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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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 write a story that takes place in at an amusement park.

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

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.

We open our unit on narrative writing with a big idea: “structure increases creativity.” I show how this is true by bringing in examples from across all disciplines.

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

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

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?

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!

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?

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

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

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

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…

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?

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

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

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

Your youngest students will learn to write Japanese Haiku poetry.

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

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

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.

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…

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