Literacy Design Collaborative
Catching a Grenade: How Word Choice Impacts Meaning and Tone
Beyonce's "Halo" and Bruno Mars' "Grenade" provide eighth graders with an opportunity to consider how a writer's choice of words can create a very different tone even when the subject is the same. After a close reading of both lyrics,...
EngageNY
End of Unit 2 Assessment, Part 1: Best First Draft of an Informational Essay
Writers work to create drafts of their end-of-unit assessments relating to A Mighty Long Way and Little Rock Girl 1957. Using computers to create the first versions of their essays, writers emphasize ideas and evidence before focusing...
EngageNY
Analyzing a Model Essay: “Challenges Facing a Lost Boy of Sudan”
Copy that! Writers carefully analyze a model essay to gain a better understanding of their upcoming essays about A Long Walk to Water. They begin by circling unfamiliar words in the model as teachers read it aloud. They then pinpoint...
EngageNY
Scaffolding for Essay: Planning Body Paragraphs for Survival Factors in A Long Walk to Water
Some things are complicated. Scholars continue to look at the model essay and rubric related to A Long Walk to Water. This time, they focus only on row three of the rubric because it is a more complicated portion. Writers think about the...
EngageNY
Scaffolding to Essay: Using Details to Support a Claim
Show me the evidence. Writers analyze the Command of Evidence row of the rubric for A Long Walk to Water essay. Pupils work in pairs to determine how the writer of a model essay meets the demands of the rubric. They then use a Forming...
Nemours KidsHealth
Puberty: Grades 6-8
Going through puberty isn't easy, or for the faint of heart. Prepare middle schoolers for the challenges of the changes with activities that ask them to assume the role of a reporter for the Human Body Olympics. Writers craft a news...
K20 LEARN
Arguing With Evidence: Deconstructing Arguments Part 1
In the first lesson plan in a two-part series, high schoolers pick a social issue important to them and examine an article about the topic, the arguments and evidence used to support the writer's stance, and craft two counter-arguments...
K20 LEARN
It's All About Balance! Parallel Structure
I came, I saw, I conquered! Parallel structure, employed by writers even before Julius Caesar, is the focus of a lesson that teaches young writers the power of this rhetorical device. Class members analyze speeches by Dr. Martin Luther...
K20 LEARN
Sweet and Savory Writing: Descriptive Writing
The engagement is in the details. Young scholars learn the benefit of weaving descriptive and sensory details into the fabric of their writing through the activities in this lesson. As their hands explore items concealed in bags, a...
Texas Education Agency (TEA)
Diction and Tone (English II Reading)
Words carry baggage. In addition to their literal, denotative meaning, words also carry the weight of the associations and connotations attached to the word—the connotations of words writers use to create the tone of a piece. An...
Curated OER
Mood
Young scholars learn how to distinguish between the mood of a piece of writing (how the work makes the reader feel) and the tone (the writer's attitude toward the material) in the sixth lesson in a poetry unit. After watching two very...
EngageNY
Grade 9 ELA Module 4, Unit 1, Lesson 1
How do writers introduce and develop the central ideas in a text? To answer this question, ninth graders closely examine "The Age of Honey," the opening chapter in Marc Aronson and Marina Budhos' Sugar Changed the World: A Story of...
Curated OER
Warm Thoughts About the Cold
“What do you think life is like at the South Pole?” After responding to this journal prompt, class members read and discuss the New York Times article, “At South Pole, New Home for a New Era.” Using resources available from the Times’...
Curated OER
Story Starters
Here you will find a set of brilliant story starters which can be used to give children ideas for a story. There are ten story starters all together, and each one of them should tickle the imagination of your young writers. Sometimes, a...
Curated OER
Responding to Literature: James and the Giant Peach
Fifth grade reader/writers create an alternate ending to an episode in Roald Dahl's James and the Giant Peach in which our protagonist "loses" the chance to magically solve all his problems. Prompts students not only to write creatively...
National Endowment for the Humanities
Edgar Allan Poe, Ambrose Bierce, and the Unreliable Narrator
Stories by Edgar Allan Poe and Ambrose Bierce provide readers with an opportunity to investigate unreliable narrators. The lesson plan begins with an activity about different types of point of view and continues as scholars apply their...
Curated OER
Memory Book
Young writers create memory books. They think of important events in their lives from the past year. Then they draw pictures that depict these events, and dictate captions to an adult who writes them down in their books for them. These...
Curated OER
Diary
Keeping a journal can be one of the most enjoyable writing tasks that children engage in. They get to write about what they want to write about - not what the teacher tells them to write about! Here, young writers pretend they are a...
Curated OER
Strong Convictions
How can the rhetorical structure of an editorial help to develop its argument? Use this New York Times editorial to emphasize the importance of structure in a piece of informational text. Adolescent writers then use the editorial as a...
Curated OER
Cameras and Careers
Applying photography basics they learn for this project, first graders take pictures of an adult at work focusing on the tools used, the work site, and job responsibilities. After making a career book that includes photos and...
Curated OER
Space and Science Fiction
Use the Franklin Institute's exhibition "An Inquirer's Guide to the Universe" to have students research ideas for a science fiction story. After completing their research, writers will compose science fiction stories that incorporate...
Curated OER
Knowing Write from Wrong
Explore how the informality of electronic correspondence has affected communications in the workplace. Writers develop pages for a basic writing guide that contains rules and examples to help correct common writing errors. A great way to...
Curated OER
Let's Put You in a Louisiana University
Considering a college search project? After picking a possible career choice, and determining if that career needs a technical college or university education, individuals examine a wide variety of sources and select three schools...
Curated OER
Cracking the Mirror of the Past
By viewing the works of Robert Harris, high schoolers gain an understanding of what life was like back in the Victorian era of Canada's history. They also peruse many works of Victorian era writers in order to further their understanding...
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