Curated OER
Roy G. Biv Has Feelings Too
Students test their memory recall and discuss its association to color. After reading an article, they discuss the natural and psycho-sociological significance of the color red. As a class, they participate in a mood-color association...
Curated OER
Bugging Out
Students explore how insects behave in their natural habitats and build dioramas to create an Insect World in their classroom. They investigate various insects and the roles they play in the environment. They write creative short...
Curated OER
What's in a Word?
Students complete a unit on words, their origins, and their usage. They explore various websites, create a word ladder online, develop a list of anagrams, write a story using homonyms, and create a list of vocabulary words.
National Endowment for the Humanities
A Raisin in the Sun: Whose "American Dream"?
How does Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun factor into a discussion of the American dream? High schoolers define the American dream and recognize the historical setting of the play. Additionally, they identify...
Curated OER
Web Quest on "How to Write a Mystery."
Students complete a Web Quest on How to Write a Mystery. They listen to or read a short mystery story and discuss its elements. They write an outline of a mystery story using all of the elements.
Curated OER
Digital Storytelling
Sixth graders write a creative story and turn it into a digital storybook. In this digital storytelling lesson, 6th graders write a creative story, illustrate the story, and then use computer technology to turn their story and...
Curated OER
Narrative Sketches
Second graders read "Tuesday" for inspiration. They draw three pictures that illustrate the beginning, middle and end of a story with very short notes to describe the sketches. They use the sketches as an organizer to use before writing...
Curated OER
KS3 Bitesize
Students complete exercises using their five senses to improve their writing skills. In this writing skills lesson, students complete activities blindfolded and using their five senses. Students then select an abstract noun and describe...
Curated OER
The Human Organism
Students discuss human emotions and mental health. In this mental and emotional health instructional activity, students write a short story regarding the "think and share" choice. Students include emotion, the connection between...
Curated OER
Divided We Fall
Students examine the Bill of Rights. In this U.S. Constitution instructional activity, students write essays for perform plays that feature the importance of the first ten amendments. Students imagine the United States without 1 of the...
Curated OER
Using Effective, Amusing Writing As a Model
Learners use the author's writing as a model to achieve vivid description and engaging humor in compositions of their own. They examine the ways a writer can capture and hold a reader's attention and write a short personal narrative...
Curated OER
School Day
Learners participate in a lesson that involves writing a persuasive essay. They use the prompt of "extending the school day". The paper should contain correct elements of sentence structure with clear purpose that is supported with...
Curated OER
Comparing Themes and Plots: "Young Goodman Brown" and "The Minister's Black Veil"
Students read two stories by Nathaniel Hawthorne and write an essay comparing plots and themes. In this Nathaniel Hawthorne short stories instructional activity, students read "Young Goodman Brown" and "The Minister's Black Veil." After...
Curated OER
Express Yourself!
Elementary learners practice reading with expression to understand text better. They identify punctuation marks to see how each sentence is to be expressed with a certain emotion. Then they practice their new skills by working through...
Curated OER
Fairy Dictionary
Use artwork to illicit responses in a writing journal, and then present your class with the short list of key terms provided. Can your learners add any of their own key terms? Segue for a second, and read tales such as Peter Pan or...
Curated OER
A News Story of Your Own: Sentence and Lexical Variety
Given the two-sentence skeleton of a news story about a car theft/joy ride, budding writers create their own version of the story varying diction and sentence structure to heighten interest and complexity in their writing. Resource...
Curated OER
Learning Life Lessons through Fables
Explore a variety of fables to learn life's lessons through engaging stories. Add rigor to the learning process with activities that include matching a a fable to the story's moral, short answer exit slips, and a three-column graphic...
Literacy Design Collaborative
Jumping Frog of Calaveras County
Was that supposed to be funny? Scholars analyze The Jumping Frog of Calaveras County to determine if Mark Twain's story is indeed based on humor. Learners work through short response questions, vocabulary, and active reading to make a...
Benjamin Franklin Tercentenary
Franklin’s Philadelphia: Another Point of View
The impressive story of Benjamin Franklin, including his rise from a printer’s apprentice to a statesman, color upper-level scholars’ understanding of the possibilities of life in colonial Philadelphia. But not everyone had the...
Curated OER
Writing in Different Viewpoints
Young scholars read and analyze the point of view of a selected classic short story. They take notes while reading the story, select a character, and rewrite the story from a different viewpoint.
Curated OER
Writing a Query Letter
Learners examine how to write a query letter to a publisher. They plan a short story they would like to write, conduct Internet research about possible publishers, and write a sample query letter.
Curated OER
Tell Me a Train Story
Second graders write a short story about train track safety and make a train shaped book.
Curated OER
Creative Writing Inspired by Paintings
Third graders view a PowerPoint presentation of the images by Maxfield Parrish. They wirte a short story based on one image and create drawings of an imagined character.
Curated OER
Creating A Story
Second graders practice the necessary steps that should be taken in order to create a story from scratch. They brainstorm as a class in order to come up with different ideas. Students write a story that includes a plot, characters, and...