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Our 2020-21 Writing Curriculum for Middle and High School

A flexible, seven-unit program based on the real-world writing found in newspapers, from editorials and reviews to personal narratives and informational essays.

Update, Aug. 3, 2023: Find our 2023-24 writing curriculum here.

Our 2019-20 Writing Curriculum is one of the most popular new features we’ve ever run on this site, so, of course, we’re back with a 2020-21 version — one we hope is useful whether you’re teaching in person , online , indoors , outdoors , in a pod , as a homeschool , or in some hybrid of a few of these.

The curriculum detailed below is both a road map for teachers and an invitation to students. For teachers, it includes our writing prompts, mentor texts, contests and lesson plans, and organizes them all into seven distinct units. Each focuses on a different genre of writing that you can find not just in The Times but also in all kinds of real-world sources both in print and online.

But for students, our main goal is to show young people they have something valuable to say, and to give those voices a global audience. That’s always been a pillar of our site, but this year it is even more critical. The events of 2020 will define this generation, and many are living through them isolated from their ordinary communities, rituals and supports. Though a writing curriculum can hardly make up for that, we hope that it can at least offer teenagers a creative outlet for making sense of their experiences, and an enthusiastic audience for the results. Through the opportunities for publication woven throughout each unit, we want to encourage students to go beyond simply being media consumers to become creators and contributors themselves.

So have a look, and see if you can find a way to include any of these opportunities in your curriculum this year, whether to help students document their lives, tell stories, express opinions, investigate ideas, or analyze culture. We can’t wait to hear what your students have to say!

Each unit includes:

Writing prompts to help students try out related skills in a “low stakes” way.

We publish two writing prompts every school day, and we also have thematic collections of more than 1,000 prompts published in the past. Your students might consider responding to these prompts on our site and using our public forums as a kind of “rehearsal space” for practicing voice and technique.

Daily opportunities to practice writing for an authentic audience.

If a student submits a comment on our site, it will be read by Times editors, who approve each one before it gets published. Submitting a comment also gives students an audience of fellow teenagers from around the world who might read and respond to their work. Each week, we call out our favorite comments and honor dozens of students by name in our Thursday “ Current Events Conversation ” feature.

Guided practice with mentor texts .

Each unit we publish features guided practice lessons, written directly to students, that help them observe, understand and practice the kinds of “craft moves” that make different genres of writing sing. From how to “show not tell” in narratives to how to express critical opinions , quote or paraphrase experts or craft scripts for podcasts , we have used the work of both Times journalists and the teenage winners of our contests to show students techniques they can emulate.

“Annotated by the Author” commentaries from Times writers — and teenagers.

As part of our Mentor Texts series , we’ve been asking Times journalists from desks across the newsroom to annotate their articles to let students in on their writing, research and editing processes, and we’ll be adding more for each unit this year. Whether it’s Science writer Nicholas St. Fleur on tiny tyrannosaurs , Opinion writer Aisha Harris on the cultural canon , or The Times’s comics-industry reporter, George Gene Gustines, on comic books that celebrate pride , the idea is to demystify journalism for teenagers. This year, we’ll be inviting student winners of our contests to annotate their work as well.

A contest that can act as a culminating project .

Over the years we’ve heard from many teachers that our contests serve as final projects in their classes, and this curriculum came about in large part because we want to help teachers “plan backwards” to support those projects.

All contest entries are considered by experts, whether Times journalists, outside educators from partner organizations, or professional practitioners in a related field. Winning means being published on our site, and, perhaps, in the print edition of The New York Times.

Webinars and our new professional learning community (P.L.C.).

For each of the seven units in this curriculum, we host a webinar featuring Learning Network editors as well as teachers who use The Times in their classrooms. Our webinars introduce participants to our many resources and provide practical how-to’s on how to use our prompts, mentor texts and contests in the classroom.

New for this school year, we also invite teachers to join our P.L.C. on teaching writing with The Times , where educators can share resources, strategies and inspiration about teaching with these units.

Below are the seven units we will offer in the 2020-21 school year.

September-October

Unit 1: Documenting Teenage Lives in Extraordinary Times

This special unit acknowledges both the tumultuous events of 2020 and their outsized impact on young people — and invites teenagers to respond creatively. How can they add their voices to our understanding of what this historic year will mean for their generation?

Culminating in our Coming of Age in 2020 contest, the unit helps teenagers document and respond to what it’s been like to live through what one Times article describes as “a year of tragedy, of catastrophe, of upheaval, a year that has inflicted one blow after another, a year that has filled the morgues, emptied the schools, shuttered the workplaces, swelled the unemployment lines and polarized the electorate.”

A series of writing prompts, mentor texts and a step-by-step guide will help them think deeply and analytically about who they are, how this year has impacted them, what they’d like to express as a result, and how they’d like to express it. How might they tell their unique stories in ways that feel meaningful and authentic, whether those stories are serious or funny, big or small, raw or polished?

