Hooking Your Reader is a set of posters that cover the main strategies students can use in order to help "hook" the reader into reading the story they have written.  The set of posters include a page with the strategy the writers could use and a description.  There are also posters that have written examples and the students are to decide what strategy the writer is using.  These posters could also be used as a PowerPoint presentation instead of simply printing them off and hanging them up.

Writing Runway is an interactive website in which an adult types a sentence and the game cuts the sentence into pieces.  The words will then appear in the cockpit area of the plane on the screen and then it is the student’s job to place the words in the correct sentence order on the runway. If the word is wrong it will be placed back into the cockpit area.  Once the student has the sentence correct the fighter jet will take off.  This is a great way for students to practice sentence structure and the importance of writing sentences in a way that makes sense.

The Story Starter Jr. is a fun way for students to come up with a topic to write about.  All they have to do is click the button for their story starter and it will give them a fun first sentence they can write about.  The idea is that the sentence provided will trigger the students' imagination and allow them to come up with a creative story based on the first line, which the website provides them with.  The website currently has 171,600 story starters for kids, so if your students do not like the first sentence given to them, there are many more to choose from.

e-Learning for Kids is a non profit organization that has a variety of digital lessons available in various subject areas and you are able to choose the subject area and age level for the lesson you are looking for.  This link will take you to the writing strategies page called Pack Your Bags 'Write Away'.  You have to click the link that says click to enter and the lesson will open in a new window.  In this lesson, students will learn how to write a single focus paragraph with facts about a specific topic.  This interactive lesson walks the students through step-by-step while the lesson relates the writing process to planning to go on a trip. To explore other language arts activities on this site, simply click the e-Learning icon at the top of the page and when you are directed back to the homepage, click the language arts icon.

Writing with Writers is a free website offered through Scholastic. You first select the type of writing that your students are learning and you will then be taken to a separate page in which the students are introduced to a famous writer and given an overview of what they are about to learn.  Each type of writing has a number of steps the students take to learn about that specific type of writing before they get to the final step in which they publish their piece online.  The students' writing will then be available to view on the website under read students' writing. The writing is separated in this area based on genera of writing and the writer’s age.

OREO is a video that covers the topic of writing an opinion paragraph.  OREO teaches students how they can use the acronym OREO to help remember the key features of an opinion paragraph. This video would be a great resource to use when beginning an opinion writing unit or as a way to help students who already understand opinion writing to remember the key components they need to include in their opinion paragraphs.

This Revise vs. Edit chart helps students learn the difference between revising their writing and editing their writing.  The poster also gives two different acronyms that can be used to remember what to do during the revising and editing process.  Revising has A.R.M.S, which reminds students to add, remove, move, and substitute in their writing.  Editing uses the acronym C.U.P.S to help remind students to check their capitalization, usage, punctuation, and spelling.  This could be printed out and used as a classroom poster or you could print a smaller copy for each student to keep at his/her desk for quick reference.

Fact Versus Opinion is a music video that helps teach the concept of facts and opinions.  The catchy song has an upbeat tempo that lists a variety of statements and then says if they are facts or opinions.  This music video would be useful resource when introducing the topic of facts and opinions.  This would give students a nice overview of what type of things would be considered a fact and what would be considered an opinion.