Learning Units
Learning Units
Curated collections of books grouped around targeted learning goals — each with activities, discussion questions, and printable lesson plans.
Loss & Healing
A curated collection of 4 books exploring loss & healing, each with discussion questions, activities, and printable lesson plans.
Targeted Goal
Students will explore how characters cope with loss and find paths toward healing, building emotional awareness and empathy.
Emotions & Feelings
A curated collection of 11 books exploring emotions & feelings, each with discussion questions, activities, and printable lesson plans.
Targeted Goal
Students will explore how characters navigate big emotions, and develop strategies for understanding and expressing feelings.
Teamwork & Cooperation
A curated collection of 7 books exploring teamwork & cooperation, each with discussion questions, activities, and printable lesson plans.
Targeted Goal
Students will analyze how characters work together, identify what makes cooperation succeed, and practice collaborative skills.
Honesty & Integrity
A curated collection of 9 books exploring honesty & integrity, each with discussion questions, activities, and printable lesson plans.
Targeted Goal
Students will examine why honesty matters, how truth shapes trust, and what it means to act with integrity.
Empathy & Compassion
A curated collection of 4 books exploring empathy & compassion, each with discussion questions, activities, and printable lesson plans.
Targeted Goal
Students will practice seeing the world from others' perspectives and develop compassion through storytelling.
Overcoming Adversity
A curated collection of 7 books exploring overcoming adversity, each with discussion questions, activities, and printable lesson plans.
Targeted Goal
Students will identify how characters overcome adversity, develop resilience strategies, and apply them to their own challenges.
Growing Up
A curated collection of 8 books exploring growing up, each with discussion questions, activities, and printable lesson plans.
Targeted Goal
Students will explore the challenges and triumphs of growing up, building confidence and self-awareness along the way.
Family & Community
A curated collection of 14 books exploring family & community, each with discussion questions, activities, and printable lesson plans.
Targeted Goal
Students will analyze how families and communities support one another, and connect these themes to their own lives.
Courage & Bravery
A curated collection of 18 books exploring courage & bravery, each with discussion questions, activities, and printable lesson plans.
Targeted Goal
Students will identify how characters face fears, take risks, and find the courage to do what is right.
Acceptance & Belonging
A curated collection of 12 books exploring acceptance, each with discussion questions, activities, and printable lesson plans.
Targeted Goal
Students will explore what it means to accept others and themselves, recognizing that everyone deserves to belong.
Identity & Speaking Up
Stories of kids navigating who they are and finding the courage to raise their voices — in school, in their community, and in the world.
Targeted Goal
Students will examine how identity shapes perspective, and articulate how finding your voice can create justice and belonging.
STEM Explorers
Dive into brains, sharks, birds, ocean zones, and windmills — five books that turn curious kids into scientists and inventors.
Targeted Goal
Students will investigate how observation and experimentation help us understand the natural world and solve real problems.
Courage & Making a Difference
Meet real and fictional heroes who saw a problem and chose to act — from a boy who grew a forest to a girl who demanded the right to learn.
Targeted Goal
Students will analyze how determination and courage create change, and connect each character's actions to their own community.
Finding Your Voice
Stories about creative expression, storytelling, and discovering the power of your own unique perspective.
Targeted Goal
Students will explore how characters express themselves, identify their own creative strengths, and craft personal narratives.
Resilience & Courage
Stories of perseverance, grit, and finding strength in the face of challenges — from everyday struggles to extraordinary journeys.
Targeted Goal
Students will identify how characters overcome adversity, develop resilience strategies, and apply them to their own lives.
Friendship & Belonging
Explore what it means to welcome others and build a community where everyone belongs — through ghost stories, pet clubs, and unlikely friendships.
Targeted Goal
Students will identify how small acts of kindness create belonging, and articulate what makes someone a good friend.
Nature & Environment
Explore the natural world — from ocean depths to arctic tundras — and discover the interconnectedness of ecosystems.
