Curated OER
Advanced Practical Writing
Using a motivating topic as the focus, this activity has learners write an email as though they are describing their new house. English language learners read an example letter, and then practice their own writing skills by writing a...
Lakeshorelearning
Read and Write about It
Reading informational text is a skill that transcends subjects and grade levels. Practice reading about different topics in various formats with a language arts lesson that includes opportunities for writing and research as well.
Trinity University
Explain Yourself: An Expository Writing Unit for High School
Introduce expository writing with a unit that asks writers to craft an essay to explain a belief, value, or priority that is important to them. Mini-lessons within the unit focus on crafting thesis statements and conclusions, selecting...
Curated OER
Writing Using a Visual Prompt: Snowman and Girl
Learners can use this simple worksheet as a guide when writing a short essay. This activity, which features a little girl with a snowman, could be used to spur students to use their imagination to write a paragraph.
Curated OER
Narrative Writing
Binoculars are used as a metaphor for good descriptive writing. Class members first view a small picture and then an enlarged view of the same image in which the details come into focus. Next, learners examine a paragraph lacking sensory...
EngageNY
Mid-Unit 2 Assessment: On-Demand Informational Writing
Lesson 7 focuses on building academic vocabulary and writing an explanatory letter with supported textual evidence. For the first five minutes of the instructional activity, the educator reminds the class of how to read and refer to the...
Curriculum Corner
March Writing Ideas
So many things are happening in March, why not write about them? From Dr. Seuss' birthday to Peanut Butter Lover's Day to St. Patrick's Day, the prompts listed in the worksheet are sure to spark creative writing.
Birmingham City Schools
Stick to the Point: Getting It Right with Constructed Responses
Practice writing constructed responses with a 26-slide presentation. Developed to guide scholars through the appropriate steps, the resource assists them in providing a well-considered answer.
EngageNY
Revising for Organization and Style: Bold Beginnings
Get young writers thinking about how to write a great beginning for their narratives. After examining examples of solid beginnings in literary text, young writers discuss the criteria for a compelling introduction. Then, independently,...
Curated OER
Descriptive Prompt: Precise Language
Incorporate sensory details into a piece of descriptive writing. First, elementary and middle schoolers improve a piece of writing by using precise, vivid language, as well as appropriate word choice. They then listen to a variety of...
Curated OER
Essay Writing
Are your learners working towards their GED? First they study the GED essay rubric, and then they read a sample essay as a group. After studying the basic elements, they write an essay of their own. After peer editing, they revise their...
Curated OER
Writing a Newspaper Article
The perfect resource for a beginning journalism teacher or someone designing a journalism unit, this activity prompts young scholars to write a newspaper article. It covers all aspects of the writing process, such as a guided warm-up...
Core Knowledge Foundation
Unit 4: The Renaissance
The Renaissance is the theme of a five-week unit designed to boost reading comprehension, spelling, vocabulary, and expository writing skills. Scholars listen to and discuss daily readings and engage in skills practice activities...
Great Schools
Different Types of Writing
What type of writing is this? Learners read a brief introduction to various types of text: instructions, explanations, poems, folk tales, novels, informative, and arguments. The introduction doesn't explain these, so consider going over...
Curated OER
Foreshadowing and Making Predictions
"What happens next?" Using real-life scenarios, movies, images, and other prompts, pupils practice making predictions based on inferences from clues. A SMART board activity takes them from making predictions to writing a prediction...
Curated OER
"The Charge of the Light Brigade": Writing Prompt and Pre-writing
Inspire your learners to experience poetry in an entirely different way with this resource. A writing prompt that goes along with "The Charge of the Light Brigade" by Alfred Lord Tennyson, learners craft a reflective piece in the voice...
Curated OER
Strong Convictions
How can the rhetorical structure of an editorial help to develop its argument? Use this New York Times editorial to emphasize the importance of structure in a piece of informational text. Adolescent writers then use the editorial as a...
Curated OER
Writing Exercise: Nationalism Around the World I
Get the class thinking and writing about nationalism around the world from 1800-1914. They answer three writing prompts in paragraph form, discussing the establishment of Turkey, Zionism, and European Nationalism.
EngageNY
Drafting Body Paragraphs
That's just the style. Learners begin with a mini-lesson about formal writing style. They then use what they learned about formal writing to begin the body paragraphs for their End of Unit 1 Assessment Prompt: Adversity in the Middle...
K12 Reader
Lost and Found
You're walking down the street and find a wallet on the ground. What do you do with it? This age-old scenario serves as a narrative writing prompt that challenges children to come up with creative stories describing the fate of the lost...
K12 Reader
The Greatest President
Who is the greatest US president? George Washington? Abraham Lincoln? FDR? Find out the opinions of your young historians with this cross-curricular writing prompt that engages them in researching the accomplishments of these influential...
K12 Reader
A Planet in the Solar System
Take young scientists on an exploration of the cosmos with this cross-curricular writing exercise. Tasked with producing an expository composition describing a planet of their choosing, students perform research and present their...
EngageNY
End of Unit 3 Assessment: Writing a Research Synthesis
Ready, set, write! Scholars work on the end-of-unit assessment by completing a writing prompt. They then look at the model performance task from instructional activity two to create a rubric for scoring the exercise. Using turn and talk,...
Curated OER
It’s Your Birthday! – Conventions: Revision and Proofreading
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...