Emotions play a big role in how we remember places that are important to us. Students explore this idea by writing memoirs, using plot, dialogue, and description to bring their stories to life.

Welcome to the Poetry Test Kitchen, where students will work together to cook up a delicious collective poem using metaphors, concrete details, and descriptive language.

Students will become script detectives, searching for the underlying structure of every play, and then use their own memories to inspire original plays.

Behind every superstition lives a tale worth sharing. In this lesson, students will conjure their own urban legend or superstition to explain the unknown.

Through brainstorming and drafting activities, students will learn the basics of personal narrative writing and craft an essay that they can use for college, scholarships, job applications and more.

Spooky stories are universally beloved. Read a selection of spooky stories from countries around the world, and then write your own!

Students will act as members of The Cryptid Convention—the world's only secret, not-so-secret society devoted to discussing new cryptids—and write an informational poster about an original cryptid.

Through an upcoming zombie apocalypse, students will explore multiple STEM disciplines and the importance of scientific modeling. They'll write technical notes and create an ongoing narrative.

Students will identify something they have inherited from their families, conduct interviews, and write a narrative essay. This lesson is especially well suited for English Language Learners.

In this lesson, students write about a cause that they are passionate about, imagine how they can create change, and come up with slogans to convince other people to take action.

Students will work collaboratively to construct a vision for your classroom as a safe space for students and educators.

A student’s guide for evaluating evidence and learning to spot misleading and false information.

What happens when we start from a place of gratitude? In this lesson, students will use Ross Gay’s "Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude" as a catalyst for a daily gratitude journal.

Students will create infinite poems using fractals, imagine life on a doughnut, and speculate about a universe where time goes crazy. Along the way, they'll explore cool, new math facts and concepts.

Imaginary friends come in all shapes and sizes! Inspired by the Paramount Pictures movie, IF, students will create their own imaginary friend to take with them on their next adventure.

In this lesson, students will learn about different types of rhymes, identify rhymes in lyrics and generate rhymes to use in their own lyrics.

Invite students to write about their personal experiences with social media and online platforms with this lesson from 826NYC.

In this superlesson, students isolate DNA, design planes, build lairs, and engineer safe transport to help a hero save the day. Students will also take technical notes and explore new forms of poetry.

In this lesson, students will learn how to write comedy sketches inspired by "Monty Python’s Flying Circus."

Working as budding archaeologists, students use artifacts as inspiration for several short writing pieces.

Using Twitter as a storytelling medium, students will improve their understanding of perspective, editing for brevity, and the importance of word choice.

World-building is a vital part of writing compelling science fiction. In this lesson, students will develop a new, in-depth world for their science fiction story.

Extra, extra, read all about it! In this lesson, students will learn the basics of print journalism and write an editorial for a classroom newspaper.

A mock crime scene kick-starts this lesson, getting students to hone their inferencing skills and serving as inspiration for crime stories.

Students will collect dirt, map their neighborhood, and listen to music that explores low sound, soil depth, and the psychological landscape of New Orleans.

Students examine relationships between art, poetry, politics, and current events, and reflect on personal experiences while writing social justice poetry.

In this lesson, students will use descriptive language to write a poem about a favorite animal.

Students will work together to produce a newspaper for the fictional Flood City. In the process, they will take on the roles of editor and journalist to source, draft, and present their newspaper.

In this lesson, students have an opportunity to write a letter expressing their views on issues that matter to them most surrounding an election.

In this lesson, students are challenged to reevaluate the way water and land are represented on a map.

Students will craft an argument about a controversial topic they hold a personal connection to and record their argument to persuade their audience.

Discover what’s possible through writing. In this lesson, students will write a thrilling new story about their future selves inspired by their curiosity and imagination.

Over the course of this lesson, students produce memoirs, poems, and essays that explore what it means to be a member of the LGBTQIA community in America today.

Engineers, ahoy! Students put their skills to the test designing tinfoil boats, learning about density along the way. Then, they incorporate their newfound knowledge into thrilling tales.

