Curated OER
Write All about It (Cooperative Learning)
Students listen to a read aloud and while working with other students, write alternate ending to the story.
Curated OER
Propaganda
Introduce your class members to propaganda techniques writers and advertisers use to influence their opinions. Each appeal is defined and illustrated with examples from current ads and political campaigns. Additional examples are...
Curated OER
Connotation and Denotation: How Word Choice Affects a Paragraph
Review the terms denotation, connotation, diction, and mood in paragraph writing. After defining the terms, middle schoolers practice writing examples of both connotation and denotation. They complete a connotation and denotation graphic...
Curriculum Corner
Guest Teacher Plans: Grade 3
Always be prepared for a substitute teacher with a daily plan equipped with an assortment of activities that cover third grade math, reading, word work, and writing.
Curated OER
Dandelion Wine: Socratic Seminar
There are “a million things to talk about. . .” in Ray Bradbury’s Dandelion Wine; however, the focus of this socratic seminar is the issue of living and dying. Class members prepare for the discussion by writing about their own views of...
Curated OER
Cloze Instruction And Herringbone Technique
Students sort out important information and create a visual framework for reviewing in the future. They organize a large quantity of information thus helping with learning and remembering details, cause and effect, comparison and...
Curated OER
Writing for a Purpose in Senior College English
Twelfth graders are introduced to the proper way to write a paper. As a class, they examine and review the four stage process for writing about any topic. Using the topic they choose, they begin to identify the relationship between...
University of North Carolina
Poetry Explications
Explication may sound like a fancy word, but it's just a fancy way to say analysis. Using a handout on poetry explications, part of a larger series on specific writing assignments, writers learn how to break down and analyze a poem. The...
Curated OER
My Mind is Blank
Investigate prewriting activities in this brainstorming instructional activity. Middle schoolers are divided into groups and are assigned a topic. They decide which prewriting technique to choose from, including free write, looping,...
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Applying SQ3R to Texts
After a review of the SQ3R strategy, readers use the provided prompts to respond to a text. The value of this worksheet is in the additional questions that move the learner into higher levels of reasoning.
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Do Heroes Have to Wear a Cape?
Young writers choose a person from American history, their community, or their family to use as the subject of a persuasive essay. The process begins with a discussion of the characteristics of a hero, the completion of a prewriting web,...
Curated OER
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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Editing
Fourth graders edit their previously written essay in this lesson. They discuss the importance of revision, and observe the teacher modeling proper revision techniques. They apply the techniques to their essay and then prepare their...
Curated OER
Techniques for Quoting Material
In this writing worksheet, learners read techniques for quoting material. Students read about how to correctly use quotations, textual references and footnotes, and a bibliography.
Model Citizen Publications
How To Write a Paragraph
Instructing learners on how to craft a good paragraph, a skill required of all writers, is the focus of a 23-page packet that includes directions, graphic organizers, exercises, and worksheets for guided practice.
Committee for Children
Students Learn to Stop Rumors Before They Start
Two activities look at how rumors are spread and ways class members can stop them. The first activity brings forth an in-depth conversation about how reporters gather information to write articles and how students can implement the same...
Curated OER
The Persuasive Letter
Students explore techniques used in persuasive writing. After studying editing marks and business letters, they complete a business letter activity. As a class, students volunteer to read a business letter and make corrections on the...
Curated OER
Smiles Change the World
Learners develop speaking and listening skills while evaluating a list. For this consensus lesson, students define consensus and discuss how it might be used at recess. After learners understand how consensus works, students review and...
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Multi-sensory Writing
Students use their senses to help describe special place they have been. They write short sensory-image essay that incorporate all five of their senses, and identify sensory language while reading different pieces of literature.
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Magical Creatures
Students investigate entertaining characters within stories. In this writing lesson, students review nouns and adjectives and discuss magical characters. Students ask themselves questions about their selected characters and write a...
Curated OER
Critical Review for Radio
Students will produce a short radio feature about a favorite entertainer or group, consisting of 45 seconds to one minute of copy and one-to-two minutes of music "clips." In writing this copy, they will use a modified prewriting...
Curated OER
Identifying and Using Parallelism and Balance in Literature
Analyze the use of balanced sentences and parallelism in a narrative. Included in this resource is a narrative about serving as a Peace Corps volunteer in Kazakhstan titled, "The Train Ride Home". Middle and high schoolers review...
Curated OER
Scrambled Stories
Character development, setting, and plot? Sounds like the makings of a good narrative story. Young authors read and analyze several narrative examples, and then they use what they know to pen an original composition. They work both in...
Curated OER
Brainstorming Techniques
Students practice brainstorming techniques. They use pictures to begin the discussion and write the ideas they brainstorm. They also review adjectives.