Showing Results for topic focus in writing

This lesson will help students map out their argument essay after they have identified a topic. Students will learn the three basic components of constructing an argument: stating a claim, listing reasons, and providing evidence.

Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz was a 17th century writer and philosopher who today is considered one of the first documented feminists and advocates for women’s education. In this lesson, students will read two nonfiction texts about Sor Juana and discuss her life and accomplishments before writing an opinion piece about her.

Imagery is one of the most important tools in a narrative writer's arsenal. In this lesson, students will will learn to craft vivid scenes by selecting powerful verbs and adjectives, as well as to critique descriptive writing using the same criteria.

Once students have selected a topic related to a piece of literature they have read and mapped out their argument, this lesson will help them turn their prewriting into an essay.

The hardest part of writing an essay can be the first few steps. This lesson and accompanying graphic organizers will help students map out their ideas and practice crafting paragraphs. With this support, your writers will be off and running!

Your students will surely exclaim, "This is fun!" in response to this writing lesson. It covers topics that range from dialogue punctuation to sentence types, and will definitely help improve reading comprehension skills.

Give your class a deeper understanding of theme with this art and poetry-focused lesson plan about theme. By the end of the lesson, students will understand what theme is and how to determine theme in a piece of writing, such as a poem.

Students often understand the basic conventions of writing, but may need support in incorporating these skills into their work. In this lesson, students will review some of the more common capitalization and punctuation errors and apply their editing skills to real writing.

Do your students need guidance in online peer conferences? If you need to teach your students how to collaborate in an online writing conference, then this lesson plan is for you!

Put your students' imaginations to the test with this lesson on storytelling and creative writing. After reading some classic fairy tales, students will create their own using printed figures.

Step into the shoes of an explorer. Students will learn more about the lives and accomplishments of important explorers, and they'll demonstrate their knowledge through a creative writing assignment.

Similes, metaphors, and idioms are some of the most widely used literary devices in both speaking and writing. Students will review each of these and practice creating some of their own.

Allow your students to explore how stories may change depending on the perspectives from which they're told. Interesting texts and a creative writing assignment make this quite the engaging lesson.

Once your students have drafted a persuasive letter, use this lesson to help them polish their writing. Students will use a checklist to ensure that all of the most important parts of their letter are included and the argument is solid.

Help your students learn how to move smoothly between ideas and paragraphs using transition words and phrases. Young writers will use real texts as mentors as they study how authors use words to transition between ideas and support their claims. As a result, they will have a word bank to use in their own writing.

This experiment is a fun lesson that captures the ears, eyes, and minds of students! It combines writing, reasoning, predictions, and teamwork with candies and soda to produce a memorable lesson on chemical reactions and energy.

Use this lesson to help your ELs identify and discuss the author's point and the information that supports it. It can be a stand-alone lesson or used as support for the What’s the Point? lesson.

Knowing how to write an effective persuasive letter is a powerful tool. Students will learn how to advocate for their ideas by planning and drafting a well-supported persuasive letter on an issue of their choice.

Use this lesson to help your ELs understand main idea and supporting details in the context of sentences and paragraphs. It can be a stand-alone lesson or a support lesson to the Power Reading lesson.

Up, up, and away! It's Peter Pan vs. Wendy vs. John in this reading comprehension lesson. Using the Peter Pan and Neverland workbook, students will use text excerpts and comprehension questions to write an essay comparing main characters.

Every name has a story behind it. This lesson allows students to share the story of their name with their classmates. Not only is it fun, it's ideal for establishing a respectful classroom community.

Help your ELs learn how to identify the main idea and supporting details in a nonfiction text by using nouns and pronouns as guide words. It can be a stand-alone lesson or used as support to the lesson Explorer Letters.

Encourage your students to translate their understanding of theme to poetry. In this lesson, students will evaluate the theme of poems by sketching pictures and citing text evidence.

Help your students become shining stars with this lesson about metaphors. Your class will hone art skills and practice comparison using figurative language.

The energizer bunny went to jail. He was charged with battery. Get it? Your students will understand after this lesson! Use this lesson to give your students tools to understand and create Easter puns.

Help your EL students find and record quotes as evidence in nonfiction texts with the help of introductory phrases and sentence frames. This can support the lesson Making Inferences in Nonfiction Texts.

Start a dialogue around area models! In this lesson, encourage students to ask questions as they multiply using area models. Use this lesson on its own or as support to the lesson Area Models and Multiplication.

Help students learn how to read passages with multiple main ideas and differentiate between main ideas and supporting details by creating a graphic organizer with proof from the text.

Use this fun and easy lesson plan to teach your students to predict and calculate dimensions for shapes to scale in sets.

Goodbye London, hello Neverland. In this lesson, students will complete the final pages of their Peter Pan and Neverland workbooks by taking a more in-depth look at Peter's full character and what possibilities Neverland might hold.