Knowing how to write an effective persuasive letter is a powerful tool. Students will learn how to advocate for their ideas by planning and drafting a well-supported persuasive letter on an issue of their choice.

Once your students have drafted a persuasive letter, use this lesson to help them polish their writing. Students will use a checklist to ensure that all of the most important parts of their letter are included and the argument is solid.

Whoa, weather! Using technology as an aid, students will put their research skills to the test while learning about hurricanes.

Step into the shoes of an explorer. Students will learn more about the lives and accomplishments of important explorers, and they'll demonstrate their knowledge through a creative writing assignment.

Students will get lots of editing practice in this lesson! After reviewing basic editing symbols, students will edit provided stories and a partner’s work. Student will also learn about editing tools used in word processing.

Students often understand the basic conventions of writing, but may need support in incorporating these skills into their work. In this lesson, students will review some of the more common capitalization and punctuation errors and apply their editing skills to real writing.

Similes, metaphors, and idioms are some of the most widely used literary devices in both speaking and writing. Students will review each of these and practice creating some of their own.

Help your ELs familiarize themselves with prepositional phrases as they search for supporting details in nonfiction texts. This lesson could stand alone or be taught prior to teaching the Detective Reading lesson.

Help your ELs learn how to identify the main idea and supporting details in a nonfiction text by using nouns and pronouns as guide words. It can be a stand-alone lesson or used as support to the lesson Explorer Letters.