Created By: Hillary Brady, Digital Public Library of America - Time Period: The Development of the Industrial United States (1870-1900) - Subjects: US History; Native Americans - Remixed By: Nicole Cockey - The writing task described here can be used as a diagnostic to assess students' inferential and narrative writing skills. Teachers should asses students' ability to drawing inferences based on what the primary sources explicity show and say. Teachers are also assessing students' narrative techniques, include establishing point of view or perspective, sequencing events coherently, vivid use of language language, and resolution. As a diagnostic, this writing activity should be performed on demand after students have had sufficient time to examine and analyze the primary sources.See "Text Set Exploring Identity, Culture, Agency through Boarding Schools" for more details.

In this lesson, inspired by the book 'It Begins with an A', this minilesson invites kindergartners to combine their experiences with familiar objects and descriptive writing by making a class book. First, during a reading of It Begins with an A, students discuss descriptive works, number words, size words, and other words that describe objects in the book. Next, students practice by giving three clues that describe familiar objects named by the teacher. Students are encouraged to develop more specific and descriptive clues. Then, each student thinks of an object and draws it on the back of a sheet of paper. On the front of the paper, they write three clues that describe the object. Finally, the completed pages are combined to create a book that can be shared with family members and peers before adding it to their classroom library.