Using different writing/drawing materials (e.g., markers, color pencils, pastels, etc.), students learn how to communicate different moods and/or feelings to support their written ideas and how authors do the same through their work.
Color My World: Expanding Meaning Potential through Media
Question and Answer Books--From Genre Study to Report Writing
After exploring several question and answer books on a variety of topics, students research a topic and create their own class question and answer book.
A Genre Study of Letters With The Jolly Postman
Students read The Jolly Postman, in which a postman delivers letters to storybook characters. They explore different types of mail and categorize letters from the book and their own mail.
Authoring an Epilogue That Helps Our Characters Live On
This lesson uses One Green Apple by Eve Bunting to teach how characters change across a text. It will also guide students through writing an epilogue to accompany their independent book.
Research Building Blocks: Skim, Scan, and Scroll
In this lesson from a research skills unit, students read informational text, looking for supporting details. They practice skimming and scanning print resources, and scrolling through electronic resources.
Stapleless Book
The Stapleless Book can be used for taking notes while reading, making picture books, collecting facts, or creating vocabulary booklets . . . the possibilities are endless!
Nonfiction Pyramid
After students read an article or other work of nonfiction, they can use the Nonfiction Pyramid to reflect on key ideas and details in the text.
Sequence of Events Chart
This graphic organizer helps students see the sequential or cause-effect relationships between multiple events in a text.
Depend on the Text! How to Create Text-Dependent Questions
Teachers need to create text-dependent questions to elicit close reading. When answering these questions, students learn to reread and think deeply about the text.
Promote Deep Thinking! How to Choose a Complex Text
Complex texts promote deep thinking and critical analysis by students. Through close reading of a complex text, students' independent reading abilities also increase.
Get Close to Think Deeply: Creating Primary-Level Close Readings
Close readings allow primary students to engage with complex texts. Through repeated reading, students build a deep understanding of the text and critical thinking skills.
A Musical Prompt: Postcards From the Concert
Students won't miss a beat in this musical lesson that combines listening with personal response on a postcard.
Using Science Texts to Teach the Organizational Features of Nonfiction
Students explore organizational features of nonfiction science. Students then work together to create a two-page spread using those features to present information about their local environment.
Creating a Feast for the Senses With Mentor Texts
This lesson teaches intermediate students to "use the experts" to learn how to revise to create sharp, sensory-rich experiences for their readers.
Using Word Storms to Explore Vocabulary and Encourage Critical Thinking
Students learn that dogs are more than just pets in this lesson, which teaches them to use research and vocabulary-acquisition strategies to learn and write about working dogs.
How-To Writing: Motivating Students to Write for a Real Purpose
It's not easy surviving fourth grade (or third or fifth)! In this lesson, students brainstorm survival tips for future fourth graders and incorporate those tips into an essay.
The Connection Between Poetry and Music
Students won't miss a beat in this reading fluency lesson that combines music and poetry.
Reading and Writing About Pollution to Understand Cause and Effect
Students get to write a whale of a tale when they complete a graphic organizer sequencing the journey of a mountain fish to a polluted waterway.
Zines for Kids: Multigenre Texts About Media Icons
Special edition! Students use ReadWriteThink tools to create magazines about prominent figures using a variety of writing genres and styles.
Multimedia Responses to Content Area Topics Using Fact-"Faction"-Fiction
Students climb into the mind of a spider in this lesson that asks them to compose a spider diary using spider facts, fiction, and "faction"fiction that sounds like fact.