Saint Paul Public Schools
Using Adjectives to Describe a Busy Street Scene
What just happened in the street? After several introductory activities about adjectives and description, pupils use all that they have learned to compose a paragraph about a hectic intersection.
Curated OER
The Personal Narrative - Part Two
Does your langauge arts class journal frequently? Extend one of your journaling activities by having your writers choose a journal entry and take it through the five stages of writing. They will use the attached graphic organizer to...
Curated OER
Use The Polar Express to Develop Rich and Detailed Writing
Bring The Polar Express into your middle school classroom to spark the creativity of your emerging writers.
Friends of Fort McHenry
Sensory “Star Spangled Banner”
Music can help us to access memories and events in a meaningful way, and Francis Scott Key used specific words to convey what he had seen and felt when writing what would become America's national anthem. Help your class connect to the...
Space Race
Sensory Detectives
Test your learners' sensory awareness with three hands-on activities that ask pupils to use their other senses to identify and describe everyday objects hidden from sight.
K12 Reader
A Special Summer Day
Young writers craft the story of a special summer day, detailing the event and why the day was so memorable.
EngageNY
Writing the Children’s Book: Day One
With a brief mini-instructional activity, scholars learn about using strong verbs, sensory details, and precise descriptions. Next, pupils continue working on their children's book storyboards before choosing their strongest pages for...
Practice Using Lively Language
Practice Using Lively Language
Combine a study of biography writing with some tips for spicing up writing. After reading two passages, one much more descriptive than the other, pupils examine what makes one more interesting. They then brainstorm some ideas for writing...
Curated OER
How Do Authors Use Imagery to Shape Their Writing?
Esther Forbes' award-winning Revolutionary War novel, Johnny Tremain and excerpts from Julie Otsuka's When the Emperor Was Divine are used to model how imagery brings alive the setting of a story. The young writers then craft their own...
Curated OER
Writing Organizers
Eight graphic organizers to choose from? That's right! Each of these organizers relates to writing or reading. From narrowing a writing topic, to responding to literature, to planning a writing project, you'll find many purposes for...
Curated OER
Reliving History through Slave Narratives
Helpful for an American literature or history unit, this lesson prompts middle schoolers to examine slavery in the United States. They read slave narratives that were part of the Federal Writers' Project and then conduct their own...
Curated OER
Build Mastery: Visualization
What do you see? Young reader tap into the visualization process as they listen to or read a fiction story and fill out a graphic organizer. Model this first with a think-aloud, showing scholars how you visualize a familiar story. For...
Curated OER
Ocean Life Mural
How many oceans can you name? First, have learners try to name as many oceans as they can, and then have them locate and identify the oceans on a world map. They create a recognizable ocean animal using poster board and tissue paper....
Curated OER
Breaking the Chains: Rising Out of Circumstances
Study history through photographs. In this visual arts and history lesson, high schoolers learn to analyze photographs to discover details about life during the Civil War era. Students write journal entries as if they are the...
Curated OER
Awesome Animals
Sixth graders write descriptive narratives about animals. In this descriptive writing lesson, the teacher models how to write a paragraph with interesting sensory words and exciting verbs. Students choose a picture of an animal they want...
Poetry4kids
Evoking the Senses in a Poem
Budding poets choose a topic for a sensory-filled poem. Authors describe that topic using detailed language based on the five senses. Then, switch the senses to create a fanciful poem intended to add a touch of fun to the objective.
Academy of American Poets
Incredible Bridges: “Translation for Mamá” by Richard Blanco
Who or what do you miss? That's the question that launches an activity that asks writers to craft a paragraph filled with sensory details that shows how they feel. Next, they listen to Richard Blanco reading his poem, "Translation for...
Curated OER
Language Arts: Telling a Painting's Story
Use art museum paintings as inspiration for your class's creative writing works. Observing the paintings closely, middle and high schoolers list details and write descriptions. Their completed stories are displayed on bulletin boards...
Curated OER
Lesson Three: Go Free or Die
Fourth graders look for sensory details and figurative language. For this reading strategy lesson, 4th graders read the story Go Free or Die by J. Ferris and complete a chart with figurative language. They use a word wall in the class to...
Curated OER
Sensory Details
Students observe their environment and write detailed, sensory-specific sentences about that environment. This lesson can be extended to include the creation of a personalized story or movie of the experience (student examples are...
National Endowment for the Humanities
The Realism in Magical Realism
A lesson on magical realism has young historians research how Garcia Marquez weaves historical events and his own experiences into One Hundred Years of Solitude. Using historical records and information found in a biography of Garcia...
Curated OER
Sensory and Motor Mechanisms
Advanced biology pupils name the function of each individual structure on figures of the eye and the ear. They describe the purpose of the skeleton and how it works with the muscles to create movement. Finally, they label a large diagram...
ReadWriteThink
Sonic Patterns: Exploring Poetic Techniques Through Close Reading
Robert Hayden's poem "Those Winter Sundays" serves as the anchor text in a five-part lesson plan that takes the mystery out of poetry analysis by modeling explicit strategies for pupils to employ to conduct a close reading of a poem....
Curated OER
Exploring Sensory Details in Fiction and Nonfiction Text
Second graders analyze storytelling devices by examining sensory details in literature. In this descriptive writing lesson plan, 2nd graders define the 5 senses and practice using descriptive vocabulary words in their writing. Students...