Hobbits, dwarfs, wizards, trolls, and goblins. Readers track these fantastic creatures through J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit noting passages of character description and habitats. Using specific passages from the novel, class...

Students write a good title and edit their essay.  In this writing lesson, students examine several examples of good titles and discuss what makes them effective.  Students relate this to the sign on a building and discuss ways...

Students consider the attributes of persuasive essays. In this written communication lesson plan students examine sample persuasive essays and discuss their impressions of the essays by completing the provided post-reading strategy. 

Combining visual and language arts, here is a resource that prompts middle schoolers to write stories based on pictures of their surroundings. They use digital cameras to take pictures of favorite areas in the school. Next, they choose...

Art in one form can inspire art in another. Use images to inspire writing in your English class. The lesson described here is not detailed; however, the idea is strong. An engaging way to get class members interested in writing, the...

Social media has changed the news publishing process, so how does it affect school news publications? Lesson nine in a 16-part series titled The Social Media Toolbox explores the traditional publishing roles through the lens of social...

Just like with any skill, test-taking aptitude improves with practice. Learners complete the handout, answering reading comprehension questions and engaging in timed writing exercises. The test includes multiple-choice and constructed...

Reading about history is nothing like experiencing it firsthand. Encourage your eighth graders to do the next best thing with a historical narrative prompt, in which they describe the experience of a first-time traveler on the...

Using a set of primary source documents, such as descriptions of climate phenomena and images of weather events, pupils consider how climate shapes history. A second essay prompt and multiple-choice questions with documents engage...

How can an unfamiliar place help you learn something about yourself? Use a narrative writing prompt as you culminate your unit on Jane Yolen's The Devil's Arithmetic. Kids consider the ways that, like the main character from the...

Philip Pullman's The Golden Compass provides the text for a study of how writers bring characters to life. Using the provided character mapping worksheets, readers respond to questions and then write a short character sketch.

Students explore And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie.  In this characterization lesson, students locate passages that contain character descriptions and settings. Students write a descriptive essay on the characters in And...

Young writers choose a person from American history, their community, or their family to use as the subject of a persuasive essay. The process begins with a discussion of the characteristics of a hero, the completion of a prewriting web,...

Despite the formal nature of academic writing, personal pronouns frequently appear in high school and college papers. While your first instinct may be to cross them out, sometimes it's okay to use them, an idea covered in a handout that...

What evidence supports the big bang theory? Individuals analyze scholarly resources about the the theory and develop arguments backed by evidence. They brainstorm, share ideas, watch a video, and read articles to complete a graphic...

Travel back in American history to the era of slavery and abolition. After reading about the Underground Railroad, young historians examine a painting depicting the event, and write a narrative from the point of view of a person in the...

As the saying goes, art often imitates life ... and literature! A series of activities designed to accompany a visit to the Ogden Museum of Southern Art encourage writers to find inspiration in various landscapes. The lesson includes a...

Conduct a close reading of George G. Toudouze's well-known horror story "Three Skeleton Key." This plan breaks up the reading into several steps and provides text-dependent questions to ask along the way. Learners will have the chance to...

Learners create a standard outline, using a word processing tool, while they are learning about the basic writing device of the 5 paragraph essay.

Learners familiarize themselves with photo editing and montage techniques. They create a montage that tells the viewer about themselves.

Did you ever create an awesome graphic organizer only to find that your class was completely baffled by how to use it? This resource not only provides you with a great graphic organizer for a standard five-paragraph essay, but also...

Young scholars write a Thanksgiving Day Story using some or all of the words included in the worksheet. These stories can be fiction or non-fiction (Personal Essays). They are graded on sentence structure, paragraph structure, grammar,...

Students view a classic movie in class while taking notes. They write a summary/ review of the movie which includes the name of the movie, who wrote it, the characters and a retelling of the story. They include their opinion and how the...

In this word choice worksheet, students will read a 5 paragraph essay about an igloo hotel. Then students will replace 10 verbs with more descriptive verbs. Next, students will use strong verbs from a word bank to complete 14 sentences...