Here are two sites worth exploring:
Tools for Reading, Writing, and Thinking is an outstanding collection of graphic organizers for students to use while they are reading and writing. Whether you are teaching cause and effect, how to make inferences, or how to distinguish between fact and opinion, there's something for you here. And they're all ready to print (in PDF format). The site is owned and operated by a school district in New York.
The second one is an intriguing poetry assignment by the British poet Esther Morgan. She asks students to write in the voice of a ghost and gives lots of helpful prompts such as
Think about how you manifest yourself. Are you invisible, silent, noticeable only as a change of temperature, or a creak on the staircase? Or are you able to communicate in some way, through words or noises or dreams? If you have a visible appearance, what is it? Think of some of the cliches of ghostliness and either avoid them, or try to explore them from the inside: how does it feel to walk through a wall, or carry your head under your arm?
Morgans' article is part of a regular series of poetry workshops published in the The Guardian.
