English Composition: Writing for an Audience
This video series introduces basic principles and strategies for communicating in writing to a variety of audiences and improving general composition skills. Throughout the series, students will meet a wide array of professionals whose work involves writing — not only authors, journalists, and teachers, but also musicians, judges, nurses, engineers, scientists, and athletes — who will discuss how they write with their specific audiences in mind. Source: Annenberg Media

Discovering Language Arts: Presenting Pompeii This video for middle/high school students looks at how Incorporating multimedia elements into a presentation can be an effective way to communicate a message. Source: How Stuff Works

Discovering Language Arts: Organizing Research
This video for middle/high school students explores organizing strategies like conceptual maps, outlines and other graphic organizers that can help make a complicated topic easier to understand. Source: How Stuff Works

Discovering Language Arts: Synthesizing Statistics
This video for middle/high school students explores how to manage and organize research, statistics and other findings to stay focused on a topic. Source: How Stuff Works

Discovering Language Arts: Evaluating Sources Learn how to organize information, critique electronic media and other online resources and determine the best sources for a paper on the mysterious death of Princess Diana. Source: How Stuff Works

Discovering Language Arts: Researching UFOs
Explore best research practices by investigating the story of an unidentified flying object -- a UFO -- in Roswell, New Mexico. Source: How Stuff Works

Discovering Language Arts: Supporting Details
Learn how to use supporting details to present a well-researched campaign on nicotine addiction. Source: How Stuff Works

Discovering Language Arts: Transatlantic Transitions
See how transitional devices are used to vary sentence structure, add texture to the writing and transition to different topics. Source: How Stuff Works

Discovering Language Arts: Supernatural Structure
Explore the city of New Orleans and the mysterious events aboard a haunted riverboat to see how sentence structure increases the suspenseful tone of the video. Source: How Stuff Works

Discovering Language Arts: Writing Letters
Learn strategies for writing a cover letter seeking employment at Grand Canyon National Park. Source: How Stuff Works

Discovering Language Arts: Persuasive Writing Explore methods of articulating a thesis and writing a persuasive composition about illegal immigration in America. Source: How Stuff Works

Discovering Language Arts: Persuasive Ideas
This video presents a short segment about the exploration of the Galapagos Islands, and a follow-up activity that allows students to identify arguments in a persuasive essay. Source: How Stuff Works

Discovering Language Arts: Expository Writing
The video uses a short segment about World War II and the Holocaust, along with a follow-up activity that allows students to practice creating an expository essay. Source: How Stuff Works

Discovering Language Arts: Constructive Criticism
This video discusses standards that can be used to evaluate written material. Source: How Stuff Works

Discovering Language Arts: Persuasive Speech
Elements of persuasive speech include pace, volume, tone, repetition and imagery. Certain historical speakers like Martin Luther King, Jr. have been particularly effective in their use of these elements. Source: How Stuff Works

Discovering Language Arts: Research Papers
This segment presents useful steps to follow when writing a research paper. Source: How Stuff Works

Discovering Language Arts: Organizing Research
Research tools help organize and keep track of data. This video presents how to organize information about the Hoover Dam into timelines, graphs and outlines. Source: How Stuff Works

Discovering Language Arts: Fighting For Information
Determine the most appropriate types of informational texts to learn about the role of gladiators in Ancient Rome. Journals, maps, speeches and letters are all useful research sources. Source: How Stuff Works

Language Arts At Work: Writing That Rocks
Singer/songwriter Eric Brace from the alt-country rock band Last Train Home talks about transitioning from writing for the Washington Post to songwriting. Source: How Stuff Works

Language Arts At Work: Writing On Air
Interview with broadcast journalist and news anchor Maureen Bunyan on writing news copy. Source: How Stuff Works

Discovering Language Arts: Engineering The Format
A published brochure on New York City's transit system requires special formatting. Use strategies such as underlining, bolding, and italicizing to add emphasis to words and highlight important parts of your publication. Source: How Stuff Works

Discovering Language Arts: Pride And Punctuation
This video examines Jane Austen's classic novel "Pride and Prejudice," and explores how to use quotations correctly in written work. Source: How Stuff Works

Discovering Language Arts: Writing That Flows
Check out this clip to learn about the history of London's bridge system and see how clear thought and an organized structure create cohesive writing. Source: How Stuff Works

Discovering Language Arts: Form And Function
The myth of the lost city of Atlantis provides the back-story for a lesson on organizing writing into paragraphs, using logical progression in a paper, and extracting extraneous information from a paragraph. Source: How Stuff Works

