A very useful lesson that incorporates the process of collaboration to elementary students. Students brainstorm and use prewriting strategies to write a group story.

Lesson in which students engage in an entire-group revising process, using a story which has already been written by the group. An excellent follow-up lesson to the "prewriting and drafting" lesson.

Students hone their teamwork skills and play off each other's writing strengths as they participate in prewriting activities for a story to be written collaboratively by the whole class.

Using a collaborative story written by students, the teacher leads a shared-revising activity to help students consider content when revising, with students participating in the marking of text revisions.

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.

Students use their five senses as a prewriting tool to guide their poetry writing as they compose free-form poems using imagery to describe a color.

Contains plans for four 50-minute lessons that ask students to use their five senses for poetry prewriting. In addition to student objectives and standards, this instructional plan contains links to PDF handouts and sites used in the lessons as well as assessment and reflection activities.

Pat Mora's poem "Echoes" demonstrates that our senses are powerful tools for literary analysis and comprehension as students use their senses to discover new ways to read and write.

Students learn that what you read in books can really add up when they analyze literary texts for economic concepts.

The Comic Creator invites students to compose their own comic strips for a variety of contexts (prewriting, pre- and postreading activities, response to literature, and so on).

Students explore stereotypes in the media and representations of race, class, ethnicity, and gender by analyzing comics over a two-week period and then re-envisioning them with a "comic character makeover."

Contains plans for four lessons that teach students about narrative plot structures by using "The Three Little Pigs" fairy tale or a similar story. In addition to objectives and standards, this instructional plan contains links to sites used in the lessons as well as assessment and reflection activities.

Multidimensional, challenging, and popular with students, comics provide an excellent way to introduce the concept of genres.

This lesson uses comic strip frames to define plot and reinforce the structure that underlies a narrative. Students finish by writing their own original narratives.

Students will research a local issue, and then write letters to two different audiences, asking readers to take a related action or adopt a specific position on the issue.

Lesson allows for middle school students who are familiar with researching electronic sources to gain a deeper understanding of the benefits of online resources versus traditional print.

The Compare & Contrast Map is an interactive graphic organizer that enables students to organize and outline their ideas for different kinds of comparison essays.

Students become familiar with the similarities and differences between electronic and printed text by comparing the textual aids included in a textbook with those of an educational website.

Which side will win as students investigate both sides of the battle of using print versus online text for research as they learn about the lives of Civil War soldiers?

Contains plans for nine 50-minute lessons that center around different versions of "Little Red Riding Hood." In addition to objectives and standards, this instructional plan contains links to PDF handouts and sites used in the lessons as well as assessment and reflection activities.