No matter how difficult high school writing may seem, college writing presents challenges of its own. The fourth in a series of 24 handouts from The Writing Center at UNC breaks down the expectations for college writing. Scholars learn...

Every writer knows how terrible writer's block can feel. Use these five writer's block-busting techniques to help young writers get out of their rut and into a better state of mind.

There's no set length for a good paragraph, but the short block of text should contain key components. A handout on paragraphs, the 12th in a series of 24, outlines a five-step process for paragraph development. Additionally, the handout...

Acrostic poems are perfect for any topic! A quick tutorial guides learners into writing acrostic poems with the basics and key examples.

Poor organization often destroys an otherwise good paper. After writing a first draft, individuals consider the organization of ideas, a topic discussed in the 16th handout in the 24-part Writing the Paper series. The resource covers...

Despite the formal nature of academic writing, personal pronouns frequently appear in high school and college papers. While your first instinct may be to cross them out, sometimes it's okay to use them, an idea covered in a handout that...

Phrases such as "This paper is going to be about" and "I am going to tell you about" do not make for effective thesis statements. A handout from the UNC Writing Center helps writers break from those phrases to craft effective thesis...

Not all sources are created equal, so how do you evaluate them? Writers learn how to evaluate print sources based on elements such as audience, tone, and argument in the sixth handout of 24 in the Writing the Paper series from the...

Why should classes care about the First Amendment? An engaging lesson serves as a powerful tool for answering just that. As all four cases in the lesson relate directly to freedom of expression in schools, young scholars explore the...

Today, Cuba and America sometimes struggle with diplomatic relations, but did you know that America went to war against Spain to free Cuba? Learners examine many interesting facts related to the Spanish American War using an informative...

Luckily for those who aren't history buffs, anyone can guess that the War of 1812 happened in ... 1812. But how to cover the rest of the story? The resource does just that with effective direct instruction that includes statistics,...

In the world of academia, conference papers and presentations play a big role. It's through conference papers that professors and graduate assistants share their research with others in the field. A handout on conference papers, part of...

As many unfortunate journalists have learned, taking someone else's ideas and passing them off as your own is never a good idea. It's called plagiarism—and it's a big deal. Thankfully, a handout helps writers learn how to avoid...

Sixteen slides showcase an average day on the job for a paleontologist, Ross MacPhee. Engaging images include world maps and real-world photographs from an archeological dig in Antarctica. A brief description accompanies each slide.

Art analysis might help uncover some of life's most puzzling questions, such as the mystery behind Mona Lisa's smile. The handout, from the Writing for Specific Fields series, is particularly useful for those interested in pursuing art...

Learners decide if tablets should replace textbooks in K-12 schools. They watch four pro and con videos and discover the history of the tablets-versus-textbooks debate. As a bonus, the resource allows them to submit their own comments...

Love, deception, witty bante—that's much ado about a lot!  As learners navigate the resource, they view an interactive character map and read character biographies from Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing. Pupils also...

At best, fighting in hockey makes the sport more entertaining; at worst, fighting could lead to death. Pupils read background information about the prevalence of fighting in hockey since the 1917 formation of the National Hockey League....

Eighteen is the age of adulthood in the United States, but 21 is the legal drinking age. Pupils use the provided website to determine whether the age to legally purchase and consume alcohol should be lowered. They weigh the pros and...

This website from the Glendale Community College shows the structure of five paragraph essays and the elements within the paragraphs (motivator, thesis sentence, topic sentence, specific support, reworded thesis, clincher). Gives...

Read about the winner of the 1990 Nobel Prize in Literature, Octavio Paz. This Nobel E-Museum website includes a biography, poetry, Paz's Nobel lecture entitled "In Search of the Present," and many other resources.

This series of 12 downloadable activities teach students some basics of story writing, using books or videos from the PBS "Arthur" series as a springboard. Activities include creating story maps, asking questions about characters and...

This is a five-step process for writing a book review. Writers advise on how to write a book review. There is also an opportunity to publish your review on the World Wide Web.

Find short biographies of twenty-three of the fifty-five delegates to the Constitutional Convention and their ideas about government. These men were certainly not representative of the common man in the new United States, but they were...