Boom! Br-r-ring! Cluck! Moo!—Everywhere you turn, you find exciting sounds. Students use these sounds to write their own poems based on Dr. Seuss's Mr. Brown Can MOO! Can You?

This lesson engages children in using writing to their families as a persuasive tool to get what they want and need.

Students explore letter poems and experiment with writing letters as poems, using the placement of line breaks to enhance rhythm, sound, meaning, and appearance.

Using the film The Sandlot, students are introduced to the literary devices of flashbacks and flash-forwards. They then write their own stories using those devices.

Students discuss and chart letter elements and write their own letters to adults at school, reinforcing letter-writing skills beyond the classroom lesson.

This lesson encourages children to explore authentic reasons for writing by writing messages to their family in a family message journal.

In this autobiographical prewriting activity, students brainstorm important memories, choose graphics to represent these memories, and then rank the events as low or high points in their lives.

Kindergartners share their knowledge of letters and sounds in a large group setting, giving teachers an assessment opportunity. Each student contributes a page to make a repetitive classroom book.

Students use themed graphic organizers to compose cinquain poems on topics common in the early elementary classroom.

Students analyze personal homepages, as well as a character in a book they have read, and then create a homepage for the character.

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.

Students compare a book to its film adaptation, and then perform readers theater of a scene from the book that they feel was not well represented in the movie version.

Students draw a series of pictures that tell a story, including character action, problem and solution. They ‘read' their story to others, transcribe it into writing, and create an accordion book.

Reinforce student understanding of parts of speech through the analysis of sample cinquain poems followed by the creation of original cinquains.

Picture books provide the basis for an analysis of fairy tale elements before students write their own original tales.

Students create a Detective's Handbook based on a detective mystery they have read. The handbooks include expository and descriptive writing, as well as a letter.

After listening to haiku poetry, students use seasonal descriptive words to write their own haiku, following the traditional format. They then publish their poems by mounting them on illustrated backgrounds.

Students play with and explore prepositions during a whole group reading of Ruth Heller's Behind the Mask, and then by composing and publishing prepositional poems based on the book's style.

Students compose found and parallel poems based on a descriptive passage they have chosen from a piece of literature they are reading.