Though the contest accepts work across genres — via words and images, video and audio — all students will also craft written artist’s statements for each piece they submit. In addition, no matter what genre of work students send in, the unit will use writing as a tool throughout to help students brainstorm, compose and edit. And, of course, this work, whether students send it to us or not, is valuable far beyond the classroom: Historians, archivists and museums recommend that we all document our experiences this year, if only for ourselves.

October-November

Unit 2: The Personal Narrative

While The Times is known for its award-winning journalism, the paper also has a robust tradition of publishing personal essays on topics like love , family , life on campus and navigating anxiety . And on our site, our daily writing prompts have long invited students to tell us their stories, too. Our 2019 collection of 550 Prompts for Narrative and Personal Writing is a good place to start, though we add more every week during the school year.

In this unit we draw on many of these resources, plus some of the 1,000-plus personal essays from the Magazine’s long-running Lives column , to help students find their own “short, memorable stories ” and tell them well. Our related mentor-text lessons can help them practice skills like writing with voice , using details to show rather than tell , structuring a narrative arc , dropping the reader into a scene and more. This year, we’ll also be including mentor text guided lessons that use the work of the 2019 student winners.

As a final project, we invite students to send finished stories to our Second Annual Personal Narrative Writing Contest .

DECEMBER-January

Unit 3: The Review

Book reports and literary essays have long been staples of language arts classrooms, but this unit encourages students to learn how to critique art in other genres as well. As we point out, a cultural review is, of course, a form of argumentative essay. Your class might be writing about Lizzo or “ Looking for Alaska ,” but they still have to make claims and support them with evidence. And, just as they must in a literature essay, they have to read (or watch, or listen to) a work closely; analyze it and understand its context; and explain what is meaningful and interesting about it.

In our Mentor Texts series , we feature the work of Times movie , restaurant , book and music critics to help students understand the elements of a successful review. In each one of these guided lessons, we also spotlight the work of teenage contest winners from previous years.

As a culminating project, we invite students to send us their own reviews of a book, movie, restaurant, album, theatrical production, video game, dance performance, TV show, art exhibition or any other kind of work The Times critiques.

January-February

Unit 4: Informational Writing

Informational writing is the style of writing that dominates The New York Times as well as any other traditional newspaper you might read, and in this unit we hope to show students that it can be every bit as engaging and compelling to read and to write as other genres. Via thousands of articles a month — from front-page reporting on politics to news about athletes in Sports, deep data dives in The Upshot, recipes in Cooking, advice columns in Style and long-form investigative pieces in the magazine — Times journalists find ways to experiment with the genre to intrigue and inform their audiences.

This unit invites students to take any STEM-related discovery, process or idea that interests them and write about it in a way that makes it understandable and engaging for a general audience — but all the skills we teach along the way can work for any kind of informational writing. Via our Mentor Texts series, we show them how to hook the reader from the start , use quotes and research , explain why a topic matters and more. This year we’ll be using the work of the 2020 student winners for additional mentor text lessons.

At the end of the unit, we invite teenagers to submit their own writing to our Second Annual STEM writing contest to show us what they’ve learned.

March-April

Unit 5: Argumentative Writing

The demand for evidence-based argumentative writing is now woven into school assignments across the curriculum and grade levels, and you couldn’t ask for better real-world examples than what you can find in The Times Opinion section .

This unit will, like our others, be supported with writing prompts, mentor-text lesson plans, webinars and more. We’ll also focus on the winning teenage writing we’ve received over the six years we’ve run our related contest.

At a time when media literacy is more important than ever, we also hope that our annual Student Editorial Contest can serve as a final project that encourages students to broaden their information diets with a range of reliable sources, and learn from a variety of perspectives on their chosen issue.

To help students working from home, we also have an Argumentative Unit for Students Doing Remote Learning .

Unit 6: Writing for Podcasts

Most of our writing units so far have all asked for essays of one kind or another, but this spring contest invites students to do what journalists at The Times do every day: make multimedia to tell a story, investigate an issue or communicate a concept.

Our annual podcast contest gives students the freedom to talk about anything they want in any form they like. In the past we’ve had winners who’ve done personal narratives, local travelogues, opinion pieces, interviews with community members, local investigative journalism and descriptions of scientific discoveries.

As with all our other units, we have supported this contest with great examples from The Times and around the web, as well as with mentor texts by teenagers that offer guided practice in understanding elements and techniques.

June-August

Unit 7: Independent Reading and Writing

At a time when teachers are looking for ways to offer students more “voice and choice,” this unit, based on our annual summer contest, offers both.

Every year since 2010 we have invited teenagers around the world to add The New York Times to their summer reading lists and, so far, 70,000 have. Every week for 10 weeks, we ask participants to choose something in The Times that has sparked their interest, then tell us why. At the end of the week, judges from the Times newsroom pick favorite responses, and we publish them on our site.

And we’ve used our Mentor Text feature to spotlight the work of past winners , explain why newsroom judges admired their thinking, and provide four steps to helping any student write better reader-responses.

Because this is our most open-ended contest — students can choose whatever they like, and react however they like — it has proved over the years to be a useful place for young writers to hone their voices, practice skills and take risks . Join us!

