This lesson will help your young writers develop a claim, or thesis, and construct an argument around it. You may have students complete the essay by continuing the process with the lesson Literary Argument Writing: Drafting Your Essay.

Create conversations about character changes! Use this lesson plan as a stand-alone lesson for practicing sequencing words in evidenced-based claims about a character, or before the Characters Change Just Like We Do lesson.

Change is inevitable, even for story characters! In this lesson, your students will determine how a character changes throughout a story by focusing on the character’s dialogue and actions.

This lesson gives your students practice researching an inventor to write an informative essay. Students will use a graphic organizer to take notes on the research they conduct in the library or on the internet.

What is the intention of an indentation within a paragraph? Within this lesson, students will explore the reasons why we indent. They’ll categorize and classify content to construct paragraphs that include indentations.

In this lesson, students will practice "reading" pictures. They will look at the details in pictures in order to make predictions about what happens in a text. This lesson can be used alone or with the Predicting Pictures lesson plan.

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.

Use this lesson to help your ELs strengthen their vocabulary and learn how to create a personal timeline. Teach this lesson as a standalone lesson or use it as support for the lesson Timelines and Nonfiction Text.

Strong narratives have clear sequences of events. Through this lesson, students plan out what will happen in their story before they start writing their own engaging narratives.

Students will develop pre-writing confidence by learning how to approach unfamiliar opinion writing prompts. Writers will generate a topic sentence and flush out supporting information.

Let's get reading! In this lesson, students will identify the main idea and details of a nonfiction text. Use this on its own or as support for the lesson Connecting the Coasts: Effects of the Transcontinental Railroad.

Boost your students’ writing with instruction on book titles! A title should be catchy and inclusive of the content of a book. Use this lesson to teach your students the art and mechanics of writing terrific titles.

It's time to make—and hide—animals! In this lesson, students read a story about camouflage and then create their own animals to hide. Finally, students write an informational paragraph to describe their animals' hiding powers.

Ahoy there! Ready to sail with your students on a treasure map summary? What's that matey? Your students need practice with summaries? Then take a journey and summarize to find the hidden treasure.

Give your ELs concrete experience with adverbs and adverbial phrases as a tool to discover details in nonfiction texts. Use this as a stand-alone lesson or as support to the Hey! What's the Big Idea? lesson.

Give your students an introduction to types of story hooks as they compose original story beginnings the help of a word bank. This can be a stand-alone lesson or a support lesson for the Capture That Reader! lesson plan.

Help your class grasp the concept of "main idea" with this fun, hands-on lesson. Students will dive into mystery bags full of supportive detail clues to determine the main idea of each bag.

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.

Who doesn’t love learning about animals? Engage students in research as they write informational books about animals.

Help your ELs familiarize themselves with prepositional phrases as they search for supporting details in nonfiction texts. This lesson could stand alone or be taught prior to teaching the Detective Reading lesson.

Use this lesson to help your ELs understand main idea and supporting details. They'll analyze non-fiction word, sentence, and paragraph structures. It can be a stand-alone lesson or a support lesson to the In Search of Main Ideas lesson.

This winter-themed lesson plan, which incorporates the book Tree of Cranes by Allen Say, teaches students about Japanese traditions and customs. They will review the basic elements of a narrative story, and then write their own narratives about a special event or moment in their life.

What adventures can a reindeer, candy cane, and a snowman embark on? Let’s find out! In this writing lesson, students will write a Christmas-themed narrative incorporating characters, setting, problem, and solution.

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.

Students will learn to structure their written arguments as they create their own class paper full of opinion editorial pieces in this fun, real-world driven lesson. Step right up and write all about it!

Young writers will learn to manipulate and combine sentences with conjunctions and adverb phrases. This skill helps students understand that crafting sentences is a creative and artistic process.

St. Patrick's Day is a widely popular holiday all over the world. Teach your students about some interesting traditions as they write an informative text about how St. Patrick's Day is celebrated.

Your students will try their best to convince their school principal that they need more recess during this letter writing lesson.

This lesson teaches kids all about Malcolm X and how his childhood influenced him to become one of America's most well known, controversial, and revolutionary figures. First kids will listen to a read-aloud authored by Malcolm X's daughter, Ilyasah Shabazz, and then they will write an informative paragraph.

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.