Discovering Language Arts: Everest For Everyone
Explore strategies for writing about Mt. Everest for two different audiences. Source: How Stuff Works

Discovering Language Arts: Editing And Publishing
The final step in any writing project is publishing your work. Use editing strategies to improve your publishing skills. Source: How Stuff Works

Discovering Language Arts: Revising To Improve
The Sphinx wasn't built in a day and neither are well-written essays. Learn how to improve your writing through revision. Source: How Stuff Works

Discovering Language Arts: Prewriting With Cleopatra
Learn how to narrow your focus on a complicated topic like the rise and fall of Cleopatra. Source: How Stuff Works

Discovering Language Arts: Transitions And Connections
This segment presents a short segment about tunnel construction, and a follow-up activity that allows students to practice using transitional tags. Source: How Stuff Works

Discovering Language Arts: The Big Idea
This video presents a short segment about the construction of Tokyo's Sky City, and a follow-up activity that allows students to practice organizing a paper into paragraphs. Source: How Stuff Works

Discovering Language Arts: The Writing's On The Wall
This video presents a short segment about construction safety, and a follow-up activity that allows students to use technical writing to create a safety manual. Source: How Stuff Works

Discovering Language Arts: Problems And Solutions
Using a segment of deforestation, this video discusses how problems are presented and resolved in written work. Source: How Stuff Works

Discovering Language Arts: Writing An Autobiography
This video presents a short segment about the life of Malcolm X and explains the process of writing an autobiography. Source: How Stuff Works

Discovering Language Arts: Editing And Publishing
This video presents a short segment about European currency, along with a follow-up activity that reviews the process of editing sentences. Source: How Stuff Works

Discovering Language Arts: Writing And Revising
This video uses "The Diary of Anne Frank" and a follow-up activity that reviews revision techniques. Source: How Stuff Works

Discovering Language Arts: Ready To Write
This video presents a short segment about the novel "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea," and reviews the prewriting phase of the writing process. Source: How Stuff Works

Discovering Language Arts: The Brooklyn Bridge
Examines how to use a variety of resources to research bridges: magazines, newspapers, atlases and dictionaries. Source: How Stuff Works

Discovering Language Arts: The Sky's The Limit
This video demonstrates how to research topics using the Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature. Source: How Stuff Works

Discovering Language Arts: When Researching In Rome
Learn how to paraphrase and summarize research findings in your own words to avoid plagiarism. Source: How Stuff Works

Discovering Language Arts: The Research Paper Crisis
The United States and the Soviet Union came to the brink of a nuclear war during the Cuban Missile Crisis, but writing a research paper need not create a crisis. Source: How Stuff Works

Discovering Language Arts: Old Faithful Sources
Analyze the differences between primary and secondary sources. Learn what kinds of sources to use when researching Yellowstone National Park. Source: How Stuff Works

Discovering Language Arts: The Salem Witch Project
See how to develop a plan for writing about a historical subject, such as the Salem Witch Trials. Source: How Stuff Works

Discovering Language Arts: Look It Up
Illustrates how to use a library database to find information about a topic. Source: How Stuff Works

Language Arts At Work: The Lighter Side Of Writing
Gene Weingarten was born to be a joker. Luckily, he turned his penchant for comedy into a regular gig as a weekly humor columnist for The Washington Post. Source: How Stuff Works

Discovering Language Arts: Describing New York City
Incorporate a variety of images, sensory details and perspectives to bring to life a visitor's guide to New York City. Source: How Stuff Works

Discovering Language Arts: Define Your Purpose
Before writing a 30-second substance abuse public service announcement, it's important to define your reasons for writing. Source: How Stuff Works

Discovering Language Arts: Writing A Biography
This video presents a short segment about the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and explains the processes and elements involved in writing a biography. Source: How Stuff Works

Discovering Language Arts: More Than Words
This video presents some strategies for making your voice heard and keeping audiences interested during a presentation. Source: How Stuff Works

Discovering Language Arts: Making A Speech
Organizing your thoughts and explaining your point of view are important when writing a speech. Source: How Stuff Works

Discovering Language Arts: Interviewing A Veterinarian
Interviews are an excellent method of gathering data. The process incorporates asking relevant questions, recording responses and organizing information into usable data. Source: How Stuff Works

School Teacher: Kickball And Language Arts
Karen Cahill, an elementary school teacher in Boston, uses innovative teaching techniques such as "spelling kickball" and having students write about problems that are bothering them as part of their language arts curriculum. Source: How Stuff Works