Six Writing Mini-Lessons for Secondary Students

Writing mini-lessons? Today, I’m reflecting on the larger writing process that I teach with freshmen and sophomores. I’ve realized that within my writing units, I primarily teach six writing mini-lessons.

I teach writing throughout the entire semester with various projects after reading or an important discussion. Sure, we complete formal, researched papers. I do front-load information and provide expectations ahead of assignments. Still, as I encourage my writers, I’ve realized that I use min-writing lessons at different times throughout the semester.

I don’t present these lessons in a particular order, but by the end of the semester, we’ve worked through these smaller lessons. With high school writing lesson plans, flexibility is key.

My writing bundle contains various mini-writing lessons. Below, I’ve detailed my ideas so that you can make them your own. Writing mini-lessons (for high school students) can work in most writing curriculums, with writing workshop, and alongside mentor texts.

Not only do the writing mini-lessons boost student understanding allow me to differentiate, but they also ease my grading. Classes experience targeted practice and therefore, polished products. My grading is easier especially when we move to larger papers.

Overall, these writing mini-lessons benefit everyone.

How do you structure a successful writing mini lesson?

A successful writing mini-lesson should follow a clear structure: start with a hook to engage students, introduce the writing concept or skill, provide examples and explanations, allow for guided practice and independent writing time, and end with a wrap-up and reflection on what was learned.

Here are six.

Writing Process Mini-lessons

Cover expectations, definitions , and the writing process with a presentation and digital note sheets. Show characteristics of effective writing.

Boring? Nope: when I cover basics, I emphasize with students that I want us all to know expectations. Students arrive in my classroom with different experiences and domain-specific vocabulary. Instead of assuming that classes know my expectations, I clarify ideas with a quick presentation that outlines the basis of the writing curriculum.

After reviewing the writing process, implement paragraph writing to familiarize your classes with your expectations and manner of feedback. Plus, short assignments are a great way to implement the writing process quickly.

“One” Focus

Writing can overwhelm students, and one of my mini writing lessons is a focus on “one” idea students can accomplish. Since I provide feedback ahead of the final draft, I take into consideration the “overwhelm” that some writers can face. Since writing is a personal endeavor, students can easily become defensive about corrections. I feel that one of my jobs is to support the writer while showing the writer ways to improve the message.

With the “one” focus, everyone can easily tackle one area for improvement, see success, get excited, and move to working on more areas. As I work with a anyone, I give one piece of feedback and ask the student to return. You can read more ideas about feedback , but basically, I ask students to look at one area for improvement. For instance:

• Sentence variety.
• Transition words.
• Topic sentences.
• Integration of sources.
• Word choice.

And on! If I feel that a students is particularly overwhelmed, I will focus that student on one sentence. I keep the power of one in mind, and when students sense accomplishment, they almost always begin working on other areas. My conference cards align with the goal of one, and allow for private feedback.

Verb Focus, Grammar

Another writing mini-lesson focuses on verbs. With rough drafts, classes typically fill their papers with linking verbs and basic verbs (have, does). A rough draft shouldn’t be perfect, so I always emphasize that these verbs are perfect for the rough draft. After students work through their papers a few times, focus on verbs.

Teach young writers to leverage the power of verbs. Verbs drive a sentence, and verbs can provide an image that adjectives and adverbs can’t. Start by showing students linking verbs . (Sometimes, they don’t realize all of the linking verbs.) Then, we look at predicate adjectives and decide if there is a verb form. Finally, we dive deep into the sentence and find the meaning. Together, we find a verb that portrays the message of the sentence.

Students might not be aware that linking verbs actually lead to simple sentences such as subject, linking verb, predicate adjective. Lightbulbs normally go off when they realize that the predicate adjective often has a verb form (vocabulary lesson!) that can easily improve the sentence.

Another approach for improving verbs is simpler: ask classes to highlight every verb in the paper. Force them to resist plugging the verbs into the thesaurus and replacing the verb. Encourage everyone to brainstorm and work; they can recall verbs that will fit appropriately into their papers. When we work on verbs this way, I typically create a large web and encourage students to add to it.

After we improve verbs, we move to sentence structure.

Sentence Structure Focus

Connecting grammar and writing may take different forms, but sentence structure absolutely connects the two ideas. Sentence structure and all that it encompasses (punctuation, clauses, conjunctions) can overwhelm students. When I begin these writing mini-lessons, I have provided direct instruction over simple, compound, complex, and compound-complex sentences.

When we directly connect this grammar concept to writing, I review different sentence types and then ask writers to look at one paragraph of their paper. I’ve found that looking at the entire paper overwhelms them. When we look at one paragraph, students find success, and then they are able to transfer the idea to the rest of their paper.

Often, simple and compound sentences fill the paragraph. Would the addition of a conjunctive adverb or subordinating conjunction show more meaning, and in the process, provide a natural transition? Sometimes, combining sentences can add emphasis to a simple but little-known fact. Other times, using certain types of sentences can convey a larger meaning.

A simple exercise to illustrate the power of connecting grammar to writing is to ask students to provide you with a simple sentence. Model the different approaches students can take with such a sentence. For example: Plastics are harmful to the ocean.

