Students organize facts into categories and list the structure of a five-paragraph essay. They identify the main idea and outline the supporting details. In the class, students discuss how they organized their ideas and begin drafting...

Middle schoolers research child labor using Internet resources. They present the information in a creative writing piece and post it on Chalkboard.

Students brainstorm animals with unusual characteristics such as a giraffe with a short neck or a zebra without stripes. They write paragraphs about their animals and work in peer editing groups to refine their stories.

Identify the author's organizational pattern for expressing ideas. After reading an article on the California Gold Rush, middle schoolers determine the author's purpose for writing a passage of informational text. A full list of...

The world is full of possibilities for your ELLs. Help them explore their career options with a lesson that incorporates Internet research and expository writing. Not only will they learn more about their careers of choice, but both...

Although the article that launches this lesson is about the history of the Periodic Table, the objective is reading comprehension. Using the eight-page informational text, learners answer five comprehension questions and craft one essay....

Reinforce research skills, close reading, teamwork, and biographical writing skills with one collaborative instructional activity. Groups create slide shows detailing the elements of a biography through a presentation on a famous...

Your learners practice writing ideas on paper and logically presenting them in an organized manner. They brainstorm ways to write down ideas while creating a travelogue about a particular U.S. geographic region. When they present...

Using everything they have learned about writing paragraphs over the past few lessons of the unit, class members compose an informative paragraph independently. This is an authentic assessment of their ability, since learners have...

For the final step of the performance task for this unit, class members will create an illustration to go with the paragraph on their bookmark. After looking at models, guide pupils toward recognizing the criteria for an effective...

A lot of writers don't like creating an outline before writing the first draft of their paper. Introduce them to what an effective and organized outline looks like with this presentation. Designed for higher education, you could easily...

Students, after reading Fahrenheit 451, brainstorm inventions that could have been in the novel. They present their invention to the class and writing an expository essay about their creation.

What is an oral history interview? What goes into the planning and what should be said? Why is it important that we know and learn from oral history? This is an excellent instructional activity to support your young historians as...

Visit the Magic Treehouse and take your class on a trip through time with a reading of the children's book Mummies in the Morning. Using the story to spark an investigation into Egyptian culture, this literature unit engages...

Why do athletes load up on carbohydrates the evening before a competition? The lesson helps answer this question as it relates the type of food to the amount of energy it contains. After a discussion, scholars perform an experiment...

Science, engineering, and United States history? Pupils research collections of artifacts from the Smithsonian to learn about historical scientific innovations. At the end of the lesson, they write an essay to discuss technology's...

From checking and savings accounts to learning the importance of maintaining records and balancing a bank account, prepare your students to become financially independent and savvy adults, and explore all the intricacies of owning a bank...

Students write on a variety of topics, maximize creative and expository writing skills, develop focused writing, organize ideas, incorporate detail in writing, and exhibit varied and precise word choice.

Students identify the elements of an informative essay. Through a teacher led discussion, students explore the basic parts of a five paragraph essay and , using a hamburger as an analogy, students label the pieces. They discuss the...

Students summarize information from their research on to note-cards. In this technical writing lesson students examine examples of note-cards that contain main ideas from research previously conducted.  They will then compose their...

Students research, using a variety of sources, a topic that has been previously chosen. They evaluate their information for the value, relevance, and accuracy. Students identify problems in their research and writing to get assistance as...

Fourth graders experience a dress rehearsal of timed demand writing. This lesson allows students to prepare for a timed writing test in which they don't know the prompt. This lesson includes writing prompts and rubrics imbedded in the plan.

Present your class with an overview of poetry-related information. The slides are clearly organized by topic, starting with reading poetry, ending with myths, and touching on everything from the five senses to open and closed forms of...

Bring the drama of history to life in your class and give your learners the opportunity to illustrate their understanding of a historical situation through the medium of a dialogue and/or play. Your young historians will consider a...