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Journal Writing in American Studies
Students write their thoughts about political cartoons, photographs, and articles in their journal and then discuss them in class.
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Publishing a Magazine
Students work collaboratively to create, edit, and publish their own student magazine. The lesson suggests the use of iPhoto, a word processor, iPages, and digital cameras for the creative process.
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Writing as a group activity
Did you know that 50% of all Americans can trace a relative who traveled through Ellis Island? Relive these journeys with your class and then provide sentence strategy templates for them to use to compose their own informative...
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CTBS Mechanics Practice #1
Use this CTBS mechanics worksheet to reinforce the correct use of commas, punctuation, italics, letter writing, and capitalization. Middle schoolers are given information on each of these areas and then answer a total of thirty multiple...
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Expository --Writing
In this writing worksheet, students investigate the writing process, especially in expository articles. Students examine a piece written for a children's magazine about dinosaurs. Students read about the steps taken to generate it:...
University of North Carolina
Paragraph Development
There's no set length for a good paragraph, but the short block of text should contain key components. A handout on paragraphs, the 12th in a series of 24, outlines a five-step process for paragraph development. Additionally, the handout...
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Are You For Real?
Students try to find newspaper and magazine articles that are informative or persuasive. They practice determining the differences between the two types of articles. They identify the devices authors use to persuade the audience.
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Journalist Japes
Students explore the job of a journalist. In this careers and writing lesson, the teacher introduces the job of a journalist, then students choose a headline and write a news story. Lesson includes extension ideas.
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New Gun Control Politics: A Whimper, Not a Bang
Using an article from The New York Times, learners answer discussion questions about gun control. They are divided into four groups to research different standpoints on gun control, including the Executive Office, Congress, Gun Control...
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Creating a Classroom Magazine
Second graders examine different types of magazine writing, and discuss how to develop topics into information that is suitable for short magazine articles. They write, edit, and compose a monthly classroom magazine.
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Creating a Literary Magazine - Part Two
Poetry can provide a great way to get a literary magazine going at your school.
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Eastside Literacy Reading Lesson - Fact or Opinion
Analyze critical thinking skills that involve the ability to distinguish between fact and opinion through self-reflection. Higher education students will collect a newspaper article, advertisement, magazine article, tabloid article,...
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Read All About It! California History of the 30s and 40s
Explore the Great Depression! Discover the challenges people experienced during the time period. Learners investigate photographs from the Dust Bowl and WWII era and create a story line about the photographs, writing a newspaper article...
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Creative Writing Prompt - New Inventions
In this creative writing activity, students pretend they are writing and illustrating an article for "New Inventions Magazine." They label the new weekly invention, draw it and write an entry about it.
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Writing: Parallel Structure
In this writing with parallel structure worksheet, students examine 20 sentences and note whether they are correctly or incorrectly written in terms of parallel structure.
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Sports Writer
Students research the roles of individuals, groups, and institutions in sports history. They create fictional sports magazines to demonstrate an awareness of the uniqueness of individuals and appreciation of themselves as athletes....
University of North Carolina
Evaluating Print Sources
Not all sources are created equal, so how do you evaluate them? Writers learn how to evaluate print sources based on elements such as audience, tone, and argument in the sixth handout of 24 in the Writing the Paper series from the...
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Cat Study Article
Learners write a letter to the editor of USA Today. In this letter writing lesson plan, students read a newspaper article about cats and consider a dog or cat's view on current events. Learners reflect this perspective in their letters.
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Inflation: Money Magazine Article
In this inflation worksheet, students read a 1-page article titled "Where's the Inflation?" and then respond to 4 short answer questions about the article.
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Outlining Main Ideas and Details
Begin at the end. Present your class with an expository essay and ask them to create an outline of the article, paying particular attention to the main ideas and the details supporting these ideas. After a discussion of what they have...
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Compare and Contrast Nonfiction Texts
Explore nonfiction writing by comparing and contrasting two different texts. After reading two nonfiction books, articles, or magazines, students utilize a graphic organizer to record their similarities and differences. They answer study...
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Briefly Noted: Practicing Useful Annotation Strategies
Post-It notes, highlighting, underlining. Sam Anderson’s New York Times Magazine article, “What I Really Want Is Someone Rolling Around in the Text,” launches a study of “marginalia,” or writing thoughts in the margins of a text. After...
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Real Women, Real Beauty
What is beauty? Moana Uluave, a scholar at Brigham Young University, writes on the subject as a Tongan living in America. After reading her article class members respond to four short-answer comprehension questions.
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"I Spy": Using Adjectives and Descriptive Phrases
Students define adjectives and use adjectives and descriptive phrases to write a descriptive paragraph. They write a description of a sensory item, and read and discuss a five senses chart. Students then complete a chart using adjectives...