Writing

We tell students to ‘show, not tell’ — but that advice is useless until they experience the difference. This lesson makes it click.

‘Add more variety!’ teachers say. But how? This lesson gives students actual techniques instead of vague advice.

Blow up a paragraph into individual sentences. Now reassemble it. The clues hiding in each sentence will surprise you.

We’ll start with the cliché “as cold as ice” and go somewhere much more interesting.

What if Kylo Ren wrote a love letter to Abe Lincoln or the Sahara Desert wrote one to the Moon?

One painting of a bridge. Three robots. Who wrote it best?

What if a capybara and a kangaroo rat switched homes? Would their adaptations be helpful at all?

When students learn about alliteration, it’s hard to steer them away from goofy tongue-twisters. Certainly, there must be more powerful and practical ways of using alliteration. In this lesson, I draw on delicious examples from Shakespeare to show how a very advanced writer used alliteration. Then, I break those ideas down so students can try them out.

A passage from The Jungle Book to use as a mentor text, discussion starter, or writing prompt.

Your students’ sentences all start the same way. Here are three techniques that fix that overnight.

Can you use the context clues to get these sentences about automobiles back into the correct order?

Start with a basic simile. Now make it more specific. Now even more. Watch how much better writing gets with each round.

Students use 12 random phrases to create a story that takes place in space!

Upgrade compare and contrast writing with just a couple of key words.

Can your students help The Bard? We’ll fix five Shakespearean run-ons in three different ways.

A typical student narrative includes plot and characters but lacks a larger idea to hold it all together. This is where a lesson on themes comes in…

Your students will turn the iconic painting The Scream into a vivid, sensory poem.

When we try to solve a problem, sometimes we end up creating new problems. Which lead to new solutions. Which lead to new problems.

Can you use the context clues to get these sentences about great sloths back into the correct order?

Can you use the context clues to get these sentences about Pluto back into the correct order?

Students use 12 random phrases to write a story that takes place in at an amusement park.

Three paragraphs about the Empire State Building. They all cover the same topic — so what makes each one different? Now combine them into one super-paragraph.

Put a grumpy character next to a joyful one and they make each other stand out even more. Opposites are powerful!

Five emoji. One story. Where will your imagination take you?

Students use 12 random phrases to create a story that takes place at the zoo.

Pi can go beyond circles! What if you wrote using the digits of pi as your guide?

In a sentence, punctuation may seem meek when compared to those mighty words, but punctuation has incredible power over the meaning of a sentence. Students will try re-punctuating sentences to find new meanings – without changing a single word!

If your students’ stories are packed with endless ninja fights or arguments between frenemies, it’s time to expose them to a wider range of conflicts.

Five emoji. One story. Where will your imagination take you?

Ready to push kids beyond the boring, old ABAB rhyme scheme and into something a bit more complex?

Can you use the context clues to get these sentences about the coral reef back into the correct order?

We’ll show students how to add more variety to their writing by starting sentences with a reason, a prepositional phrase, and a simile.

Five emoji. One story. Where will your imagination take you?

What if your students rewrote Dickens in the style of Hemingway and vice versa?

Five emoji. One story. Where will your imagination take you?

Sure, Dr. Seuss wrote for young students, but can older students analyze his writing and learn to mimic his style? THEN, they can produce Seuss-style poetry about any topic: Ancient China, the electromagnetic spectrum, Pride and Prejudice, and (yes) fraction division!

Can you use the context clues to get these sentences about earthquakes back into the correct order?

What if we rewrote a piece of writing without using certain letters?

Five emoji. One story. Where will your imagination take you?

Did you ever notice that the structure of an essay is very similar to the structure of a paragraph? Hmm…

In this lesson, students will not just fix passive sentences, but break active sentences as they learn to put the star of the sentence first.

A passage from The Velveteen Rabbit to use as a mentor text, discussion starter, or writing prompt.