Imagine being one of the painters in 1910 at the Lyme Art Colony in Connecticut. Using the Florence Griswold Museum's on-line resources to gather information about the daily life of artists at the boardinghouse, learners write a letter...

Students explore the patterns of text structure to anticipate the kind of information that a reading might present. The lesson examines some of the components of reading writing and using nonfiction.

The vocabulary associated with atomic structure is reviewed by searching for the terms. Make sure to have young chemists also write definitions or explain each term on a separate sheet of paper.

Use this as a reference sheet for peer- or self-editing, or as a guide when teaching sentence structure. Defines and gives examples of choppy, run-on, and stringy sentences, and provides corrected versions of each. Check revised examples...

Walk young writers through the process of creating an initial writing sample for their portfolio. They determine their purpose, organize their ideas, and then create a draft. The lesson includes worksheets and online resources to...

The basic structure of a useful lesson in formal letter writing is here, but there are no procedural details or support materials to implement it. However, the idea is worth pursuing, to help your learners develop a strong understanding...

Explore run-on sentences with your language arts class. There is a SMART Board presentation included, but even if you don't have access to this technology, there are several useful pieces here. Provide your learners with the "student...

To better understand how to compose a clear and well-organized paper, learners read short passages, write summaries, and make colored graphic organizers. This is a fully developed three-day lesson with suggested assessments.

Fourth graders develop their writing skills. In this paragraph structure lesson, 4th graders research natural disasters, compile their findings, create mobiles and write stories based on the mobiles.

Explore grammar rules by completing a worksheet. In this sentence structure lesson, kids define run-on sentences and read sample sentences to determine whether they are complete or incomplete. There is also a space for the writer to edit...

Instruct your class on how to put together a sentence in Spanish. The resource covers the different parts of speech, showing how the Spanish version of each sentence compares with the English version. While there are no procedures...

Use this resource as an evaluation tool, or have your class assess their own letter writing skills. They will use a checklist that they create during some interactive writing sessions as criteria for their self-evaluation. Teachers can...

Elementary learners explore fiction storytelling through partcipating in a survey. They identify the characters, themes and plot of the Harry Potter series while discussing their opinions in class. Learners conduct a survey about their...

Haikus by Basho, Buson, Issa, and Shiki are used as models for a brief lecture on the importance of poetry in Japan's history and the structure of this poetic form. Students then go on a nature walk, record impressions, and return to the...

Students write an essay during this 14 week series of ESL writing lessons. In this series of 14 lessons, advanced ESL writing students complete an essay. They focus on prefixes and suffixes, synonyms and antonyms, and vocabulary...

Guide high schoolers through the most successful and efficient ways to address a text with a literary analysis instructional activity. As learners find examples of alliteration in Christopher Marlowe's "The Passionate Shepard to His...

Continue a thoughtful analysis of Sophocles' Oedipus the King by discussing the importance of dialogue within the play's structure. Ninth graders examine how Oedipus speaks about himself to his subjects and Creon before recording their...

As a mid-unit assessment, individuals craft an in-class, formal essay response to a prompt that asks them to use textual evidence to identify Haley's purpose, as well as analyze how the structure, style, and content contribute to the...

The accusations begin in Sophocles' Oedipus the King, with troublemakers and enemies abound. As learners delve deeply into the sights unseen, they review textual evidence from their readings to write about the importance of timing in the...

A delightful lesson on poetry is here for you and your middle schoolers. Learners are instructed to write a Halloween poem. They get to choose the age range for the audience of the poem. So, it may be scary (for older kids), or humorous...

After researching an issue introduced in Tyson Miller's Dream of a Nation: Inspiring Ideas for a Better America, writers develop an original thesis statement and craft an analytic essay using evidence collected in their research.

"Tell me a story!" Young storytellers use this planning sheet to block out their narrative, identifying the main idea, characters, setting, events, and ending they will incorporate into their tale.

Help your young writers produce high-quality topic and thesis statements that go beyond basic wording and really illustrate complex ideas and critical thinking skills. From however and compound sentence statements to using...