How do film adaptations differ from their literary counterparts? Scholars watch and analyze the 2011 Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) production of Shakespeare's Macbeth. Pupils complete a Quick Write analyzing how the RSC production...

What was life like for William Shakespeare's sister, Judith? Scholars continue reading Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own to find out. They complete a Quick Write to explain how Woolf's comparison of the siblings develops a central...

While preparing for the end-of-unit assessment, scholars look at Washington's "Atlanta Compromise" speech and identify the terms he used in the argument. They also identify the relationship between the claims presented in the speech and...

For every action there is a consequence. Scholars continue their work on creating a cascading consequence chart about DDT using Welcome Back, The Exterminator, Rachel Carson: Sounding the Alarm on Pollution along...

Letters ... a lost art or good resource? Scholars add letter writing to their informational text chart and describe the features of a letter. They then look at page 38 in Promises to Keep and complete a Perspectives Venn...

In this graphic organizer, students write in a KWHL chart. They fill in what they know in the first column, what they want to learn in the second, how they will learn in the third, and what they learned in the fourth.

Students use digital resources to learn about the life of Ann M. Martin, her writing process, and how she develops story ideas. They record notes and observations that might be useful in developing characters and a storyline for a...

Young scholars review the characteristics of the literary element of plot. They demonstrate an understanding of plot structure by applying the term in familiar contexts and using a plot diagram graphic organizer to present their analysis.

Middle schoolers write an essay comparing and contrasting their school experiences. Through guided practice, they create an outline of their elementary school experience and middle school experience. Using their outlines, students...

That's just the style. Learners begin with a mini-lesson about formal writing style. They then use what they learned about formal writing to begin the body paragraphs for their End of Unit 1 Assessment Prompt: Adversity in the Middle...

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....

Discuss the definition of parallel structure with your high school class. In small groups, they read a section of "The Declaration of Independence" to identify examples of parallel structure. Each learner writes an essay explaining the...

Let's focus on a holiday from around the world! Young researchers choose a holiday from somewhere around the world, and conduct research to answer questions about the holiday. It can be used anytime during the year!

Water, water everywhere. Readers revisit paragraphs six through nine in the article "Water is Life" to answer text-dependent questions. They then pair up to reread the article focusing on its structure and record their thoughts on...

Study the eight slides that detail the steps to writing a research report. The steps include brainstorming for ideas, constructing graphic organizers, and writing the final research product. An example of each step is given on each...

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...

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.

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...

Outlines are a great asset to essay planning. Scholars read and analyze a model essay about the importance of daily reading and consider how it would look in an outline format. Next, they outline their own informative essays about rules...

Scholars examine an excerpt from The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks and determine how the author builds up smaller details to create the larger idea of the main passage. To finish the lesson plan, learners discuss in pairs, answer...

Pupils explore the narrative structure of a piece of literary text, mapping out the plot structure of the Greek myth "Pyramus and Thisbe." Next, they use their completed graphic organizers to write story summaries.

That sounds like a plan! Scholars complete the Newspaper Article Planning graphic organizer to understand the process of writing a newspaper article. They also use what they learned about researching factual information and...