That is a simple sentence, and it is a complete sentence! As a simple sentence, could you change it? The linking verb “are” could become “harm.” Plastics harm the ocean. Then, model how to turn the sentence into other types of sentences:

Compound: Plastics harm the ocean, and the public must become aware of the sad situation.

Complex: Although the situation is dire, humans must combat the harm of plastics in the ocean. 

Compound-complex: Plastics harm the ocean; however, when the public reuses containers and bags, people produce less plastic waste.

Playing with types of sentences is a powerful grammar and writing lesson. There is no correct answer, but many correct answers. Showing students sentence structures and their possibilities empowers young writers.

Overused Words Focus

Things, stuff, a lot, many: vague words can ruin a paper.

Again, I start by recognizing that overused words are common in a rough draft, but these words rarely poitively add to a paper. I complete a vocabulary lesson to support students and provide examples. Often, classes possess words that will improve their papers, but they need help drawing out those words.

The vocabulary lesson can be anything, really. . . but most often, I use a list of words associated with their papers. For instance, if students are writing about teenagers and sleep, we might look into words that they already know and branch from there. Students can brainstorm: naps, bedtime, exhaustion, focus, deprivation, chronic, difficulty, tiredness, fatigue, and moods.

That’s ten words, and everyone can use those words in a variety of forms. So, empower students by tapping into their prior knowledge. Then, show students how to branch those words into other ideas. Is a lack of sleep harmful? Do teenagers resist bedtime? Can sleepiness contribute to chronic conditions?

Create an anchor chart with classes based on the assignment. Another option is to brainstorm words that will help students cite information and incorporate it seamlessly into their papers. “The author said. . . ” Start a list with students, and show what they already know. What did the author do? Illustrated, demonstrated, proved, expounded, outlined, showcased, clarified: Teenagers know those words, and they can choose which verb best fits into their paper.

With a bit of help and brainstorming, you can eliminate overused words from student papers. Working on overused words and building vocabulary through modeling proper thesaurus use and activating prior knowledge are great mini-writing lessons.

Organization Focus

Focus in a paper begins before students write their first draft . Students might have dozens of ideas about a topic! They get excited and want to put all of those ideas in a paper, or they might not realize that numerous ideas won’t work in a paper.

Pre-Writing

Help writers focus by working with them before they write. Narrowing a focus before writing alleviates many focus problems before they even exist.

Students and I use a graphic organizer for mapping out their ideas. Allow individuals to choose the graphic organizer that makes sense to them. With graphic organizers, I provide images to utilize the benefits of metaphors from brain-based learning. To emphasize the meaning, I carry those metaphors into conferencing sessions. (Student conferences are also mini-writing lessons.)

For instance, if students look at their creation process as a road, I will tell them that I need more directions, that I need a yield sign or green light. Sometimes when I ask students to add transitions, they simply stick standard transitions into sentences. Instead, I want them to give me alerts ahead of the half-mile turn; I want to know in advance where their point is turning.

Drafting & Organizing

Other students might need a more abstract graphic organizer that prompts them to consider the color of their message or the graduation song for their conclusion. (I really will do anything to help students analyze their papers!) These silly techniques get students talking and brainstorming, and when we are finalizing papers, I am sure to return to the graphic organizer that shaped their organization at the beginning of the process. Using a metaphor, goofy and different ways, a bigger picture that students already understand, provides a starting point with students for focus.

As you conference and work with students, you will develop your own method of talking about papers. I am comfortable with using a road or a song as a talking point, but I’m confident you’ll develop an idea that works for you and your students.

Referencing the graphic organizer that meant something to them at the start of the writing process helps with organization throughout the paper. Plus, students can think of every idea for that paper at the start of the process. They can look back and realize why they eliminated certain points when they ultimately narrowed their focus.

High school English mini-lessons often support writing, and such activities are easy to connect to other lessons. My writing bundle contains various lessons with ample tools to support student writers. That bundle carries over the messages that I wrote in this post concerning mini-lessons.

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Are you interested in more mini writing lessons? My Pinterest board for writing contains ideas for m ini lessons for writing from around the web.

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5 Creative Writing Unit Ideas

• August 29, 2017

I’ve been hearing from a lot of teachers lately about getting thrown into teaching creative writing electives they weren’t expecting. Been there. I was excited if a bit overwhelmed the year I took over my friend’s “Creative Literature” course after she took a job in Northern California.

A creative writing course seems to flow out before you to the infinite horizon, am I right? There are so many different things you could do, and it’s not easy to figure out a logical flow and pin down the  assignments.

That’s why in this post I’m pulling together a list of some of the best creative writing units I’ve done, dreamed of, or participated in as a student. If I was writing a brand new course right now, I would use every one of these units.

The Multigenre Autobiography (for the beginning of the year)

I once assigned my American literature juniors an identity project. After reading a variety of pieces by American authors about their lives and experiences, my students produced a portfolio of works in different genres that shed light on their own identity. The results amazed me.

