TEKS ELA Standard: 3.12.A

Hot Dog Built With Construction Equipment

Writing Haiku in Primary

Your youngest students will learn to write Japanese Haiku poetry.

St. Patrick and Other Legends

How would real people feel about the legends that have been created about them?

Comparing Characters’ Bedrooms

What item’s in a character’s bedroom would reflect their deepest desires? And what if they toured a similar character’s room?

Holiday Emoji Story ⛷️

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

Holiday Emoji Story 🍪

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

Holiday Emoji Story ☃️

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

Holiday Emoji Story 🎅

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

Holiday Emoji Story 🚚

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

Halloween Emoji Story 🎃

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

Halloween Emoji Story 🌕

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

Emoji Stories 🦁

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

Emoji Stories 🐌

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

Emoji Stories 🕰️

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

Emoji Stories 🐻

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

Greekymon Studies – Round 3

What might a creature named “Aquacornus Rex” be like?

Bobbing for Apples

What is bobbing for apples like… for an apple?

Phobia-ology

What strange new fears are hiding inside Greek and Latin roots?

Greek and Latin Inventions

What useful or ridiculous inventions are hiding inside Greek and Latin roots?

Greek and Latin Spellbook

What happens when Greek and Latin roots become magic spells?

Think Like An Author: Hemingway vs Dickens

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

Lipogram: Rewrite “Mary Had A Little Lamb”

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

Lipogram: Rewrite “Twinkle, Twinkle”

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

Looking Closely at Holiday Photos

Let’s write from multiple perspectives using an old timey holiday photo!

Holiday Writing: Packing Crates

An old photograph. A holiday scene. Pick one object in the picture and write from its point of view.

Thanksgiving Photo Writing

Starting with an old-timey photo, students will write from a particular item’s point of view.

Writing About Art: Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons

Look closely at Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons. What do you notice? Now turn those details into a poem you didn’t know you could write.

Writing About Art: Impression, Sunrise

Look closely at Impression, Sunrise. What do you notice? Now turn those details into a poem you didn’t know you could write.

Writing in Pilish

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

Writing About Art: Chōshi in Shimosha

Get your students writing some pretty darn impressive poetry based on Japan’s most famous artist.

Writing About Art: Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog

Look closely at Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog. What do you notice? Now turn those details into a poem you didn’t know you could write.

Writing About Art: Twilight in the Wilderness

Look closely at Twilight in the Wilderness. What do you notice? Now turn those details into a poem you didn’t know you could write.

Writing About Art: The Scream

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

Self Portraits: Text Art

What if a students’ self-portrait was made of words that describe the student!?

Story Starter: A Magical School

Students use 12 random phrases to create a story that takes place in at a magical school.

Remixing A Holiday Poem

Let’s take a classic Christmas poem and remix it to work with another holiday!

Writing Seuss Style Poetry

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!

Fancier Figurative Language: Advanced Repetition

Is your students’ use of repetition limited to, “The girl was very, very, very fast.”? Let’s borrow some ideas from Shakespeare!

Advanced Alliteration and Consonance

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.

The Personalities of Rocks

What would an igneous rock be like? Would it get along with a sedimentary rock? Could they handle the hot personality of a metamorphic rock?

Showing A Character’s Trait

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

Studying and Remixing “The Raven”

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

Elements of The Fantasy Genre

Every fantasy story has patterns hiding underneath the magic. Once your students see the elements, they’ll spot them everywhere — and use them in their own writing.

“Its Big Day” – A Children’s Story About Its and It’s

Let’s spice up a typically dull lesson about the difference between “its” and “it’s” by asking students to write a children’s story about the adventures of a critter named It.

Literary Technique: Juxtaposition

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

Create A Creature

Create a new creature based on the adaptations of existing creatures from the same biome.

Greekymon

Your class will become a wonderland of imaginary creates with Greek and Latin names.

Writing Summaries in Haiku

Let’s write a summary. A very short summary. With VERY strict rules.

Better Stories Part 2: Types of Conflict

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.

Better Stories Part 3: Literary Themes

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…