November is NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month! If your class is participating (or simply doing a narrative writing unit), this peer review lesson is part of a larger unit which can be easily found online. Once your writers have...

Comparing two texts can build a greater understanding of the texts and themes of the works. Take some time to follow the steps here to guide your pupils through the process of composing compare-and-contrast essays.

Learners write a topic sentence to a paragraph and explain that it introduces the main idea. After a whole-class demonstration, students write a complete paragraph with their topic sentence and supporting sentences. There are some...

Using a constructivist approach and a graphic organizer, small groups work together to begin a paper, comparing and contrasting the novella Night and the movie Life is Beautiful. Assuming that your learners have studied both of these...

Exploring the similarities and differences between the Black Death and HIV/AIDS, learners write persuasive essays answering which is the "worse plague." This cross-curricular activity between Language Arts and Social Studies addresses...

Elementary schoolers are charged with writing an article for their peers. A class discussion yields topics about which learners consider themselves to be an expert. The teacher models how to construct an article by using facts he or she...

This may be a lot to ask of a high schooler, but then again, who knows? Pupils work in groups to explore, write, and then perform an original opera. They view versions of The Magic Flute and La Traviata, then compose a plot, characters,...

Note-taking is an essential study skill, and it needs to be taught! In the context of a research project on energy sources, learners find multiple sources, evaluating, paraphrasing, and citing them correctly. Two lists with note-taking...

An interesting way to look at the kitchen floor is to count the number of tiles in the border. Fred starts with four white floor tiles and writes an expression for the number of tiles needed for the colored border. Algebra learners are...

A thorough unit on literary analysis and character development culminates in a final writing assessment. Prompted to compare the parent-child relationships in Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club and H.G. Bissinger's Friday Night Lights, high...

After reading Elie Wiesel's Night, watching the movie Life is Beautiful, and researching World War II, class members write a comparison essay on the book and film. This includes a prior knowledge activity, discussion in whole and small...

Scholars discuss the concept of a barrier with a short passage on Jackie Robinson. The writing process begins with a paragraph and several other sentences about Robinson's unique traits that made breaking a barrier...

How do you determine an author’s purpose? You ask the author, of course. Invite a local journalist into the class to respond to scripted student questions about his/her writing process. A review of basic classroom etiquette is also...

Class members develop their own glossaries for unfamiliar words in each chapter in Elizabeth George Speare’s The Sign of the Beaver. After recording the word, the page number on which the word appears, and its part of speech, they...

High schoolers begin with a teacher-leld discussion of recent research, which has found measurable imporovements in patient symptoms even four monthe after their participation in a brief writing exercise about a stressful event in the...

Students navigate through an online interactive virtual zoo to create imaginary animals by combining different parts of real animals. They write a short story about their combination creature.

C.E.R = Claim + Evidence + Reasoning. That's the framework behind building a solid piece of argument writing. Introduce young writers to this format with an engaging lesson that uses YouTube videos and a PowerPoint to illustrate the...

Ever wonder how to memorialize World War I heroes in the classroom? Activities in a high-quality social studies resource prompt middle schoolers to research Internet sources, complete a graphic organizer, and write an editorial feature...

Imagine using narrative essays to encourage change. This multi-week unit plan does just that. After reading a series of articles from Tyson Miller's Dream of a Nation: Inspiring Ideas for a Better America, class members examine the...

Seventh graders review the stages of the writing process. In this writing process lesson, 7th graders review the writing process steps by creating a personal timeline. Students complete graphic organizers for the lesson and present their...

Fourth graders review the writing process by using the English Language Arts Writer's Checklist. They examine a piece of writing for the key elements of composition. They help to make the writing pieces more interesting by correcting...

Students decide which issues are most important to their student body and work in cooperative learning groups to write editorials. In this editorial writing lesson, students brainstorm a list of the most important issues and bring...

Scholars use a playing card activity to help them develop a program to find the minimum value of a list. They learn to use for loops to write code that will process lists. 

Write, edit, and then revise! The fourth lesson in a five-part series asks peers to provide feedback on research. Individuals then use the research to edit and revise conclusions and develop their presentations.