Students (virtually) explore a local cemetery and write a monologue from a famous person buried there, including facts from their research and imagined details from a mapping exercise.

The pen is mightier than the sword. In this lesson, students learn there's no better evidence of this than the poetry behind social movements.

Inspired by George Ella Lyon’s original poem, this lesson guides students through naming the people, places, and things that have shaped them.

What if you could change the ending to a memory that left you powerless? In this lesson, students will retell a story with a new ending, reclaiming their power in the process.

Students will practice writing strong interview questions to learn new perspectives. This lesson can be used for community building or to support a research project.

In this lesson, students explore the genres of historical and speculative fiction before they reimagine a time they felt powerless and write a different outcome.

Ekphrastic poems vividly describe a piece of art. In this lesson, students will write ekphrastic poems, while exploring and creating connections between text and image.

What makes a hero? In this lesson, students will develop a complex character that defies traditional archetypes and then write a superhero story featuring that character.

In this lesson, students will construct a short narrative told through concrete poems.

What’s in a name? Students will consider how language can impact identity and create an illustrated name poem that reflects their identities.

Students will tell stories about their neighborhoods and create maps that document change. The end result is a better understanding of a map’s ability to demonstrate the history behind fixed points.

Over a flexible series of activities, students will learn to draw details from real life to create unforgettable characters and compelling stories.

When was the last time you felt like a superhero? In this lesson, students will reflect on that moment and write a poem that shows off their inner strengths.

This lesson from KQED Education asks students to choose an issue they care about and create an editorial cartoon advocating for change on a local, national, or global level.

This lesson invites students to write a modern day fairy tale. Students will reconstruct classic fairy tales by choosing to focus on altering one story element: setting, point of view, or resolution.

Students enter The Poetry Laboratory (no lab coats required) and use methods of observation and playful strategies to embark on the process of writing poetry.

In this lesson, students will use mentor texts to hone their revision skills before turning to their own poetry drafts.

Students will learn to see home in a fresh way, to walk through doors and open windows they never noticed, and to find the stories that home holds.

Self-power comes from many places. In this lesson, students will discover the power that comes from speaking and writing in multiple languages through poetry.

By examining patterns in engaging published stories and applying a set of meaningful prompts, students will learn how to develop well-rounded characters that readers really care about.

Students will read a poem by Eve L. Ewing and learn to write a poem that retells or reimagines an experience.

Stories are the thread that connect communities. In this lesson, students learn more about culture and identity through Dakota and Hmong textile arts, as well as reflect on their own identities.

The COVID-19 pandemic changed our lives. This lesson will support students in processing the changes in their everyday lives and help them to identify the creativity their community has exhibited.

Parody is a type of writing that deliberately exaggerates for comic effect. In this lesson, students will use foundational news-writing techniques to write their own parody.

Few expressions of gratitude are more meaningful than a personalized letter. In this lesson, students reach out to essential workers and return their acts of service and kindness by giving thanks.

In this Spark, students will create a “pourquoi tale,” or origin story, of how a local delicacy came to be.

Your students will use free writes, writing games, cheesy pop lyrics, and revision strategies to learn how to make connections between all of the points on their journey of writing a poem.

In this lesson, students experiment with the multimodal composition of Instagram and use this social media platform to promote a social justice issue.

By examining patterns in engaging published stories and applying a set of meaningful prompts, students will learn how to develop well-rounded characters that readers really care about.

Through writing, drawing, mapping, and researching a chosen fruit, students will become more familiar with the often complex history of food and how people access it.

In this lesson, students will learn the basics of engineering to craft awesome paper airplanes and practice technical writing to recreate their designs.

Through discussion, map-making, and writing, students will investigate the ways in which our knowledge of places is constructed and will uncover the ways that this knowledge is distorted by biases.

In this lesson, students explore the graphic novel genre with a focus on plot and character development, scripting dialogue, and visual composition.

What do you get when you mix foraging with metaphors? Metaphoraging, of course! In this interactive lesson, students will forage their learning space for metaphors.