This is a collection of resources for writing instruction.
Use a variety of mentor texts to have students practice skills, and to explicitly teach them how to use the techniques examined including:
Building compound sentences with coordinating conjunctions
Varying sentence length
Using transitions to connect ideas
"Skills Canada Saskatchewan is a not-for-profit Provincial Organization that promotes skilled trades and technologies to young people in Saskatchewan."
This site has a wealth of information about skills and tech and the trades in SK.
*Skills for success - learn about the skills you need for success - videos
*Skills competitions - find skills competitions
*Skills Profiles - learn about construction, employment, IT, manufacturing & engineering, services and transportation skills
*Programs - trade & tech days, National Skilled Trade and Tech Week
This lesson provides teachers with support for using text-dependent questions and Common Core literacy strategies to help students derive big ideas and key understandings while developing vocabulary using the story Skylark. In this story, a family struggles on a prairie farm during a drought. They are forced to make a painful choice when their water soon runs out.
This lesson for English Language Learners (ELLs) introduces a very clever chimpanzee named Ayamu. In this lesson, learners will practice reading, listening, speaking and writing. All activities are automatically graded with feedback provided to the learner upon submission.
A snapshot is a basic technique, yet a tremendous aid to any piece of fiction when implemented correctly. A snapshot is basically a moment in a story where you take a temporarily stop from the plot to describe something specific in a story. Generally this can be used to create suspense or draw strong emotions out of the reader.
If you feel your story is getting a bit dull, but you need to still build up to the plot, use a snapshot! It can also be used when you want to add more emotion, feeling, and realism to a story.
Take a scene from your story that you feel didn't have enough emotional impact, suspense, or realism. Once you have that sentence, expand on it. Try to get down every sense you can think of.. How it made you feel, how it smelled, etc. It should be picture perfect. Depending on what emotion you want to convey will directly impact how you write your snapshot.
This is a cross curricular project revolving around the documentary The Social Dilemma. Students will write an essay and create an Action Plan to tackle the issues surrounding Social Media and it's pervasiveness in our lives. The outcomes covered are focused in Social 7, Health 7 and ELA 7.
This lesson for English Language Learners (ELLs) discusses a trend that is becoming more popular with each passing year, space tourism. In this lesson, learners will practice reading, listening, speaking and writing. All activities are automatically graded with feedback provided to the learner upon submission.
This thematic unit from Comox Valley Schools (SD71) in B.C. is aimed at Grade 6 Core French students, but is suitable for older grades and would be easily adaptable for younger ones. It is focused on oral practice and participation and would also be useful in French Immersion classes!Content Authors: Comox Valley Schools, Learn71, Beth Peddle
7 steps to teaching persuasive or argumentative writing!
This folktale is about three monks who visit a village filled with unhappy people. The villagers do not welcome the monks, so the three monks decide to make stone soup to teach the villagers a lesson in happiness.
Julian meets Gloria, a new girl in his neighborhood. Together they make a wish kite, with wishes fastened to its tail; both wish for lasting friendship.
This African folk tale explains how many African tales came to be known as ŕSpider stories.ĚŇ In this tale, Ananse, the Spider man, travels up to the sky to offer to buy Nyame, the Sky Gods, stories. Nyame asks Ananse to bring him Osebo the leopard-of-the-terrible-teeth, Mmboro the hornets-who-sting-like-fire, and Mmoatia the fairy-whom-men-never-see. Ananse agrees to the price but Nyame believes that Ananse is too small and weak to accomplish such a task. Ananse uses his intelligence and cunning to trick all three creatures. He returns to Nyame with payment for his stories. Nyame calls his court together to sing the praises of Ananse and declares his stories ŕSpider stories.ĚŇ
This site generates 274,400 story starters for kids to give them lots of opportunities to write!
Storytelling/Story Acting (STSA) is a simple movement based on the work of Vivian Paley. STSA involves children dictating stories to adults, followed by a teacher-facilitated acting out of children’s stories at meeting times throughout the day. STSA develops narrative fluency, the concept of a story, and the opportunity to express emotions and experiences. There is no need for rehearsal or special props and stories can be acted out anywhere. It is however, important to designate a “stage” and develop a routine around STSA.
Storybird lets anyone make visual stories in seconds. We curate artwork from illustrators and animators around the world and inspire writers of any age to turn those images into fresh stories. It's a simple idea that has attracted millions of writers, readers, and artists to our platform. Families and friends, teachers and students, and amateurs and professionals have created more than 5 million stories—making Storybird one of the world's largest storytelling communities
Publish, print, and share your writing.
Order beautiful printed editions of your stories or publish online and get feedback from a community of 9 million readers, writers, and educators.*
This lesson provides teachers with support for using text-dependent questions and Common Core literacy strategies to help students derive big ideas and key understandings while developing vocabulary using the illustrated text, "The Stranger." This story uses a mixture of pictures and words to explore the idea of the changes of the seasons and the expected natural events that occur with it' colder weather, leaves changing color, Jack Frost and migration. Chris Van Allsburg walks a fine line between reality and fantasy to create a mystery about the identity of the stranger who will represent the seasonal change from summer to fall. The Houghton Mifflin authors identify the storyĺĺs theme as an allegory for autumn and the use of personification to make the association.
This is a Zuni play about an ant in the search to find out who is strongest of all. The ant talks with numerous characters to find out who is the strongest. At the end, he learns the lesson that everything is stronger than something else.
This process and template provide teachers with a structure to infuse structured literacy cross-curricularly. This includes a 9 step process, as well as a template to plan on, and an example.
This is a series of toolkits for older students.
The toolkits allow students to explore a topic, watch videos on the content, and apply what they learn.
Topics include:
Interacting with profs, library skills, managing your time, preparing for exams, presentation skills, reading textbooks, taking notes, thinking critically, working in groups, and writing.
"This printable is super simple (my favorite). It’s a summarizing graphic organizer with space for students to write notes about characters (“somebody”), conflict (“wanted” and “but”), rising action, climax and resolution (“so” and “then”). I’ve found that some of my students have a hard time condensing a story. They want to tell more than they need to for a summary. Encouraging them to follow this kind of statement helps limit them to only the most important ideas."