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"Welcome to the official Web site for the 2001 American-Canadian Mt. Everest Expedition, brought to you by Touchstone Energy. This educational Web site is designed for teachers and students in elementary and middle school grades. Although Ed Hommer's goal of being the first double amputee to reach the summit of the world's tallest mountain was not achieved, you can read his and other team members' journal entries from Mt. Everest in the Reading Trail section. The expedition was forced to end its quest in October after running out of time and into bad weather. To learn more about this expedition, click on Expedition Basecamp. Included in this site are over 30 lesson plans that address core learning objectives in reading, math, science and social studies. Each lesson plan includes: * A motivating introduction including student directions and learning objectives * Resources students use to complete the lesson (expedition journals and related data, bibliographies, Web site links, etc.) * A student worksheet that can be printed * Assessment strategies and formats "

Empowered Fiction Writers: Generating and Organizing Ideas for Story Writing Overview This three-part lesson introduces students to the use of speedwriting (also called free writing) as a prewriting technique. Learning the technique of speedwriting allows students to generate a foundation of ideas on which they can build a narrative structure. Students then identify key ideas and phrases in their speedwriting, and organize their ideas around the main elements of a story (exposition, rising action, climax, conclusion).

"This lesson helps students understand copyright, fair use, and plagiarism by focusing on why students should avoid plagiarism and exploring strategies that respect copyright and fair use. The lesson includes three parts, each framed by a KWL chart. In the first part, focusing on plagiarism, students discuss plagiarism and look at examples to determine whether the passages are plagiarized. Part two introduces copyright and fair use. Students use a Think-Pair-Share strategy to explore questions about fair use, then read several scenarios and determine if the uses described are fair use. In the third part, students develop paraphrasing skills through direct practice with paraphrasing text book passages using an online notetaking tool."

This lesson encourages students to use skills and knowledge they may not realize they already have. A classroom game introduces students to the basic concepts of lobbying for something that is important to them (or that they want) and making persuasive arguments. Students then choose their own persuasive piece to analyze and learn some of the definitions associated with persuasive writing. Once students become aware of the techniques used in oral arguments, they then apply them to independent persuasive writing activities.

Collated lessons for grades 6-8 around the use of the writer's notebook

"Scaling Back to Essentials: Scaffolding Summarization With Fishbone Mapping"

Resource for lesson in book: Non-fiction Craft Lessons pg. 93: Making Transitions Between Paragraphs

Argument & Persuasive Writing Lesson plans and teaching resources

In this lesson, students analyze a writer's use of sensory details and descriptive language in a New York Times article reviewing the Apple iPhone. Then, students are asked to write original product reviews which incorporate some of the descriptive writing techniques identified and evaluated in class.

Interactive Tools and Lessons for "Persuasive Writing"

Mentor Text: USA today article and lesson plan

Fierce Wonderings lesson using Ralph Fletcher's book "A Writer's Notebook" and "Amelia's Notebook"

"Picture Books as Framing Texts: Research Paper Strategies for Struggling Writers "

In this activity, students "become" one of the major characters in a book and describe themselves and other characters, using lists of accurate, powerful adjectives. In class discussion, students support their lists with details from the novel.

Resources and Materials Available on Our Site * Assessment * Lesson Plans * Parents * Writing * Other * Photographs * Staff Development * PowerPoint Presentations * Worksheet / Reporting Forms, etc.

By learning to how to use information presented in various types of nonfiction material, students will prepare to use the multitude of expository texts that readers of all ages encounter daily, including newspapers, brochures, magazines, instruction manuals, recipes, and maps. These lessons can help students understand the differences between fiction and nonfiction and develop reading fluency in this important genre.

One initial lesson for writer's notebooks is to Read Ralph Fletcher's opening story in Keeping a Writer's Notebook. It's about digging a ditch and catching all kinds of critters. He compares writer's notebooks to that ditch -- a space we dig in our busy lives to catch stuff. After reading the story, my students and I brainstorm the different kinds of things we could catch in our writer's notebooks. Then I typed the chart in a format that made it easy for students to tape it to the inside cover of their notebooks. Here's what we came up with: