Follow poetry instruction with a four-category rubric designed to guide budding poets' writing of free verse poetry. 

Help readers make a personal connection to Homer's The Odyssey with a narrative writing assignment. Scholars select one of three prompts and craft a first-person narrative rich in sensory details that describes an experience they had...

A great resource for your unit on Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart. Small groups conduct research about related topics (list included), write papers, present PowerPoint slide shows, and take a student-created test. Fill in a few...

Imagine using narrative essays to encourage change. This multi-week unit plan does just that. After reading a series of articles from Tyson Miller's Dream of a Nation: Inspiring Ideas for a Better America, class members examine the...

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....

Angela Shelf Medearis' Poppa's New Pants provides third graders with an opportunity to stitch together their own narrative filled with sensory details. After reading the story and noting the sensory and concrete details in the tale...

Spice up your writing! Your amateur writers will benefit from concentrating on understanding and improving verb use in writing. An introductory activity addresses weak verbs. A second exercise helps them see the importance of strong...

Finish a unit on Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea with a narrative essay. Based on Santiago's harrowing adventures, the essay prompts readers to think about a time when they were faced with a challenge, overcame a...

Bring writing to life with this lesson in which elementary and middle schoolers create a display of the imagery they identify in a series of Gary Paulsen books. They read the suggested materials, identify imagery and descriptive...

Car For sale! In this GED prep lesson, writers develop a classified advertisement to sell a car. After a discussion of precise words and phrases, telling details, and sensory language, sellers draft their ad for review, revision and...

The intricate craft of narrative writing can make a happy story feel exuberant or a sad story feel devastating. With 42 extensive lessons that include poignant discussion questions, standards-aligned self-reflections, engaging writing...

Esther Forbes' award-winning Revolutionary War novel, Johnny Tremain and excerpts from Julie Otsuka's When the Emperor Was Divine are used to model how imagery brings alive the setting of a story. The young writers then craft their...

Step into the great outdoors and develop young scientists' skills of observation with a nature journaling lesson. Given a specific focus or goal, children practice making and recording observations of nature through written descriptions...

Third graders have fun using descriptive words in an expository format to describe a food that they hate. They utilize a planning worksheet that's imbedded in this plan before they begin their drafts.

Students view a Powerpoint presentation on writing and sending email. After examining a Website about the parts of a friendly letter, they compose and send their own letters via email. Teachers set up an email/pen pal account so...

I absolutely love this idea. Kids explore the chiaroscuro technique as they draw, then bite, then write about an apple. They discuss chiaroscuro, depth, shade, perspective, and texture. Then they draw their apples, write a descriptive...

"First Appearance," Mark Twain's tale about overcoming stage fright, serves as a model of a personal narrative and gets young writers thinking about milestones in their own lives. After examining student models and considering the...

What a fun idea! The class discusses, and then writes free-verse poems using sensory detail. They get into small collaborative writing teams to compose their poems. Next, they pantomime the actions from the poem while their teammates...

Students complete different activities involving pedometers such as writing a creative story, calculating step averages, researching pedometers, calculating calories, and much more. 

Students demonstrate their learning about Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers Union by writing a biopoem. They word process the poem.

Learners examine several writings from both locals and Peace Corps volunteers from several African countries. Students reflect on how the writer's interactions with water are presented through the material. Learners write their own pieces.

Students study the following terms and concepts: word choice, dialect, invented words, concrete terms, abstract terms, figurative and sensory language. In cooperative groups, they select three of the terms, research them, and pick poems...

The death of a parent can turn a child's world upside down. A curriculum guide for The Secret Hum of a Daisy explores defining moments in the main character's life, including the loss of her mother. Chapter-by-chapter discussion...

Everyone wants to be part of a royal family. Let your pupils experience the privilege of royalty by rewriting the story The Frog Prince from the point of view of the princess. While the story line remains the same, perspective is bound...