Handout
Curated OER

The Heart of Your Paper: 11 Methods for Writing a Topic Sentence (or a Thesis Statement)

For Teachers 5th - 8th Standards
Help your young writers produce high-quality topic and thesis statements that go beyond basic wording and really illustrate complex ideas and critical thinking skills. From however and compound sentence statements to using...
Handout
Nosapo

Family Titles, Pronouns, Writing about a Person

For Students 4th - 12th Standards
How is your grandmother related to you? How is your cousin related to your grandmother? Learn about family relationships and pronouns with an activity that guides pupils to write two short narratives about members of their families.
Handout
Anchorage School District

Writing Reference Sheet

For Teachers 5th - 12th
Print out this handy reference page double sided and distribute it to your class. Individuals can use the page to aid them as they work on their topic sentences, transitions, conclusions, and paragraph structure. There is plenty of...
Handout
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Curated OER

Sentence Patterns

For Teachers 3rd - 7th Standards
Clear up confusion surrounding simple, compound, and complex sentences. The poster, which could also be used as a reference sheet, includes five examples. The types of clauses, parts of speech, and types of punctuation are color-coded to...
Handout
Nosapo

Writing about a Meal

For Students 4th - 12th Standards
You don't need to be a food critic to describe your meal accurately! A series of activities introduce learners to vivid adjectives when writing about the taste, smell, and feel of food. After working with word choice, parts of a...
Activity
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Scholastic

Narrative Writing

For Teachers 5th - 9th Standards
If you're looking to start a unit based around narrative writing, make sure to consider this resource while you're planning. This book covers five topics: writing personal narratives, writing narratives about others, writing...
Handout
Anchorage School District

Writing Effective Summaries

For Teachers 4th - 12th
Drafting a strong first sentence for a summary is an important step. Writers can use the formula presented on this handout to get started. The resource lists three steps to put together a strong topic sentence, as well as tips and hints...
Handout
Nosapo

What Is in a Sentence, Paragraph, and Story?

For Students 4th - 12th Standards
Language arts is made up of many parts. Learners review the parts of a sentence, as well as how to make a simple sentence into a complex sentence, before examining full paragraphs and identifying the topic, body, and concluding sentence...
Handout
Nosapo

Writing Prompt: Write About a Photo

For Students 4th - 12th
Practice descriptive writing with a prompt that includes a photograph. Writers craft the whole story of the single second caught in a photo using the provided questions to prompt their imaginations. 
Handout
San José State University

Writing Concisely: Deleting or Replacing Unnecessary Information

For Students 9th - Higher Ed Standards
Are you actually feeling really tired of reading wordy, redundant, long, lengthy sentences practically all the time over and over again? Introduce writers to this handout and exercise to teach to tighten up their prose! Provides two ways...
Handout
San José State University

Revising for Clarity: Characters and Their Actions

For Students 9th - Higher Ed
This handout offers a three-step process for revising sentences for clarity: diagnose, analyze, revise. After reading an example sentence revision with a detailed explanation, learners complete three sample sentences using the three-step...
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Spanish Sentence Structure

For Teachers 7th - 12th
Instruct your class on how to put together a sentence in Spanish. The resource covers the different parts of speech, showing how the Spanish version of each sentence compares with the English version. While there are no procedures...
Handout
San José State University

Sentence Fragments

For Students 9th - Higher Ed
Work on sentence fragments with your class using this handout and brief exercise. This resource, which could be used as a reference sheet for learners, goes into detail about complete sentences and the different errors that cause...
Handout
Ereading Worksheets

Persuasive Essay Examples

For Students 5th - 8th Standards
Your young writers will practice identifying the hook, position statement, and main points of two examples of persuasive writing.
Handout
Curated OER

Simple, Compound, Complex, and Compound-Complex Sentences

For Students 3rd - 7th Standards
What kind of sentence is it? This can be a complex subject, so don't compound the difficulty by skipping over the topic! It's simple, just have your class read and go over the information here and then complete the included exercise.
Handout
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Calloway County Schools

Dialogue Rules, Worksheet, and Writing Assignment

For Students 3rd - 10th Standards
Punctuating dialogue properly can be tricky, but your pupils can become punctuation masters with practice. This resource includes an explanatory page that describes the rules of writing dialogue and provides examples. On the second page,...
Handout
San José State University

Parallelism

For Students 9th - 12th Standards
What is parallelism? Novice writers learn about parallelism and practice balancing 10 sentences for better syntax and parallel structure. A clear, straightforward worksheet with answers included.
Handout
Curated OER

Thesis Statement + Projected Plan = Introduction

For Teachers 5th - 12th
Set up your writers for writing strong introductions with a formula for putting together supported thesis statements. This reference page breaks the process down and provides an example of how to compose a thesis statement, develop a...
Handout
Anchorage School District

Hints for Writing a Conclusion

For Teachers 4th - 10th Standards
Writing the conclusion of an essay can often seem like a superfluous or daunting task. Support your young writers in understanding the various types and purposes of a conclusion paragraph, such as summarizing key points of a paper or...
Handout
San José State University

Comma Splices and Fused Sentences

For Teachers 9th - Higher Ed
Beginning with a definition and a few corrected examples, this resource shows how comma splices can be identified and then eliminated. Four sentences are enumerated for writers to practice in order to avoid comma splices themselves.
Handout
Syracuse City School District

Capitalization and Punctuation

For Teachers 9th - 12th Standards
How many of the pupils in your language arts class can differentiate between a colon and a semicolon? Clarify common conventions, including end punctuation, proper capitalization, and sentence structure, with a series of helpful grammar...
Handout
Anchorage School District

“Dressing Up” an Introduction

For Teachers 4th - 8th
Are your pupils ready to move beyond a thesis statement by adding additional detail to their introductory paragraphs? Provide this handout to give your class some ideas for spiffing up their work. The page includes a sample paragraph...
Handout
San José State University

Avoiding Nominalization

For Students 9th - Higher Ed
Improve syntax with this explanatory handout. It clarifies one way to make writing more precise: avoiding nominalization. This resource provides four ways to find and change nominalization problems and 10 sentences to correct. There are...
Handout
San José State University

Old Information Before New Information

For Students 10th - Higher Ed
Help your writers streamline their sentence structure with this handout. This resource provides information about sentence organization including definitions and models of the active voice and the passive voice. In addition to reading...