Grade 1 · Writing
Writers Academy: Writing Detectives
Four weeks of first-grade writing instruction, with 20 ready-to-teach lessons, illustrated mentor stories, student pages, and assessments.
Author · Educator
Stories for the dark.
Tools for the curious.
Theresa Nellis writes unsettling speculative fiction and builds classroom resources that make young readers and thinkers want to stay in the room.
Two worlds. One sharp mind.Choose the path you came for. Neither has to apologize for existing beside the other.
Start here
One name. Two very different shelves.
Readers, agents, teachers, and school buyers should never have to hunt for the page that speaks to them.
A novel by Theresa Nellis
THEVALEPROTOCOL
Institutional horror.No one stays innocent.
Featured Adult Novel
The system does not forgive. It corrects.
The Vale Protocol is a character-driven dystopian horror novel about a civic system that redistributes harm, the people who built it, and everyone forced to decide when a life becomes a price worth paying.
For readers drawn to institutional dread, impossible moral choices, and characters who are neither innocent nor easy to abandon.
Earlier Worlds
Other doors worth opening.
Before The Vale Protocol, there were mirrors, impossible schools, supernatural grudges, and children who should probably have been supervised.
Teaching Resources
Made for real classrooms, not administrator fantasyland.
Story-rich, usable learning resources for the teacher who has six minutes before the bell and zero patience for filler. Find classroom materials by grade, subject, or the kind of curiosity you want to ignite.
View Book One on Payhip →
Grade 1 · Writing
Writers Academy: Sentence Workshop
A first-grade sentence workshop built around clear modeling, purposeful practice, student pages, and assessments.
Grade 1 · Writing
Writers Academy: Small Moment Stories
A first-grade narrative writing unit with 20 ready-to-teach lessons that help students turn everyday moments into clear, memorable stories.
Grade 1 · Writing
Writers Academy: How-To Workshop
A four-week procedural writing unit with 20 ready-to-teach lessons that guide first graders from choosing a familiar task to publishing directions a real reader can follow.
Grade 1 · Writing
Writing Detectives: All About Books
A four-week informational writing unit with 20 ready-to-teach lessons that help first graders choose familiar topics, organize accurate facts, and create books that teach a reader.
Grade 1 · Writing
Writing Detectives: Read, Think, Write
A four-week writing-about-reading unit with 20 ready-to-teach lessons that help first graders answer a question, choose a useful text detail, and explain their thinking.
Grade 1 · Writing
Writers Academy: Curious Researchers
A four-week research and informational writing unit with 20 connected lessons that help first graders ask useful questions, find information, take short notes, and turn facts from two sources into clear writing.
Grade 1 · Writing
Writers Academy: Author Workshop
A four-week revision and publishing unit with 20 connected lessons that help first graders choose a focus piece, make purposeful changes, respond to feedback, and share their writing with an audience.
Elementary · Science
Wonder Detectives Academy
Visual, storybook science investigations built to make first graders look more closely at the world in front of them.
Elementary · Math
Number Detectives
A complete elementary math curriculum designed to make concepts clear, practice purposeful, and classroom time count.
Grade 1 · Phonics
Sound Detectives
A yearlong phonics bundle that helps teachers know what to teach next, without turning planning into a scavenger hunt.
About Theresa
Educator by training. Trouble by vocation.
Theresa Nellis is a longtime educator with a Ph.D. in Education. She writes fiction about power, systems, and the terrible things people call necessary.
23+years in education
Ph.D.in Education
Authorof the Keeper of the Mirror and School for the Magically Insane series
Humanstill suspicious of any system that calls itself fair