$10 - $20 10th Grade Writing Unit Plans (by date, latest first)

Engage your middle and high school students with this 21-Day Multimedia Thematic Unit focused on Social Media and Mental Health! Designed for Grades 7 and up, this comprehensive unit weaves together ELA, social studies, and digital literacy through interactive lessons, activities, and assessments that explore the influence of social media on identity, mental health, and society.

This unit features a variety of multimedia resources, including TED Talks, informational articles, political cartoons, and the documentary The Social Dilemma. Students will develop critical thinking skills as they engage with different forms of media, reflect on their personal social media habits, and create meaningful projects like a political cartoon capstone.

What’s Included:

• Daily Lesson Plans for 21 days of engaging, standards-aligned instruction
• A range of activities including debates, Socratic seminars, and reflective writing
• Viewing guides and discussion prompts for multimedia content
• Informational text analysis with evidence-gathering strategies
• Step-by-step directions for creating a capstone political cartoon on social media’s impact
• Assessment rubrics and graphic organizers to support student learning

Aligned Standards:
This interdisciplinary unit is aligned with Common Core ELA Standards (including reading, writing, speaking, and listening), as well as ISTE Digital Literacy Standards. Perfect for cross-curricular learning, it encourages students to develop literacy skills, media analysis, and digital responsibility.

Why You'll Love This Unit:

• Interactive and Student-Centered: Students engage with real-world issues like social media usage, body image, and mental health in meaningful ways.
• Multimedia Integration: Incorporates TED Talks, articles, documentaries, and more to create a rich, dynamic learning experience.
• Project-Based Learning: Culminates with a creative capstone project where students design their own political cartoons, showcasing their understanding of the unit’s themes.
• Critical Thinking and Reflection: Encourages self-awareness as students reflect on their own social media habits and the impact on their mental health.

Who It’s For:

• Middle and high school teachers (Grades 7-12) looking for an engaging, interdisciplinary unit that addresses current issues.
• Educators seeking a Common Core-aligned and ISTE-aligned unit that integrates social media, mental health, and literacy skills.

Perfect for:

• ELA, social studies, and digital literacy classrooms
• Teachers looking for 21st-century skill-building units
• Classrooms wanting to address the impacts of social media on student well-being

This 21-Day Multimedia Unit will help students understand the impact of social media on their lives while improving essential academic skills. Get ready for insightful discussions, creative projects, and meaningful reflections that resonate with your students’ real-world experiences. Download now and bring relevant, standards-aligned learning to your classroom!

This 30-page EDITABLE curriculum has everything you'll need to help students write write phenomenal college application essays! This is the PREMIERE bundle for any English teacher, college counselor, or tutor working to help students master the Common App essay!

The materials in this bundle were designed by a Ph.D. who has taught English at top-ranked high schools and colleges for over 20 years. He has worked closely with former college admissions officers from Harvard, Brown, and NYU. This 30-page unit features all the wisdom he's gathered over a decades-long career in secondary and higher education. The unit is packed to the brim with writing tips and formatting advice that will help your students craft truly remarkable college essays!

Here are some highlights from the 30-page curriculum:

• How to Get Started (Handout #1): Tips for how to get started on one's college essay and overcome writer's block. (1 page)

• Strategies for Crafting Vivid & Lively Prose (Handout #2): While the question of what students choose to write about will be important, the question of how they write will be equally important since a writer's style can reveal a lot about their personality. This handout features advice on how students can write essays using vibrant and virtuosic prose that will enamor any admissions officer. (2 pages)

• The Opening Line: Attention-Grabbing Hooks (Handout #3): The opening paragraph is the single most important part of a college essay. How will your students capture the interest of admissions officers? How will they make a memorable first impression? This handout offers several suggestions for how to focus an opening paragraph, followed by concrete examples of opening paragraphs by top essayists like Annie Dillard, Frank McCourt, Louise Erdrich, Naomi Shihab Nye, and others. (4 pages)

• How to Format a College Essay (Handout #4): This handout offers advice for the structural organization of college essay, with tips on what should be included in each paragraph. The strategy offered here will enable students to showcase their skills at descriptive writing, narrative writing, informational writing, and reflective writing — all in less than 650 words! (1 page)

• Sample Essays: Show your students eight successful college essays written by students who were recently admitted to top-ranked colleges and universities. These were the favorite essays that wowed admissions committees at Harvard University, Johns Hopkins University, Cornell University, Hamilton College, New York University, and Tufts University. (18 pages)

• Writing Assignment: This carefully scaffolded writing assignment will help students to get practice at writing narrative essays in response to actual prompts on the Common App from 2023-2024. (1 page)

• Writing Rubric: Use this rubric to evaluate the narrative essays that your students write in response to to the prompts from the Common App of 2023-2024. (1 page)

This resource packet will come to you in two separate formats: Word doc and PDF. Because the Word doc is editable, you'll be able to customize the materials to suit your teaching style and/or the skill levels of your students — year after year! If you don't have Microsoft Word, you'll still be able to access the materials in PDF format, which is easy to navigate and quick to print!

Because I believe that teachers should be able to see what they're getting before they make a purchase, the preview for this resource provides access more than a dozen actual pages from the resource. Click on the green preview button to see exactly what you’ll get....

Thank you for choosing “Rigorous Resources”!!

Happy teaching!

Adam Jernigan, Ph.D.

adamjernigan@gmail.com

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Feel free to check out these other resources on writing:

How to Write an Analytical Essay

How to Write an Poem Analysis Essay (AP Lit FRQ 1)

How to Frame Quotations or Embed Evidence

Figurative Language Stations