In this creative activity, students will imagine a scenerio where they have wronged their true love and have 4 lines to convince them to stay. Each student should make careful word choices to write persuasive verse capable of convincing a lost love to reunite. Students will present their arguments in a dramatic way, incorporating music.

In this speech, Rudolfo Anaya celebrates the purchase of the 1 millionth library volume by the University of New Mexico. He begins by describing how as a child on summer evenings he sat under the stars and listened to the stories of los viejitos, the old ones. For Anaya the million volumes in the university’s library represent freedom because preserving access to ideas leads to the preservation and ultimately the regeneration of our cultural ideals. In this CCSS lesson, students will explore this story through text dependent questions, academic vocabulary, and writing assignments.

The sonnet begins with the speaker stating that the earth’s poetry never dies. In summer, the grasshopper runs among the hedgerows singing his song and then rests in the shade. In the frosty silence of winter, the earth's poetry continues now the cricket, singing from the stove, shrills a song that's as warm and summery as the grasshopper's music. In this CCSS lesson, students will explore this story through text dependent questions, academic vocabulary, and writing assignments.

In this lesson, students will dissect a Times column about the leadership styles of former Vice President (and Nobel Laureate) Al Gore and President George W. Bush and then write their own opinion editorial on presidential leadership.

The poem Oranges by Gary Soto is about the bittersweet experience of a first date. They walk together to the drug store and girl picks a chocolate that costs a dime. The boy offers to pay for the candy with a nickel and an orange. The boy takes the girl's hand and then releases it so she can unwrap her chocolate, and he can peel his orange. In the darkness of the winter day, the orange burns bright light a fire, much like the love in his heart. In this CCSS lesson, students will explore this story through text dependent questions, academic vocabulary, and writing assignments.

This resource includes two nonfiction texts, a link to a video, and 17 text-dependent questions (including one optional constructed-response prompt for students). Also includes explanatory information for teachers regarding alignment to the CCSS.

A narrator recounts the story of Paul Revere’s ride, which took place in Massachusetts on April 18, 1775. On that night, Revere tells his friend to hang a lantern in the belfry of the Old North Church if the British forces begin to march—one light if they are coming by land, two if they are coming by sea. We know the rest—the minutemen routed the redcoats. He also says that we will hear Revere’s cry of defiance throughout history. In this CCSS lesson, students will explore this history through text dependent questions, academic vocabulary, and writing assignments.

The text begins with a poor fisherman, Kino, his wife, Juana, their baby Coyotito, and the great pearl. When Coyotito is stung by a scorpion, Kino and Juana travel from their village to take him to the nearest doctor. However, they are unable to pay for treatment and are turned away. But once they have a large pearl in their possession, the greedy doctor makes a house call, hoping to get a share of the profits. In this CCSS lesson, students will explore this story through text dependent questions, academic vocabulary, and writing assignments.

The PQP technique—Praise–Question–Polish—requires group members to take a turn reading their drafts aloud as the other students follow along with copies. This oral reading helps the writer to hear the piece in another voice and to identify possible changes independently.

In this interactive lesson students will learn how to write their own personal letter by deciding what to include and what to leave out, practicing setting the right tone, choosing words with apostrophes in the right places, and practicing setting the right tone in a letter to a friend.

This lesson gives students the opportunity to examine opinion editorials and write their own on school issues. After reading and listening to opinion pieces, students identify strong examples of persuasion and record them on a graphic organizer. Small groups then brainstorm issues in the school that they believe deserve action plans. Each group uses graphic organizers to explore its issue. The group then constructs a letter on that issue. The letter is then edited for grammar and content, typed on a word processor, printed, and delivered to the school principal.

In this lesson, students explore environmental issues that are relevant to their own lives, self-select topics, and gather information to write persuasive essays. Students participate in peer conferences to aid in the revision process and evaluate their essays through self-assessment. Although this lesson focuses on the environment as a broad topic, many other topics can be easily substituted for reinforcement of persuasive writing.

Students will watch and discuss video clips that show how two men in Chile coped with being prisoners in concentration camps during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. Each student will then create a non-fiction picture book that tells the story of one of these men and provides historical context.

This is a lesson guide for "Cat!, Silver and Your World". In this CCSS lesson, students will explore this history through text dependent questions, academic vocabulary, and writing assignments.

Lesson guides for :Concrete, Harlem Night Song" and "The City is So Big". In this CCSS lesson, students will explore this history through text dependent questions, academic vocabulary, and writing assignments.

Lesson guides for "Old Man, Runagate Runagate" and "Blow, Blow, Thou Winter Wind". In this CCSS lesson, students will explore this history through text dependent questions, academic vocabulary, and writing assignments.

This lesson plan, The Power of Freedom, focuses on Dr. Martin Luther King’s most well-known and frequently taught classic works, like “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” and “I Have a Dream.” Students read and discuss the themes in both works and connect to events in their lives today.

This resource is a nonfiction, Common Core aligned reading passage with textual analysis questions about main idea and supporting details. Also incuded are mutiple choice textual analysis questions.

Speech writing is a rhetorical art and provides the content for these scaffolded lessons that support the increased cognitive rigor of literacy standards with presidential writings.

RAFT is a writing strategy that helps students understand their role as a writer, the audience they will address, the varied formats for writing, and the topic they'll be writing about. By using this strategy, teachers encourage students to write creatively, to consider a topic from a different perspective, and to gain practice writing for different audiences. Students learn to respond to a writing prompt that requires them to think about various perspectives.