Boom! Br-r-ring! Cluck! Moo!: Everywhere you turn, you find exciting sounds. Students use these sounds to write their own poems based on Dr. Seuss's "Mr. Brown Can MOO! Can You?"
Students create math stories by first drawing, then writing, and finally using math symbols to show addition or subtraction.
Students shape up their reading, writing, and listening skills in this lesson by creating original diamante, acrostic, and shape poems about science.
In this lesson, students explore ekphrasis--writing inspired by art. Students find pieces of art that inspire them and compose a booklet of poems about the pieces they have chosen.
Do their minds go blank when they confront a blank piece of paper? Speedwriting can help students get started on writing and come up with topics to write about. They can then incorporate their key ideas and phrases into a narrative with the help of a graphic story organizer.
Students research engineering careers and create poetry to understand the vocabulary of STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics).
Students track the elements of mystery stories through Directed Learning-Thinking Activities, story maps, and puzzles. Then they offer clues for other readers as they plan and write original mystery stories.
Some of your students seem to have superglued their hands to their cell phones; for others, it is their eyes that have been permanently affixed. Why do so many students find their personal technology more appealing than the real humans on around them . . . and what might be the long-term consequences of this? These are the questions this unit will address – first, through the rhetorical analysis of various articles on the effects of cell phones and social media, and then, through a careful study of dystopian fiction. Ultimately, students will draw their own conclusions and share their learning through letters to middle school students and a creative writing piece that suggests what will happen next.
A few of your students may whine about the work you are giving them. They may rage, rage against the dying of the light emanating from their cell phones. They may claim that teachers and parents just don’t understand. But ultimately they will be better educated, more prescient, less addicted, more creative, and of better use to their communities. I think it is worth the fight.
This book has been developed by Erik Wilbur at Mohave Community College to support Creative Writing courses at rural Arizona community colleges. A PDF version and a Microsoft Doc. version of the book are available for download.
Students read an example of allegory, review literary concepts, complete literary elements maps and plot diagrams, create a pictorial allegory, and write diamante poems related to the theme of change.
After reading "All Quiet on the Western Front", students discuss the novel's ironic ending, then compose alternate titles and endings for the book, and design new book covers.
This guide walks you through the basics to get started on screenwriting. It's designed around my college-level screenwriting course, with writing exercises, assignments, and a sample syllabus and course schedule.
See the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial wall in Washington D.C. through the eyes of war veteran and contemporary poet Yusef Komunyakaa. In this video segment from Poetry Everywhere, Komunyakaa reads his poem Facing It.
Picture books provide the basis for an analysis of fairy tale elements before students write their own original tales.
This worksheet introduces you to premise, provides a breakdown of premise components, and helps you draft your own premise.
This brief handout lists good habits for finishing your project and outlines tips and resources to aid you in revising your first draft.
The Fractured Fairy Tale tool encourages students to create their own fractured fairy tales.
Students read "The Jolly Postman", in which a postman delivers letters to storybook characters. They explore different types of mail and categorize letters from the book and their own mail. Children find favorite words, phrases, and sentences from familiar stories. Working together, they combine their words and phrases to create a poem. The poem is then shared as performance poetry.
After reading "The Mysterious Giant of Barletta" by Tomie DePaola, about an ancient Roman statue that comes to life, students create a paper sculpture based on ancient Greek and Roman statues in the Getty Museum. They then write a narrative story told from the viewpoint of their sculpture.
Let the power of imagination and inference serve as a ńtime machineî to bring Benjamin Franklin into the classroom! History and science come to life in a dialogue with Franklin the inventor, developed through lesson activities that incorporate research, imagination, writing, visual arts, and drama.