Analyze a fictional text with a four-page packet that explores a story's main character and moral, challenges scholars to ask and answer questions about the text, and to create a story map. 

Graphic organizers are a wonderful tool for young writers to use to help them get their thoughts in order for a piece of writing. Here, learners are coached on what a piece of narrative writing is, and how they must have a distinct...

Teach your youngsters about the elements of plot with this handy graphic organizer. Pupils note down the main character, the setting, the problem, and the solution of any fictional story they read.

Character development, setting, and plot? Sounds like the makings of a good narrative story. Young authors read and analyze several narrative examples, and then they use what they know to pen an original composition. They work both in...

High schoolers evaluate several works by Edgar Allen Poe based on the criteria in his essay, "The Philosophy of Composotion" Their analysis is documented using a graphic organizer. Learners begin the pre-writing process for their own...

The Cay has been criticized by groups such as the Council on Interracial Books for Children because of the way race is portrayed. Explore the argument against the book while taking the author's perspective into account. Class members...

Second graders create a graphic organizer on Kidspiration about themselves. They write a personal narrative using the information from their graphic organizer. They share their project with the class.

Write dear old Peter Rabbit a letter with this lesson. First, youngsters listen to the story Peter Rabbit and analyze the story elements. Then they complete a story map graphic organizer in order to write a letter to Peter...

Use the constructive ideas in this resource to assist in developing your own career writing project for your junior high or young high school scholars. The resource provides step-by-step plans for the educator and learners, as well...

Happy birthday! Celebrate everyone's birthday with this writing activity, which prompts seventh graders to research historical events in a country at the time of their birth to create an essay. Working in pairs, they proofread each...

Focus on plot and the impact-specific events in The Cay. Class members use their double-entry journals, created in a previous lesson in this series, to record their thinking about the guiding question as they read chapters 15 through 17....

Use the fairy tale Rumpelstiltskin to teach your third grade class about descriptive writing. Following a teacher read-aloud of the story, the class brainstorms a list of adjectives describing the main character. Students use this list...

Help your class use critical thinking when it comes to unfamiliar words. With vocabulary from Kyoko Mori's Shizuko's Daughter, kids write the word in the center of a graphic organizer, and find its category, comparisons,...

Building upon prior lessons in the series, this reading and writing exercise requires pupils to look back at their own writing, track character development in the novel The Cay, and analyze how Phillip has changed. The reading focus is...

A, B, C ... let's alphabetize to get organized! Using the informative resource, scholars create an alphabetized glossary of key words for their graphic novelettes. Additionally, they create a table of contents and citations page. 

Use Langston Hughes's poem, "Words Like Freedom," to explore the concepts of freedom and liberty. Learners read the poem, determine the theme, and use the provided graphic organizer to examine the connotative and denotative meanings of...

Middle schooler practice their dictionary and thesaurus skills with this vocabulary assignment.  Using the provided graphic organizer and the word list from Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech, readers define each word, and find a...

Address the literary elements in a piece of writing using these materials. The packet includes plenty of resources, and focuses mainly on theme, character, and point of view, with some materials for setting, symbolism, and author's...

Want your class to use critical thinking when discussing vocabulary? Go beyond the dictionary with a vocabulary activity based on Gary Paulsen's Hatchet. Kids write the word in the center of a graphic organizer that also provides...

Enhance a unit on historical fiction with an engaging writing instructional activity. Learners bring the Industrial Era to life as they compose their own historical fiction pieces based on primary source images of Pittsburgh steel...

Young historians use their planning graphic organizer to prepare a personal narrative draft on expert trades. Since the instructional activity is considered the mid-unit assessment, learners respond to a writing prompt related to the...

Connect Martin Luther King Jr's famous speech, "I Have a Dream," to The Cay by Theodore Taylor. Taylor refers to the speech in his dedication, which creates a natural segue into talking about the speech and how it relates to the novel....

Use this packet as a companion to your study of Hatchet by Gary Paulsen. The resource breaks the novel up into several chunks, and for each chunk provides activities, background information, vocabulary, graphic organizers, and response...