If I was crafting this same project for a creative writing course, I would ask students to create a narrative of their lives using three or four genres linked together. Perhaps they would begin with memoir about their early childhood, move into a video of their own performance poetry about early childhood, transition into a travel piece representative of their teenage years and finish with a fictional story about their future. I would detail a big list of options for the different genres, examine a range of autobiographical pieces that reflected at least some of those genres, and hit the ground running.

Enter a Contest  (for the early fall)

Writing contests are everywhere. I recently rounded up dozens for a post over at We Are Teachers . Choose one you think your students will enjoy, whether it’s the 10 Minute Play Contest, Engineer Girl, The Ocean Awareness Contest, The Bennington Young Writer’s Awards or one of the other wonderful options.

Better yet, share the whole list with your class and let everyone choose the contest they feel more drawn towards. By introducing the project and completing the work early in the year, you give them more options because the deadlines won’t yet have passed.

One Act Play Festival (for the early spring)

As the weather begins to warm, get students going on writing one act plays in groups. If you want to pair the project with a mentor text, choose a play to read first and then have students brainstorm a list of themes from that play that they can incorporate into their own.

Give them time to write and rehearse together (head outside if you can!). Then decide as a class when and where to hold your own one act play festival and invite guests. Consider letting students vote for several award-winning plays and hold your own awards ceremony when the performances conclude.

As the year comes to a close, keep students’ attention by inviting them to experiment with the genre of creative nonfiction through blogging. Give them a chance to choose a topic they’re truly interested in and begin experimenting with how to write for a real audience. You can assign profile posts, list posts, multimedia posts, opinion posts, top 10s, and more to guide them in writing the kinds of creative nonfiction they see constantly online. Read all about how to get going and discover the best free blogging platforms in this post, A Beginner’s Guide to Student Blogging.      Of course there are dozens more wonderful possibilities for creative writing units. You could write screenplays, memoirs, graphic novels, children’s books, nursery rhymes, fairy tales. You could explore writing scifi, fantasy, mystery, YA, and more. You could dive into poetry with spoken word, slam , and blackout poetry . The world is your oyster when it comes to a creative writing course, but these are just five fun possibilities to get you started.

Do you find your inspiration in VISUALS? I love ‘em too. Let’s hang out on Instagram! Click here to get a steady stream of colorful ideas all week long.

I’ll help you find the creative ELA strategies that will light up your classroom. Get ready for joyful teaching!

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Desert Island - KS3 Creative Writing Mini-Unit (Set of Four Fun and Engaging Lessons)

Subject: English

Age range: 11-14

Resource type: Unit of work

Last updated

19 June 2018

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Desert Island - KS3 Creative Writing Mini-Unit - Set of Four Lessons

A well-designed and highly-engaging set of four creative writing lessons. Perfect to use with students in the final weeks of term or as part of a related scheme of work (such as survival topics).

Students will create a character who is embarking on a journey. However, following a plane crash, the character ends up stranded on an island. They will continue writing about the character’s experiences on the island.

Lessons are well-structured (including starters, lesson objectives, guidance on writing) and ready for you to use immediately.

Students will write the story in four chapters. As they write each chapter, they are given guidance on what to include as well as tips on how they can use language techniques to develop their writing.

Cover image by Ian Bruce ( https://www.flickr.com/photos/ianbruce/ ). No changes made to image. Licence: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/legalcode

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10 Ideas for Planning Engaging Novel Units

Believe it or not, but some of the novels and texts I hated the most in high school are now my favorite to teach. (Hi, The Great Gatsby and “The Crucible,” I’m looking at you!) Why?! Because I’m on a mission to make my novels engaging and relevant for my students. It’s my way of being who I needed when I was younger. Now,  Gatsby and “The Crucible” are often my students’ favorites, year after year, because of my obsession with planning engaging novel units. Each year, I make it a priority to transform a few of my most “boring” lessons from the previous years so I can add to my collection of favorite lessons. With this mindset, I’ve been able to collect a number of tried-and-true engaging lesson ideas, many that I can reuse for different novel units. If your novel units are getting stale, make engagement your goal for 2019. Commit to changing up at least one old lesson a month, and by the end of the year, you’ll have yourself a small but mighty toolbox of engaging lesson ideas.

If you’re ready to ditch the PowerPoint lectures, chapter reading guides, and boring worksheets and make 2019 the Year of the Engaging Novel Unit, then read on! In this post, I rounded up some ideas from a few fellow ELA teacher friends (because a few English nerds are better than just one). I’ve sprinkled in my own strategies, too. I hope these ideas help you plan engaging novel units for your students!

1. CURRICULUM MAPPING

Before you start penciling in all of these engaging activities, sit down to map out the “big picture.” Amanda Cardenas from Mud and Ink Teaching says that the first thing she does for every novel unit is get a clear picture of what direction the map for the unit is.  On her free curriculum map , Amanda lays out a plan for all of the most critical components of the unit so that nothing is missed. 

