Using a hypothetical situation, students generate arguments from opposing points of view, discover areas of commonality using Venn diagrams, and construct logical, audience-specific arguments to persuade their opponents.

The traditional autobiography writing project is given a twist as students write alphabiographies—recording an event, person, object, or feeling associated with each letter of the alphabet.

Use Dr. Seuss's The Butter Battle Book as an accessible introduction to satire. Reading, discussing, and researching this picture book paves the way for a deeper understanding of Gulliver's Travels.

Students write a persuasive letter to the editor of a newspaper from a selected fictional character's perspective, focusing on a specific issue or situation explored in the novel.

Students use persuasive writing and an understanding of the characteristics of letters to the editor to compose effective letters to the editor on topics of interest to them.

Students read science fiction texts and then use nonfiction texts to extrapolate the scientific principles presented as they discuss the "what ifs" within the context of scientific principles.

This activity, inspired by the paintings of Edward Hopper and the stories of Raymond Carver, challenges students to get inside contemporary life and characters through the creation of monologues.

Students craft comic scripts using clear, descriptive, and detailed writing that shows (illustrates) and tells (directs). After peers create an artistic interpretation of the script, students revise their original scripts.

This lesson, in which students research worms in order to create a classroom habitat, incorporates reading and writing across content areas as well as math and science activities.

Students explore the idea of "different Englishes" by reading Amy Tan's "Mother Tongue" and writing literacy narratives about their own use of different language for different audiences and purposes.

After discussing the poem "The Writer" by Richard Wilbur, students analyze their own writing habits and create an extended metaphor describing themselves as writers.

Draft letters ask students to think critically about their writing on a specific assignment before submitting their work to a reader. This lesson explains and provides models for the strategy.

Students analyze the lyrics to Cole Porter's "You're the Top!" and then update them to include current "tops" in pop culture.

In this follow-up to writing collaborative catalog poems, students write individual catalog poems about what really matters in their lives, based on Carver's poem "The Car."

Using the structure of a list poem, students combine creative expression with poetic techniques and language exploration in order to write group poems about what really matters in their lives.

Students discuss and compare differing versions of "Little Red Riding Hood" and other tales about wolves in cumulative read-aloud sessions and text set explorations.

In small groups, students closely examine one sentence from the Gettysburg Address and create a multigenre project communicating what they have discovered about the meaning and significance of the text.

By exploring myths and truths surrounding Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, students think critically about commonly believed stories regarding this famous speech from the Civil War era.

Students investigate the meanings and origins of their names in order to establish their own personal histories and to explore the cultural significance of naming traditions.