Students practice writing detailed, sensory-rich descriptions by framing a small piece of nature and freewriting about it. From this minilesson, students can develop a variety of types of writing.
Creative Writing in the Natural World: A Framing
Color My World: Expanding Meaning Potential through Media
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.
Moving Toward Acceptance Through Picture Books and Two-Voice Texts
Students read and discuss literature about intolerance and diversity. They work with a partner to write two-voice poems that illustrate situations of intolerance at their school and suggest a step toward acceptance.
Talking, Writing, and Reasoning: Making Thinking Visible with Math Journals
Students explore how their problem-solving strategies work by writing in math journals as they work in small groups to solve a math puzzle with multiple solutions.
Talking Poetry with Blabberize
Students will be motivated to share their poetry through an online tool the features recording and animation.
Name Tag Glyphs
In this lesson, students practice a way to communicate without words by using a glyph. They create a name card using information about themselves. Students also interpret glyphs made by others.
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.
Boars and Baseball: Making Connections
In this lesson, students will make text-to-self, text-to-text, and text-to-world connections after reading In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson. After sharing and discussing connections, students choose and plan a project that makes a personal connection to the text.
Vocabulary Solutions: A Mixture of Science, Conversation, and Writing
In this lesson, students conduct a science experiment and later discuss the events of the lab during shared writing. Students explain the procedure in their own words and then revise to include content specific vocabulary. Finally, students reflect on new words added to their writing using the Trading Card Creator interactive.
Writing Acrostic Poems with Thematically Related Texts in the Content Areas
Students read thematically related texts, scaffolded from simple to complex, to help them gather necessary concept vocabulary and background knowledge in a content area. They then write acrostic poems to organize and present their learning in a creative way.
A-B-C: It's Easy as 1-2-3 to Make Math Alphabet Books
Using the Alphabet Organizer app, students create alphabet books to review math terms.
Charlotte is Wise, Patient, and Caring: Adjectives and Character Traits
Students find examples of adjectives in a shared reading. Then students "become" major characters in a book and describe themselves and other characters, using powerful adjectives.
Powerful Writing: Description in Creating Monster Trading Cards
Students create their own monster trading cards using "powerful," vivid language to describe their creatures.
How Big Are Martin's Big Words? Thinking Big about the Future
Inspired by the book Martin's Big Words, students explore information on Dr. King to think about his "big" words, then they write about their own "big" words and dreams.
Poetry from Prose
Working in small groups, students compose found and parallel poems based on a descriptive passage they have chosen from a piece of literature they are reading.
Learning to Learn with Miss Alaineus: A Vocabulary Disaster
Modeled on the activities in Miss Alaineus: A Vocabulary Disaster, a picture book, students combine vocabulary exploration with word play by planning their own vocabulary parade.
Composing Cinquain Poems with Basic Parts of Speech
Reinforce student understanding of parts of speech through the analysis of sample cinquain poems followed by the creation of original cinquains.
Literature Circles: Getting Started
Students practice different ways of collaborating to read a work of literature. They work in different roles as they compose and answer questions, discover new vocabulary, and examine literary elements.
Engaging Students with Library of Congress Primary Sources in the ELA Classroom Quick-Reference Guide (QRG)
Quick-Reference Guide (QRG) focused on "Engaging Students with Library of Congress Primary Sources in the ELA Classroom."
Quantitative Civic Reasoning: A Guide for Centering Civic Innovation in Math and English Language Arts Classrooms
This guide explores quantitative civic reasoning in English and math classrooms.