2. LEARNING STATIONS

Learning stations will enhance your novel units in ways that traditional whole-class teaching just can’t! Searching for a engaging pre-reading activity to preview setting, characters, and context? Want your students to analyze key excerpts from the text? Desperately in need of some small-group discussions because your whole-class ones are flopping? Looking for a way to tackle symbolism at the end of the text? Stations are the answer, and they will be your best friend during your novel units if you give them a chance. For more information on learning stations, check out my series of blog posts here:

• 10 Reasons to Implement Learning Stations in the Secondary Classroom
• How to Create Learning Stations to Engage Students
• How to Facilitate Successful Learning Stations

If you’re already planning and want to save time prepping your stations, check out my bundle of pre- and post-reading learning stations for ANY text.

3. ONE-PAGERS

A one-pager is a creative response to reading that students enjoy and that doesn’t take teachers eons to grade. But it must be scaffolded for many students. Read about how you can do that in this post from Melissa at Reading and Writing Haven  here . If you are interested in reading about more ways to assess comprehension without making students hate reading, check out this post .

4. “WHAT STUCK WITH YOU?” ACTIVITY WITH STICKY NOTES

Need a quick engaging activity or informal assessment? Grab the sticky notes! Lauralee from the Language Arts Classroom asks her students to find what is meaningful or what has “stuck” with them regarding the novel. If you need more specific questions, check out this post.

5. MINI-LESSONS & COMPREHENSION ACTIVITIES

Melissa from Reading and Writing Haven knows how important it is to monitor comprehension (not in the “I got you” kind of way, but from the “I really want to know what you understand” mindframe). Reading guides can be cumbersome, so she began focusing on specific standards and reading skills through mini lessons. Melissa models the skills for her class, and then they practice. She does this both with class reads and during choice reading units. Check out her  favorite reading activities  that work for any text.

6. SOCRATIC SEMINARS

Ashley Bible from Building Book Love believes that Socratic seminars are the perfect engagement tool to use with any novel. They are little to no prep for the teacher, foster independent reading skills, and allow student voices to be heard. You can read all of her tips and tricks for hosting varied and successful socratic seminars here: How to Liven Up Your Socratic Seminar

If you’re in need of ready-to-print Socratic seminar materials that work for ANY text, check out my bundle of everything you need for this student-led discussion that makes the kids (not you) do the hard work!

7. GRAPHIC ORGANIZERS

An easy way to transform a boring chapter guide or worksheet is to turn it into a graphic organizer. Not only does it make the task a little more engaging, but it’s great scaffolding, too! Lauralee from the Language Arts Classroom loves using graphic organizers to help her students show what they know during novel units or choice reading units. Check out her collection of graphic organizers here.

8. LITERARY LENSES

Another tool Ashley Bible likes to use when teaching novels is her Literary Lenses . She thinks it’s very important for students to learn to see a single text through various lenses in order to form a more well-rounded theory of the novel. You can read more about how she teaches critical lenses in this post: Creative Ways to Teach Critical Lenses

9. QUESTION TRAILS

If you’re looking to ditch your chapter study guides and find a more engaging strategy to quickly review comprehension, practice identifying vocabulary in context, or even work on analysis, then consider trying out a question trail in your next novel unit. This unique kinesthetic activity will help you break up the monotony that can sometimes sneak up during whole-class novels. A question trail gets students up and moving around the room on a trail of multiple choice questions. At each station on the trail, students answer a multiple choice question that sends them to the next station on the trail. If students answer each question correctly, they will travel to all stations and complete a full circuit with the correct sequence of stations. If you’d like more information on creating your own question trail, check out this blog post. For a create-your-own question trail template, check out this resource , and for a collection of all of my favorite ELA question trails, take a look at this bundle.

10. CHARACTER FUNERALS

If you teach a novel in which a character dies (nearly all of literature, right?), then this idea is perfect for hitting the standards in an engaging way AND mourning a beloved literary character. Whenever I host a character funeral, my students write eulogies or elegies to demonstrate mastery of the skills we are working on. Writing a eulogy or elegy can help students cite textual evidence, analyze point of view, analyze author’s choices/purpose, analyze theme, analyze symbolism…the list goes on! For example, when we read “The Crucible,” I host a funeral for John Proctor so that my students can analyze the purpose of Proctor’s death and how it connects to Miller’s allegory. Similarly, when we hold a funeral for  The Great Gatsby , my students must write a eulogy from Nick’s point of view in order to analyze his complex attitude toward Gatsby, and ultimately, Fitzgerald’s purpose in writing  The Great Gatsby . Their eulogies help them contemplate Fitzgerald’s symbolism and commentary on the American dream.

I hope these ideas have inspired you to plan engaging novel units that your students will love!

What are your favorite tried-and-true activities for whole-class novels? I would love to hear about them in the comments!

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Eight Free Creative Writing Lessons

February 17, 2012 by Ami 17 Comments

I know I throw around the word favorite all the time. But this is the truth: teaching creative writing lessons is my favorite. 

I have taught creative writing enrichment for summer school students. I have taught creative writing in various homeschool settings and co-ops. I have taught big students and little students. And I love it. 

Since I love to share homeschool co-op class ideas , I have compiled the creative writing lessons from a co-op class that I taught. 

