Tap into the imaginative minds of young learners with a creative writing activity. After reading the myth Giants and Mosquitoes, this student guide supports young writers as they brainstorm and develop their very own creation myths....

Having read and discussed Bullfrog at Magnolia Circle, third graders demonstrate their bullfrog expertise by writing informational paragraphs. Building on the note-taking and paragraph planning from the previous lesson plan,...

Here is a nicely designed lesson plan with everything you need to implement it in your classroom. First, pairs of learners get together and each write their own version of a classic fairy tale. They then peer edit each other's stories,...

There's nothing like the prospect of writing a scary story to get your middle schoolers' writing juices flowing! In the lesson presented here, pupils listen to scary short stories read to them by the teacher. Then, a discussion ensues...

Lesson ten in this unit for the book Bullfrogs at Magnolia Circle, prepares third graders to begin writing an informational paragraph about the adaptations of bullfrogs. First, young writers work either independently or in pairs to...

Fourth graders view examples of help-wanted ads as they plan and create their own writing in the fourteenth instructional activity of this unit on colonial trade. The engagement of the class is captured when the teacher shares an actual...

A portrait The Radcliffe Family circa 1742 is inspiration for creative writing and empathetic reasoning. Your class discusses the period in which the piece was painted, then imagines what life was like for one of the people seen in the...

A new way to connect visual art and creative writing is on the horizon. Kids first identify the characters in the painting Rabbit Hunt, then write narrative from the perspective of one of the characters in the painting. They combine...

When your class members have completed the novel Esperanza Rising, they will be ready to write an expository essay on how Esperanza responds to events and what this says about her character. Set your pupils up for success by...

Here is a lesson plan that sounds like a lot of fun. Kids discuss the artistic elements and motives for the painting, Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. To get the scope and scale of this oversized masterpiece, they use butcher paper and...

You could spend a full day discussing The Phantom of the Opera and not scratch the surface, but a set of lessons about the literary elements and themes of the musical production is a great start. Young thespians build upon the...

Learning to edit copy using correct grammar and mechanics is an essential skill in school—where scholars are called upon to edit their peers' writing—and in business. Class members practice this skill by first editing a provided article...

Make some sense out of Lewis Carroll's famous nonsense poem "Jabberwocky." After reading through the poem, introduce the word portmanteau and send small groups off to alter the original poem. 

A 55-page unit examines the novel, The BFG, by Roald Dahl. Six lessons pay close attention to friendship, dreams, and believing themes while analyzing interesting characters, writing creative vocabulary, smilies, metaphors, an exciting...

Step up! Using the resource, scholars discover the six steps to writing an effective position paper. Next, they work on a graphic organizer to begin planning their argument-based essays.

Refuse to alienate your scientific-minded young scholars during your creative writing unit. Learners explore how literary writing can reflect observable fact, and be based in actual science. The links include examples of fiction and...

Every artist creates in his own unique way drawing from a variety of inspirational sources. Upper graders work to expand their understanding of the creative process by first analyzing a modern piece and then creating one. They listen to...

Writing is a process, and lesson planning is, too! A personal narrative unit stresses the writing process to pupils, who first examine various stories and poems as a model of autobiographical writing and then write their own stories....

Explore the structure of narrative writing with this fun, collaborative lesson. Start by reading aloud a short story, asking small groups of learners to fill in key events on a large story board prepared on the class whiteboard....

Continue work on the two-piece poem that compares two characters from Esperanza Rising. Give class members a few minutes to finish their drafts. After they have a complete product, model how to critique and edit the poems with one group....

Come up with a list of requirements for this expository essay on Esperanza's character in Esperanza Rising as a class and use the list to guide class writing. Here, learners will complete the first paragraph, discuss their notes for the...

Ask your learners to synthesize what they know about Waiting for the Biblioburro by writing a well-organized paragraph. Young writers focus on using transition words and including specific details in their paragraphs. The plan allows for...

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...

The fifth installment in a writing unit that culminates with a Hyperstudio illustrated group story project, this plan is ripe with ideas for ways to design group writing projects for elementary writers. Use the whole unit as a base from...