Alabama Learning Exchange
Alex: Examining the Lives of Black Alabamians
Students compare and contrast their lives and character traits with those of famous black Alabamians. Students use technology to conduct research and write an expository essay.
Alabama Learning Exchange
Alex: How to Make Something Simple, Hard
Middle schoolers will have completed a unit of forces and motion prior to the current unit of study on simple machines (lever, inclined plane, screw, wedge, pulley, wheel and axle). Students will review the functions and examples of...
Texas Education Agency
Texas Gateway: Generate Ideas and Questions
This lesson will focus on the writing you do in high school. Whether you write expository and persuasive essays or short stories, your first steps are to determine and define your audience. After that, you will begin to generate ideas...
Alabama Learning Exchange
Alex: How to Cite Online Resources
After research in the Alabama Virtual Library, students will write a paragraph essay and use an online citation utility to create bibliographic citations for an online encyclopedia, an online magazine, and a print resource. Copying and...
Alabama Learning Exchange
Alex: Teaching the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales
In this self-directed study involving research, composition, and presentation, students analyze Chaucer's characters of The Canterbury Tales as presented in the Prologue. Each student casts a modern personality in the role of one of the...
John F. Kennedy Center
The Kennedy Center: Multi Media Hero Analysis
Using what they learn about how heroes are depicted in art, literature, and music, students create their own definition of a hero, and then write an essay based on a hero they wish to research.
Polk Brothers Foundation Center for Urban Education at DePaul University
De Paul University: Center for Urban Education: Chicago Changes [Pdf]
"Chicago Changes" is a one page, nonfiction, reading passage about how Chicago changed from a small town to a large city. It is followed by questions which require students to provide evidence from the story; it includes: determining...
ClassFlow
Class Flow: A Guide to Expository Writing
[Free Registration/Login Required] This flipchart will help guide the teacher and students through an expository writing prompt. Develop the essay directly on the flipchart and model writing for your class.CCSS.ELA-Literacy.WHST.6-8.2.a
Writing Fix
Writing Fix: Responding to Comparison/contrast: Compare/contrast Essay [Pdf]
This PDF instructional activity focuses on writing a comparison/contrast essay, which is a great format for helping students think deeply about two ideas or concepts with multiple similarities and differences. This type of essay has...
Polk Brothers Foundation Center for Urban Education at DePaul University
De Paul University: Center for Urban Education: New Leadership [Pdf]
"New Leadership" is Harold Washington's Acceptance Speech as Mayor of Chicago on April 12, 1983. It is followed by an assignment which requires students to provide evidence from the text; it includes comparing Washington's election as...
Polk Brothers Foundation Center for Urban Education at DePaul University
De Paul University: Center for Urban Education: Why Is Community Service Important? [Pdf]
"Why is Community Service Important?" is a one page, nonfiction, reading passage is part of a report that the Obama-Biden campaign prepared about service and volunteering. It is followed by questions which require students to provide...
Alabama Learning Exchange
Alex: Get to Know Your Library Media Center
This lesson will provide learners with an orientation to the Library Media Center and the Dewey Decimal Classification System. The students will access the Alabama Virtual Library and will participate in a library scavenger hunt as a...
Other
Oakland Writes: Student Exemplars: Tenth Grade: Response to Literature [Pdf]
An literary response essay written by a tenth-grader with notes calling attention to important writing concepts evident in the essay including a well-written title and introduction, a strong thesis, supporting details including quotes...
PBS
Pbs Learning Media: How Disruptions Affect Animal Populations
Learners explore the effects that ecosystem disruptions can have on animal populations. They learn about the disruptions that have driven three species-the Madagascar fish eagle, the Iberian lynx, and the rowi kiwi, to the brink of...
EL Education
El Education: Ampersand
Ampersand: the student journal of school & work is a compilation of essays written by students at High Tech High Media Arts in San Diego, California. All students at this school complete an internship with a local organization during...
Texas Education Agency
Texas Gateway: Organization Appropriate to Purpose, Audience, and Context
[Accessible by TX Educators. Free Registration/Login Required] This lesson will teach you how to write and organize an essay so that it addresses different purposes, different audiences, and different contexts.