Creative Writing Lessons for a Homeschool Co-op Class

First, please remember that any teacher can use these creative writing lessons. You don’t need to be teaching homeschoolers. You can be a classroom teacher or a homeschool teacher at home with one student. You can even be a librarian who needs a fun program series.

Second, I used these creative writing lesson plans with upper elementary students (with maybe a few 7th graders thrown in). However, you can adapt and use them for older students or younger students!

Creative Writing Lesson Plans

Creative writing lesson one.

The first lesson focuses on cliché and metaphor. It prompts students to consider how words matter.

Grab lesson one here .

Creative Writing Lesson Two

The second lesson teaches students about sensory details: why they are important and how to include them in their writing. Students will begin using sensory details to evoke smells and sounds and sights.

Grab lesson two here.

Creative Writing Lesson Three

The third lesson introduces showing vs. telling. Students learn how to recognize authors who utilize showing, and students are able to articulate the difference between showing and telling.

Grab lesson three here.

Creative Writing Lesson Four

The fourth lesson teaches students how to capture images. We use examples of poetry and prose to discuss this important writing skill.

Grab lesson four here.

Creative Writing Lesson Five

The fifth lesson introduces the story elements of character and conflict.

Note: You may choose to split this lesson into two lessons since it covers two big elements. I only had nine weeks with my students, so I had to jam character and conflict together.

Grab lesson five here.

Creative Writing Lesson Six

The sixth lesson introduces the students to point of view and perspective. We have fun reading poems and using pictures to write descriptions from different points of view.

Grab lesson six here.

Creative Writing Lesson Seven

The seventh lesson puts everything we’ve learned together. I read the students some fractured fairy tales, and we watch some, too. Students then use the prewriting activities and their imaginations to begin drafting their own fractured fairy tales.

Grab lesson seven here.

Creative Writing Lesson Eight

The eighth lesson focuses on revision. After a mini-lesson, students partner up for peer editing.

Grab lesson eight here .

For our final class day, students bring revised work, and I host coffee shop readings. This is a memorable experience for students (and their teacher).

Creative Writing Lessons FAQ

Since posting these creative writing lessons, I have had lots of questions. I decided to compile them here in case you have the same question.

Q: What are copywork quotes? A: Copywork quotes are simply great quotes that students copy as part of their homework assignments. You can use any quotes about writing. I’ve included my favorites throughout the printable packs.

Q: Can I use this with a younger or older student? A: Absolutely! Just adapt it to meet the needs of your student.

Q: Can I use this for my library’s programming or my homeschool co-op class? A: Yes! I just ask that it not be used for profit.

Do you have any questions about teaching creative writing? What’s your biggest hang-up when it comes to teaching creative writing? I’d love to hear from you and help you solve the issue.

January 7, 2016 at 1:57 pm

Hi Theresa,

As long as you are not profitting from using them, they are yours to use! Enjoy! Wish I could be there to help facilitate all those young writers! 

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Creative Writing

15 Classified Ads We Hope Had Happy Endings Writing prompt: choose one of these historical ads and construct a narrative that supports it. Include characters, location, and other necessary details. (Teachers may wish to check the ads for appropriateness.)

20 Mystical Bridges That Will Take You To Another World Creative writing prompt: "I walked across the bridge and ..." The photographs of real bridges on this page are astonishingly beautiful. However, the page also carries ads that may not be appropriate for the classroom. Consider copying the photographs into a new file for classroom use.

27 Magical Paths Begging To Be Walked Photographs of beautiful paths all over the world, showing a variety of seasons and geography, just waiting to inspire a poem or serve as the setting for a short story. Note: this page carries ads that may not be appropriate for the classroom. Consider copying the photographs into a new file for classroom use.

The 100-Word Challenge In this activity students respond to a prompt using not more than 100 words. Writing is posted on a class blog, where responses are invited. The activity encourages regular writing for an authentic audience. It's designed for students 16 and under.

Adding Emotions to your Story A good lesson on adding detail, "exploding" an incident, and "show, don't tell." It includes handouts and is designed for grades 3-5.

After the First Draft: 30 Fast, Easy Writing Tips for the Second Draft This 37-page document is designed for writers of novels, but many of the tips apply equally to writers of short stories. Clear, simple, and easy to read, appropriate for 5th or 6th grade (in places) and up. Adobe Reader required for access.

All Together Now: Collaborations in Poetry Writing Students write a line of poetry in response to something the teacher reads. Their lines, together, form a poem. This unit is designed for grades K-2.

Bernadette Mayer's List of Journal Ideas A list of journal topics that will work on multiple grade levels. Scroll down for a list of "Writing Experiments" that will work well in a creative writing unit.

The Book of Butterflies by Michael Leunig (Scroll down on the page.) This short (1:06) video explores the question "What happens when a book comes to life?" It will work well on almost any grade level.

By the Old Mill Stream A creative writing prompt, differentiated for elementary and middle and high school students. Students begin writing a narrative. In the second part of the prompt, they write a description.

