Writing Skills Lesson Plans

Below are listed lesson banks and lesson plans from a variety of Internet sources. The Web Sites listed here have been selected to complement and enrich your teaching of the ELA Middle Years Language Arts Curriculum in the Grade 9 Writing Strand.

Lesson Banks

• Guide to Grammar and Writing - sponsored by the Capital Community College Foundation, this is a database for conventions and rules for correct grammar and writing techniques. The index includes references to both the Guide to Grammar and Writing and Principles of Composition. The Frequently Asked Questions page and the Guide's Search Engine will also help you find help on grammatical issues, tips on composition, and advice on English usage.
• Language Arts Mini-Lessons - 14 mini-lessons for grades 9 - 12 from the Columbia Education Center. Grade level for each is marked.
• High School English Lesson Plans - Marc Zimmerman is a high school English teacher. He has put together some resources and plans he hopes will help educators who are looking for some fresh and creative ideas to use in the classroom.
• Writing and Story Telling - Sheldon Oberman, Award-winning author offers stories, folktales, FAQ, and tips for writers and storytellers. Lots of great ideas and lesson plans.
• Alabama Learning Exchange Lesson Plans - here is a bank of well written and well supported lesson plans with a technology bent promoting both Reading and Writing skills. Locate the lesson plan according to subject and grade level by checking the appropriate boxes.
• Mr. C's Writing Assignments - A series of lesson plans and resources for developing high school writing skills

Individual Lesson/Unit Plans

• Radio Days - In this Web Quest, students research the "Golden Age of Radio" and create their own radio drama.
• Summary/Note Taking/Main Idea & Details - A lesson plan where students take notes from oral reading for the purpose of extracting main idea and details and transcribing them into a summary.
• Writing Storybooks for Young Children - This is a lesson plan for middle-years writers where students conceive, write, illustrate, and construct a storybook for a pre-school or primary-aged child
• Fiction, Creating Characters - How can I use the Elements of Fiction to enhance and develop my writing? Students will explore these themes in this lesson. Students will explore characterization as an element of fiction. They will learn how authors use characterization, dialogue, and point of view to reveal a character. They will then experiment with constructing characters of their own.
• Fiction, Plotting the Story - In this lesson, students explore how the elements of fiction can enhance and develop their writing. Students investigate plot as an element of fiction. They consider how details and events are selected and arranged to contribute to the outcome of the story.
• Fiction, Setting the Story - Students will explore how to use the elements of fiction to enhance and develop their writing. Students will learn how authors manipulate time and space, mood, and spatial order in descriptions of settings.
• Poems, Poems, Everywhere - Lessons designed to stimulate and encourage poetry writing and publishing in a mixed-ability class.
• Telling Tales: A Study of Perspective - In this lesson, students re-tell a fairy tale or nursery rhyme from a different character's point-of-view.
• A Framework for Responding to Poetry - This page provides a handout that outlines how to provide an effective written response to poetry.
• Turn Your Students Into Well-Versed Poets - More than 20 poetry lesson plans help teachers develop "well-versed" students. Stage a poetry slam for profit, find the funniest poems around, write synonym poems, more! Included: Links to poetry sites, rubrics, and sites that publish student poetry!
• Avoiding Sexist Language by Using Gender-Fair Pronouns - In this lesson plan, students write a response to a short prompt which includes no information about the participants' gender. Once the writing is complete, students and teacher analyze the narratives for the use of pronouns and what the pronoun choices reveal about language use.
• Choosing the Best Verb: An Active and Passive Voice Mini-lesson - For most students, speech and informal writing flow naturally. When it comes to more formal writing, however, students frequently choose passive voice constructions because to them, the verbs sound more academic or more formal. This mini-lesson explores verb choice in a variety of online resources then encourages students to draw conclusions about verb use which they can apply to their own writing.
• Graffiti Wall: Discussing and Responding to Literature Using Graphics - Students respond to literature in a variety of ways. Here teachers can tap the students' desire to doodle and draw by having them create a Graffiti Wall, using graphics to discuss a piece of literature that they have read in common. After doing both group and individual activities, students write essays analyzing some element of their novel.
• Manipulating Sentences to Reinforce Grammar Skills - This lesson reviews and reinforces basic grammar skills through authentic instruction. Using any reading material (e.g., novels, textbooks, magazines, online texts), students find sentences and manipulate them to either change the meaning or enhance the intended meaning.
• Spend a Day in My Shoes: Exploring the Role of Perspective in Narrative - In To Kill a Mockingbird, Atticus explains to Scout that "You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view...until you climb into his skin and walk around in it." Make this advice more literal by inviting students to imagine spending a day in someone else's shoes in this writing activity.
• Statisitcs Canada - This activity uses the Statistics Canada Daily to help students understand the writing and research processes of journalists. Students are given a pertinent press release and are asked to write their own newspaper style article based on the release. Students search the Internet for a newspaper article based on the same release, then compare the three articles. Skills in language, communications, and keyboarding are also enriched in the process.
• Statisitcs Canada - Students create graphs and tables on the number of Chinese in British Columbia according to 1870 Census data. Students analyze the data and complete worksheets in small groups and then discuss their conclusions as a class. Each student assumes the role of a Chinese immigrant in 1870 to write a letter home that describes his or her experiences and hopes and that draws on data from the tables, the class discussion and independent research.

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