Targeted Goal
Students will observe and describe natural phenomena, identify cause-and-effect relationships in ecosystems, and develop environmental stewardship.
Pace-Activate It! Activities
Hands-on writing activities from the Pace-Write-Read handbook.
The Object as Obstacle
Students use physical objects to represent character personality and story conflict.
The Narrative List
Students use lists to shift pacing and create a refreshing pause or an interactive game.
Level-Up the Stakes
Students borrow 'video game' logic to add tension, suspense, and surprise to their scenes.
The Flip Side
Students use opposition and negative space to make their descriptions more vivid.
The Power of Three
Students use lists of three to create balance and rhythm in their prose.
The Story Partner
Students consider how visuals can amplify the intensity of their narrative scenes.
The Pacing Pulse Check
Students 'dummy up' a section of their writing to check the rhythm and flow of their plot.
The Emotional Gap
Students use line breaks and white space to evoke emotion and create immediacy.
Sentence Song
Students rewrite a passage to make the rhythm of their sentences mimic the mood of the scene.
Prose with a Pulse
Students borrow poetic devices to enhance the flow of their prose.
Punctuation Road Signs
Students use punctuation not just for grammar, but to dictate the reader's speed.
The Pattern Beat
Students use repetition to create rhythmic patterns that emphasize important themes.
The Interiority Question
Students use direct or rhetorical questions to pull readers deeper into a character's mind.
Zoom In and Out
Students practice identifying when to 'dwell' in a scene and when to 'leap' through time.
The Breath-Hold Test
Students identify and deploy moments of tension, suspense, and surprise.
The Hook Exam
Students analyze and revise their opening lines to make them impossible to ignore.
The 'What If' Playground
Students get into a playful mindset to break through writing blocks.
The Power of Nothing
Students explore how to use silence and what is left unsaid to create emotional weight.
The Acting-Out Edit
Students read their scenes as if they are performing, noting where the 'action' drags.
Description as Hospitality
Students learn to invite the reader into a world rather than just listing facts about it.
Stage the Scene
Students convert a summary of events into an immediate, real-time performance.
Time-Bend Practice
Students use non-linear time to serve the emotional needs of their story.
The Discipline Sprint
Students use a strict time limit to force their creativity to find new paths.
The Comedic Pause
Students use timing and pauses to land a punchline or a moment of wit.
Setting as a Pressuring Force
Students treat the environment as a character that forces the protagonist to change their plans.
The 'Almost' Game
Students write dialogue that reveals character by focusing on what is left unsaid.
The Strange Lens
Students practice writing from a unique perspective to see the ordinary world as something entirely new.
The Shadow Character
Students write a scene focusing on a character who isn't present, but impacts the action.
The Three-Beat Story Spine
Students distill a scene into its structural core to understand how to move a story forward.
Heartbeat Sentences
Students practice varying sentence length to create a physical sense of fast and slow movement in their writing.
Verb Swap Challenge
Students sharpen their writing by replacing weak 'to be' verbs with active, electric ones.
The One-Sentence Promise
Students pressure-test their story ideas by focusing on the core promise made to the reader.
The Read-Aloud Rhythm Test
Students listen for the 'music' of their sentences to improve their writing's flow.
Pacing Through Paragraphs
Identify how the author controls pacing through paragraph breaks and white space, then apply the technique.
Dialogue Detective
Analyze how the author uses dialogue to reveal character, then write a new conversation between two characters.
Sensory Details Hunt
Find three sensory details in the story and rewrite a paragraph adding your own sensory language.
Sentence Length Stretch
Experiment with sentence length — write a scene using only short sentences, then rewrite using only long sentences.
Pace the Plot Mountain
Map the story's plot onto a plot mountain, identifying the inciting incident, rising action, climax, and resolution.
Standards Connections
Curriculum standards addressed across all learning units.