TEKS ELA Standard: 3.12.A

Your youngest students will learn to write Japanese Haiku poetry.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What is bobbing for apples like… for an apple?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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!

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

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.

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?

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

Rather than just memorizing word parts, students will use those word parts to create four possible products.

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

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.

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…