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Be a Celebrity and Share Your Life with Us
Sixth graders discuss their likes, dislikes, hobbies, goals, and special events in their lives. They write a five paragraph autobiography focusing on style, transitions, and details. This is well-suited for either explanatory or...
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Using a Venn Diagram to Compare / Contrast: Double Bubble
Create a "Double Bubble" to organize information in a Venn diagram-like graphic organizer. There are a few options included to differentiate this assignment, but unfortunately, there are no topics for selection. Provide your...
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Prewriting
As a class, 7th graders observe examples of brainstorming and then complete brainstorming worksheets themselves. They compose and describe planning strategies. Prior to writing an essay, they identify the purpose and the audience.
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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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Transitions
Give examples of transitions and why they are necessary in writing. A bit verbose, this handout is very thorough and provides many examples. The second page lists plenty of transitional phrases in a convenient chart.
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Can You Get the Signal?
What is a signal word? Recognizing these words is an important step in both reading and writing formal text. Review a list of signal words (provided and organized into specific categories), and then have your class play a game to...
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Collaborative Editing
With the use of an online editing site, budding authors revise their writing. This is a creative way to have your class practice essay revision. Instead of being a tedious process, editing and revising can be fun.
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Degree
A Standardized Test-type of worksheet on grammatical rules of degree awaits your students. They carefully look at ten sentences and focus on the parts of each sentence that is underlined. If the underlined portion has a mistake, they...
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If I Were the Wind
Eighth graders are introduced to authors in the conservation community. As a class, they describe a personal experience they have had with nature. They identify examples of an author's descriptive writing techniques and answer questions...
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Word Choice: Descriptive Verbs
In this word choice learning exercise, students will read a 5 paragraph essay about an igloo hotel. Then kids will replace 10 verbs with more descriptive verbs. Next, students will use strong verbs from a word bank to complete 14...
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George Orwell's Essay on his Life in Burma: "Shooting an Elephant"
Students read George Orwell's essay "Shooting an Elephant" as an analysis for the historical context. In this historical analysis activity, students analyze the main points in the essay to identify its cultural and historical context....
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Favorite Movie Essay
In this language arts worksheet, students read the essay prompt about favorite movies. Students write an essay about their favorite movie and why they like it.
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University Essay
In this language arts worksheet, students read the essay prompt pertaining to the importance of university and higher level education. Students write an essay about the importance of college in their future lives.
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All About Lakes, Rivers, and Flyfishing Too
In this insect and fish story writing worksheet, students draft a story that includes a setting, characters, problems, and events from the perspective of an insect or fish. In addition, students locate 51 science terms in a word search...
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Building Relationships in a High School Classroom
Students explore building new friendships during the first week of school. They participate in a variety of getting to know each other activities. Students work cooperatively and develop collegial relationships with their classmates.
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Computer Games Essay
In this writing worksheet, students read the essay prompt which talks about the pros and cons of computer games. Students write an essay about their opinions of computer games.
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Animal Testing Essay
In this writing worksheet, students read the essay prompt which talks about animal testing in the development of new products. Students write an essay about their feelings about animal testing.
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Best Friend Essay
In this writing worksheet, students read the essay prompt about friendship. Students write about what a best friend means to them.
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Daily Routine Essay
In this writing worksheet, students read the essay prompt about daily routines. Students write about what daily routines mean to them and what place they have in their lives.
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Hero Essay
In this language arts worksheet, students read the essay prompt about what it means to have a hero and be a hero. Students write an essay about what being a hero means to them.
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Expository Writing
Fourth graders create Inspirations webs with graphics, and write five paragraph essays.
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Writing Lesson Plans: Practice for SAT
Students practice writing after completing research on a given topic. They use a writing sample to practice for the SAT writing section, then review sample essays and gain classmates feedback.
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Paragraph Building
Build the skills your budding authors need to develop to compose well-structured paragraphs. Give them the topic sheet (included here), and have them write a cohesive paragraph using the ideas listed. Consider having them include two...
Virginia Department of Education
Maintaining Organization, Clarity, Central Idea, and Unity
Introduce and challenge the essay organization skills of your junior high writers with the paper reconstruction activity in this demonstration. Theydetermine what the word organization means, and discover the basic organizational...