Students compare e-mails to traditional letters, identifying style and intended audience for each. They then write both an e-mail and a letter about the same topic.
What's the Difference? Beginning Writers Compare E-mail with Letter Writing
Authentic Writing Experiences and Math Problem-Solving Using Shopping Lists
Students use their emerging writing skills to write shopping lists. They work within a budget, use problem-solving skills to create lists, and buy their favorite treats at the class store.
Book Report Alternative: Writing Resumes for Characters in Historical Fiction
Students write resumes for historical fiction characters. They first explore help wanted ads to see what employers want, and then draft resumes for the characters they've chosen.
Unwinding A Circular Plot: Prediction Strategies in Reading and Writing
Students use graphic organizers to explore plot in circular stories while focusing on prediction and sequencing. After exploring the features of circular plot stories, students write their own stories.
Choosing Clear and Varied Dialogue Tags: A Minilesson
In this minilesson, students explore the use of dialogue tags such as "he said" or "she answered" in picture books and novels, discussing their purpose, form, and style.
Note Writing in the Primary Classroom
This lesson provides a wealth of ideas for using notes in the classroom to promote authentic writing among children.
Making Connections to Myth and Folktale: The Many Ways to Rainy Mountain
Following the model of N. Scott Momaday's The Way To Rainy Mountain, students write three-voice narratives based on Kiowa folktales, an interview with an Elder, and personal connections to theme.
Choosing the Best Verb: An Active and Passive Voice Minilesson
Students explore how active and passive voices are appropriate to different audiences. They examine online resources, and then draw conclusions about verb use, which they apply to their own writing.
Weaving the Multigenre Web
Students analyze the elements of a novel in many different genres and then hyperlink these pieces together on student-constructed Websites.
Teaching the Compare and Contrast Essay through Modeling
The compare and contrast essay is taught through modeling from the brainstorming phase through the first draft.
Writing Poetry with Rebus and Rhyme
This lesson encourages students to use rhyming words to write rebus poetry modeled on rebus books, which substitute pictures for the words that young students cannot yet identify or decode.
Unlocking the Underlying Symbolism and Themes of a Dramatic Work
This lesson plan invites students to consider characters from Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun. Students explore a selected character and write poems about objects associated with that character.
Childhood Remembrances: Life and Art Intersect in Nikki Giovanni's "Nikki-Rosa"
Students explore what Carol Jago calls the place "where life and art intersect" by reading Nikki Giovanni's poem, "Nikki-Rosa," and then writing about childhood memories of their own.
Spend a Day in My Shoes: Exploring the Role of Perspective in Narrative
In this lesson, students imagine spending a day in someone else's shoes. After reviewing the characteristics of narrative writing, they then write narratives from that person's point of view.
Living the Dream: 100 Acts of Kindness
This lesson provides the "action piece" for any study of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. In this project, students participate in Dr. King's dream by doing 100 acts of kindness.
Exploring the Power of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Words through Diamante Poetry
Students explore the ways that powerful and passionate words communicate the concepts of freedom, justice, discrimination, and the American Dream in Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech.
Martin Luther King, Jr. and Me: Identifying with a Hero
This lesson provides ideas for celebrating Martin Luther King, Jr. Day by encouraging students to explore the connections between Dr. King and themselves through journaling and inquiry-based research.
Is a Sentence a Poem?
Students use their own poetry to analyze syntax, imagery, and meaning in a one-sentence poem by a canonical author to decide what makes it a poem.
Book Report Alternative: Creating Careers for Characters
Students select a job listing for a character in a book they have read, then create a resume and application letter for that character.
Ghosts and Fear in Language Arts: Exploring the Ways Writers Scare Readers
Students analyze scary stories to 'break the code" of horror writing and use what they learn to write scary stories of their own.