ELA

'People, places and things' emerge as our young editors' theme for the next issue of their literary magazine, launching them on a mission to identify and learn all about nouns. In Nouns, young viewers will enjoy following along with the Wordswork team as they discover that nouns can be common or proper, singular or plural.

The Wordswork staff decides on an action theme as they prepare the latest issue of their literary magazine, and that can mean only one special group of words: verbs.

The Wordswork staff is on a quest to fill their magazine with those groups of words we all know and love: sentences. Their job sounds simple enough, but little do they know that a sentence isn't just any old group of words. To be considered a sentence, those words must convey a complete thought and contain both a subject and a predicate.

The Wordswork staff is on a mission to tackle those tiny symbols that help make our writing more clear: punctuation! The team digs through the writing samples submitted to their literary magazine to uncover the rules of punctuation.

Choosing stories for the next issue of their magazine, the Wordswork staff decides to focus on words that tell us more about other words.

From fiction to nonfiction, short stories to poems to memoirs, creative and narrative writing often stem from writers' imaginations or personal interests, weaving together believable characters, settings, and plots.

Presents the basics of expository writing, from composing the introduction and the thesis statement to assembling body paragraphs to writing an effective conclusion.

Writers, ranging from a sportswriter for a school newspaper to a student working on a research project, demonstrate the processes of developing a focused thesis statement as well as structuring and writing solid introductory, supporting and concluding paragraphs.

This program suggests strategies to help discern the appropriate tone for a piece of writing based on purpose and audience. Student writers, ranging from an avid cyclist on a fundraising campaign for an upcoming school trip to a writer communicating with her fellow club members on the Internet, use formal and informal writing to accomplish their task.

In this program, a young writer must compose a convincing letter to the school news paper to win his classmates' votes for student council, while another writer is challenged to research and write a supporting argument in favor of an issue that she feels strongly against.

What are the ingredients of a tall tale? Like any story, a tall tale includes characters, a setting, a problem and a solution. But in a tall tale, ordinary characters -- whether fictional or based on real people or occupations -- may face extraordinary challenges and prevail with outlandish solutions, or may conquer ordinary problems in inventive ways.

Meet Pecos Bill. Raised by coyotes in dusty Texas, he grew up to be the roughest, toughest cowboy who ever lived. Whether riding a tornado, inventing the original cowboy song or conquering a gang of outlaw cowboys, Pecos Bill is a man of many talents.

Meet John Chapman, better known as Johnny Appleseed. Living in harmony with nature, he fulfills his dream of traveling west to plant apple orchards across the frontier to aid pioneers on their arduous journeys.

Meet Davy Crockett -- a legendary hunter, politician and avid storyteller who tames the wild frontier with sharpshooting, cleverness and plenty of humor. Battling bears and panthers, dislodging the sun from between two icebergs and whipping a destructive comet back into space are all in a day's work for Davy.

From sea to shining sea, the United States is a country full of tall tales! Take the story of Mike Fink and Annie Christmas, legendary keel boat captains who battle with strength and skill on the waters of the mighty Mississippi River.