Calling on the Muse: Exercises to Unlock the Poet Within From Education World.

Can You Haiku? from EdSitement Complete lesson plans for writing haiku, links to additional material.

Character Name Generator Choose ethnicity, decade of birth, and gender, and this site will generate an appropriate name and a possible character description.

Characterization in Literature and Theater Students explore various methods authors use to create effective characters. Students will consider what makes a character believable and create their own characterizations. They will also write a short script using the characters they created and act out the script.

The Clues to a Great Story One-page handout with 5 essential elements for good storytelling. Uses "The Ugly Duckling" and more contemporary stories for examples.

The Color of Love In this lesson students will be invited to reflect on a variety of colors and the pleasurable things that those colors invoke. They then will write a poem about someone they love following Barbara Joosse's style in I Love You the Purplest .

Creating Characters Students examine character as a significant element of fiction. They learn several methods of characterization, identify and critique these methods in well-known works of fiction, and use the methods in works of their own. Students also identify, examine, evaluate, and use the elements dialogue and point of view as methods of characterization.

Creative State of Mind: Focusing on the Writing Process In this lesson, students examine the lyrics of rap artist Jay-Z for literary elements including rhyme, metaphor, puns and allusions, then consider what he says about his own writing process. Finally, they analyze additional lyrics and apply lessons from Jay-Z's process to their own reading and writing.

The Cutting Edge: Exploring How Editing Affects an Author's Work Students examine the writing of short-story author Raymond Carver as well as their own writing to explore how editing can affect the text, content and context of an author's work.

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5 Mini-Lessons You MUST Teach for Creative Narrative Writing

Using creative narrative mini-lessons is a great way to teach students about small tidbits of writing without overwhelming them. These sessions are 10-15 minutes long, which is the perfect amount of time to engage elementary students without them losing interest. In my post about Writer’s Workshop , I stress the importance of teaching writing through mini-lessons.

Need writing lessons that reach all of your writers? The lesson I feature in this post is a part of this ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ lesson plan bundle. 

Here are the 5 creative narrative mini-lessons you MUST teach!

Character development.

Your students all know about character traits, right? Build off of this knowledge to talk about character development in your creative narrative. Character development occurs when the author writes character actions or dialogue that gives us clues about the character’s traits, interests, and background.

In this creative narrative mini-lesson, students spend time during brainstorming coming up with a strong lead character, who happens to be an astronaut on the international space station. We use this brainstorming to help us write our rough draft, which includes character development. This is a great organizer to use after your mini-lesson to help students develop their main character.

Setting Development

It’s imperative to teach your students to develop their setting using descriptive words and phrases. Put up photos of different places and have students come up with words and phrases to describe them. Let them orally share with a partner as if they were introducing the place to someone that has never seen it. Have students close their eyes and describe a setting to them, then have them draw a picture of how they saw the setting in their mind. There are so many fun ways to teach setting development in a 10-15 minute mini-lesson!

Sequence of Events

Your students will probably remember the sequence words they’ve learned in past grade levels: first, next, then, last, etc. This creative narrative mini-lesson is a great time to reintroduce those words to show that a creative narrative has a sequence of events. Give them an example mentor text and then have them retell the story using these sequence words.

I’ve made a easy bookmark (included in the freebie above!) with these words that students can pull out if they get stuck. I’ve found that they are much more likely to use a bookmark as a resource than turn to a page of notes in their notebook – crazy, right ?

After you retell the sequence of events using those order words, change those words to stronger transition words. My favorite list of transition words can be found  here . 

First Immediately

Next By Now

Then Meanwhile

Finally Ultimately

After this mini-lesson, I send my students back to their seat to independently create a sequence of events for their own creative narrative. I encourage them to use transition words and we continue to work on these throughout our rough draft and revision stages.

Dialogue is one of the most important pieces of a creative narrative. It’s also one of the most difficult for students. I’ve often found myself asking, “Why can my students identify dialogue so easily, but they can’t write it correctly?” It’s all about practice, which means they need to be writing a lot of dialogue!

For this creative narrative mini-lesson, give students the rules to writing different types of dialogue. They’ll need to know how to:

• Make a new line of dialogue every time a new speaker talks
• Use quotation marks around the words being spoken
• Choose a fitting dialogue tag or attribution
• Use the appropriate punctuation depending on whether the tag is at the beginning, middle, or end of the dialogue

Strong Endings

Students really struggle with how to write a good, strong resolution to their story. You may notice that many of their stories either abruptly end, or end with “and that’s what happened” or “the end.” Teach your students about how experienced authors end their stories . Grab an ending or two from one of the short stories your class has read this year. Analyze the ending with your class during your mini-lesson and brainstorm the different parts of a strong ending.

Creative narrative writing can be so much fun, and using these 5 mini-lessons will turn a basic story into a rich, delightful tale!

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About the Author

April smith.

April began her career as a 5th grade teacher in 2008 and quickly developed a passion for creating engaging educational materials to share with fellow teachers. She now works with districts around the country, training their teachers and leaders on how to implement research-based strategies and differentiation techniques that meet the needs of diverse learners.

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