Students create brochures on the same topic as another piece of writing they have done, highlighting how shifting purposes and audiences creates changes in their strategies as writers.
Brochures: Writing for Audience and Purpose
Family Memoir: Getting Acquainted With Generations Before Us
Creating a memoir of an older family member allows students both to learn more about their own backgrounds and to learn the power of storytellers.
Comparing Fiction and Nonfiction with "Little Red Riding Hood Text" Sets
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.
Literature as a Jumping Off Point for Nonfiction Inquiry
Students use text sets to research a topic inspired by a fiction book they have read. A text set is a collection of multiple text genres with a single focus.
Investigating the Holocaust: A Collaborative Inquiry Project
Students explore a variety of resources as they learn about the Holocaust. Working collaboratively, they investigate the materials, prepare oral responses, and produce a topic-based newspaper to complete their research.
Investigating Animals: Using Nonfiction for Inquiry-based Research
Inspired by their curiosity about animals, students work together to research an animal of their choice and present the information they gather to an authentic audience.
Writing Reports in Kindergarten? Yes!
This lesson encourages young students to see themselves as writers with a message to convey. Three types of reports are provided to show what kindergartners and emergent writers can do.
Writing and Assessing an Autobiographical Incident
Students build upon their knowledge of biographies to write their own autobiographical incident. After going through a process of revision, they use a rubric to assess their work.
Having My Say: A Multigenre Autobiography Project
Students compose a multigenre paper, modeled after the Delany sister's autobiography, Having Our Say, that includes the autobiographical narrative essay as well as an informational nonfiction piece.
Scaffolding Methods for Research Paper Writing
In this lesson, students use a scaffold to help them compile information to write a solid research paper.
Telling a Story About Me: Young Children Write Autobiographies
Students tell their life stories in this lesson about autobiographies based on family photographs.
Jazz Up Writing Workshop: Writing Biographies of African American Jazz Musicians
During writing workshop, students research, write, revise, and share their own comprehensive biographies of African American jazz musicians.
When I Was Young In...A Literature to Language Experience
Past meets present in this lesson in which students practice verb tense when they write personal short stories that they then publish in a flip book.
Learning About Research and Writing Using the American Revolution
Students across the board will get a kick out of researching a historical figure from the American Revolution to create an acrostic poem.
Digital Reflections: Expressing Understanding of Content Through Photography
Striking images can leave lasting impressions on viewers. In this lesson, students make textselfworld connections to a nature- or science-related topic as they collaboratively design a multimedia presentation.