High schoolers complete a personal vision, a four year plan essay, meant to stimulate their thinking process. They set a foundation for what they hope to strive for in the next four years to come.

Young scholars write a short essay in response to a writing prompt related to a theme or issue raised within the Minnesota-China Connection Web site.

Students edit and revise a first draft of an essay which they are in the process of writing. They proofread for grammatical, spelling, and punctuation errors while using their word processing skills.

Students consider the attributes of persuasive essays. In this written communication lesson students examine sample persuasive essays and discuss their impressions of the essays by completing the provided post-reading strategy. 

Students use their critical thinking skills to write about historical events. In this historical perspectives instructional activity, students read documents about historical events and make annotations and marginal notes. Students then...

Young scholars write about literature. In this writing skills lesson, students discuss recurring literature themes and then write reflective essays that about the themes in pieces of literature they have read.

Hobbits, dwarfs, wizards, trolls, and goblins. Readers track these fantastic creatures through J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit noting passages of character description and habitats. Using specific passages from the novel, class...

Learners formulate a definition of art in the introductory activity for a unit on various art forms. The learning emphasis is placed on Oregonian artist Duff Severe and reflective writing. Pupils compose an essay describing various art...

High schoolers evaluate several works by Edgar Allen Poe based on the criteria in his essay, "The Philosophy of Composotion" Their analysis is documented using a graphic organizer. Learners begin the pre-writing process for their own...

Combining visual and language arts, here is a resource that prompts middle schoolers to write stories based on pictures of their surroundings. They use digital cameras to take pictures of favorite areas in the school. Next, they choose...

Students, after brainstorming possible problem solving activities, choose from one of the many and write what the problem is and a solution to solve it.

Guide your writers in the pre-writing stage of a research project. Print this sheet to help each writer select an appropriate research topic. They practice narrowing and broadening two different options provided. A natural follow-up...

Collective story writing is a great way to reinforce the concept of story elements and collaborative learning. Young writers discuss story elements such as, setting, character, action, climax, conclusion, foreshadowing, dialogue, and...

Slavery in India, Sudan, and Mauritania? What about in the United States? Groups research modern slavery in these four countries, collecting factual evidence (What), determine their feelings about this evidence (So what),...

Who is telling the story? Readers take a look at the text Eight Days to determine if the story is told in first or third person. They then discuss in groups and complete a shared writing activity to describe how the narrator's point of...

Wrap-up a unit on global climate change with a lesson that examines the causes and effects of climate change. Learners fill out a chart that represents what they think causes climate change—natural and human-based—and what they think...

It's time for your class to literally show what they know! Pupils illustrate what they learned about the causes and effects of climate change by filling out a graphic organizer to complete the 5-part series of lessons. They discuss them...

How do you think the parrot in "The Ghost" chapter of Matilda feels in the chimney? Put a class member in the hot seat and have the class ask questions relating to how they might have felt if they were the parrot in the chimney....

It's easy to criticize those in power until you're sitting at their desk, faced with the same decisions. A history lesson prompts secondary learners to research the Roosevelt presidencies through the lens of leadership and...

Bring a time machine into your classroom with this writing lesson plan, in which young writers project themselves back in time and have a variety of choices from that point forward. They either write a conversation with a historical...

Need a model for character education? Benjamin Franklin presents himself as in a constant state of striving to become the man he hoped to be, making his autobiography is far more accessible to learners than those of people who consider...

Students analyze the types of writing and answer questions about the writing genres. In this writing types lesson, students define and discuss the types of writing including expository, descriptive, persuasive, technical, and narrative...

Students practice descriptive writing in a thank-you note format. In this descriptive writing lesson, students read the example letter and analyze the corrections in the letter. Students read the example thank you notes and focus on the...

Young scholars develop a strategy for combining various ideas into well formed sentences which then combine to produce effective descriptive paragraphs.