's Taxonomy. Kids answer questions and provide context for the knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and...

Close up your unit of study with an examination of one of the guiding or essential questions as it relates to what your class has studied and other research. Class members first write down the question. Then they note down information...

Though the movement for Women's Suffrage stretched over several decades and across two centuries, the final few years were the most difficult hurdle in many ways. Use a document-based question writing exercise to make inferences about...

What country are you from? What is your favorite food to cook? What is your favorite sport to watch? Pupils practice English and learn more about their classmates with a set of conversational questions.

Examine the results of recent opinion polls on where people stand on the issue of the death penalty. In groups, middle schoolers examine various cases dealing with this issue and discuss the judgments. They write their own argument for...

Help your young writers improve their writing skills by showing this great PowerPoint. It includes various tips to improve writing: varying sentence length, beginning with a verb, and lots more! This is a wonderful presentation to show...

The importance of revising writing is the focus of a short reading comprehension worksheet that asks readers to respond to a series of questions based on the article.

Plants prefer classical music to rock and roll. That's one of the claims in an informational passage that makes up part of a set of standardized assessment questions. The set is part of a larger collection of English language arts tests...

Kids learn best when asking questions about what they have read. Encourage active reading with a comprehension activity based on S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders, in which kids read passages from the beginning of the book and identify...

Let's get opinionated. Scholars participate in a peer critique and revision process using a fun activity called a Four Corners strategy. After incorporating classmates' feedback, individuals share their final drafts of their opinion...

Pick a corner, any corner! Pupils use the Four Corners strategy and Peer Critique protocol to assess one another's draft letters to a publisher about an athlete's legacy. Scholars then use peer feedback to revise their letters.

A three-part assessment challenges scholars to write opinion essays covering the topic of the student council. After reading three passages, writers complete a chart, work with peers to complete a mini-research project, answer...

After reading the first, second, and third parts of "How Bear Lost His Tail", third grade writers answer questions about the story by completing a series of options, including discussion points. Then, they begin to plan a new narrative...

Should primary graders have their own computers? Should animals be kept in captivity? Young writers learn how to develop and support a claim in this short unit on persuasive writing.

Help readers learn to create their own open-ended questions for any text you are working with. Using Bloom's Taxonomy, learners begin on the lower levels and work their way up to form questions that focus on synthesis instead of simple...