Strengthen your high schoolers' writing with a series of steps for writing successfully. With sections on organizing an essay, choosing a topic, crafting a thesis statement, and revising a draft, the lesson encourages your class to...

Pupils plan for a historical fiction narrative based on their previous research on expert trades from the Colonial Era. Individuals use the four-square graphic organizer to organize the information they want to be detailed in their four...

Use the power of the pen to persuade others to get involved in community issues! Individuals reflect on personal service learning activities and the writing process. They compose essays regarding service to others. While designed for...

Shakespeare's Macbeth has something for everyone. Scholars complete a mid-unit assessment. They craft multi-paragraph essays to analyze how the author's structural choices create tension and suspense in the play's first two acts.

How do learners use textual evidence from a close reading to write a well-developed essay? Scholars try it by completing a mid-unit assessment based on their analysis of the first 15 paragraphs from "A Genetics of Justice" by Julia...

As a mid-unit assessment, class members demonstrate their understanding of the concepts covered so far by crafting a formal, multi-paragraph essay in which they analyze how Rainer Maria Rilke's word choices develop the meaning and tone...

Emotional appeal or argument? That is the question. An informative lesson helps your class recognize the difference between a logical argument and an emotional appeal and learn how to craft an argumentative response. Writers develop a...

The opening exercise in this instructional unit introduces class members to the writing process they will follow to craft an informative, expository research paper that addresses their research question. To begin, writers are asked to...

As part of a mid-unit assessment, class members exchange their draft of a multi-paragraph essay with a classmate, review their partner's writing using the provided text analysis rubric, and evaluate the strength of evidence, the...

Explore expository writing and using precise language in this descriptive paragraph writing lesson. Learners brainstorm prior knowledge about the changing seasons in Ohio. They describe seasonal items, view seasonal pictures from...

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...

“It was a dark and stormy night.” Thus begins the 1830's novel Paul Clifford and, of course, all of Snoopy’s novels! Encourage young writers to craft settings for their stories that go beyond Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s often-mocked phrase...

To Kill a Mockingbird, Hunger Games, Brave New World. Welcome to Banned Books Week. As part of a study of censorship and book banning, class members investigate censorship, the purposes of censorship, and First Amendment rights,...

Class members use e-mail and the merry-go-round story format to create a science fiction story. Each writer begins by selecting one of three prompts, crafting the introductory paragraph and sending the paragraph to the next person on the...

Eleventh graders work in groups to choose a project/presentation from a list of approved activities to develop. They select and use appropriate software for organizing and refining their product. Groups produce a short...

Emerging poets design a website and then post seven original poems as well as their written critique of these poems. Although the resource mentions Inspiration and FrontPage technologies, any software could be substituted. 

Students work in cooperative pairs to research information and give oral presentations about African American men and women who have made significant contributions to U.S. history.

Students discover problems that NASA must deal with on a daily basis. They work together to think of solutions and sketch their own idea of a spacecraft. They discover the concept of engineering.