These 7th grade writing prompts inspires children to reflect on their experiences and think about their future goals.
What does a successful writing workshop look like? Here are strategies that will ensure successful writing workshops all year.
Looking for a new way to help your students explore and express themselves through the power of writing? Use these 7th grade prompts to get them started!
Copy or download a list of 7th grade vocabulary words in popular formats. abdicate, abrasive, abruptly, acknowledge, acquire, addict, adequate, admonish
I have so much to share with you about writing interventions, but first things first: WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE NEW BLOG DESIGN?!?!? Please share your thoughts! Every year, I meet lots of middle schoolers who struggle with writing. And every year, I play around with lots of different interventions to meet their needs. Last year, I made establishing sound writing interventions one of my big goals. I spent lots of time (and money!!) on resources that I could use, and by about March, I had something that I thought I was pretty happy with. This year, I'm starting off with those interventions that worked so well last year and I couldn't be happier with the results! In fact, I'm so pleased with how they are working, I feel confident enough to share my practice with my blog readers. I can say that these are definitely KID TESTED, TEACHER APPROVED!! Creating a Time and Space for Intervention within your Classroom I teach by myself. There are no aides, special ed teachers, BSI teachers... just little, ol' me! So, when I want to create and manage small groups, I'm on my own. This is hard. It would be so much easier if there was another adult in the room to help, but there is not, so I just have to deal! It's work, but it absolutely can be done! A few weeks ago, I wrote about the Power of Bell-Ringers. Establishing a quiet and smooth transition into writing class is a great way to get started, but it also provides me with a window of time where I can pull a small group! By mid-October, my bell-ringer time gets extended to 15 minutes. The kids get started immediately and are clear on the expectations during this time. Now the environment for working with small groups is set: the room is quiet and engaged, allowing me to focus my time on the handful of kids in my group. I pull my kids to a table that I have set up in front of our classroom library. I have a "teacher station" at one end where I do my instruction. I usually stream some jazz or piano music during this time so my group doesn't distract the rest of the class. Establishing Interventions In my district, by middle school, there are no longer district-mandated interventions in place. There are no clear resources for teachers to use or personnel to help. So, when we have a struggling reader or writer in 7th or 8th grade, it's the job of the classroom teacher to meet their needs. In my tenure of working with middle schoolers, I've found that there are two types of students who need more support than my writing curriculum provides (and please remember... I am not a researcher/specialist/writer of books/etc. I'm just a teacher, like you, who loves my job, tries to do the best by my kids, and is compulsively reflective about what I see happening... to me, teachers are the best EXPERTS, but I know that we are hesitant these days to trust a "lowly" teacher and rather find ourselves relying on big publishers and educational researchers to show us best practices... I don't have lots of "data" to support what I'm sharing with you... just my actual observations I've made while working with real, live kids in an average classroom setting!!). Type One: Students Who Struggle with Structure The first type of students who need intervention are those who struggle with structure. These are the kids that can't organize their thoughts in a way a reader could follow. They simply write whatever their brain thinks at the time. They can generally stick with a broad topic, but because they are just writing whatever pops into their head at the time, there are lots of places where their writing veers off track and becomes confusing. Here is an example written by a former student struggling with structure: My dog Henry is my most special treasure. He is always there for me whenever I need him in sad times and happy. In many ways, he's my best friend. He has brown fur and a white chest. He is such a good dog to have around when you are sad because he always knows just how to cheer you up. His eyes are brown, like a Hersey bar. His favorite toy is a yellow tennis ball. Once he almost got hit by a car chasing the ball down the street. I have loved him ever since he was a puppy and we first got him. I was only 4-years old when that little ball of fluff was brought home by my parents to be best friends. His soft fur is always so smooth and warm when you pet him while watching TV on a cold night. He is my best friend and that is why he is my special treasure [sic]. This student is clear about his topic - his dog, Henry - but he cannot organize his thoughts. He is thinking about his dog and writes down everything he knows about his buddy exactly as it comes to his mind. Clearly, he has mechanical and conventional skills, and you can see evidence of where he is practicing what we learned in our mini-lessons and from studying our mentor pieces. But, because there is no organization, it is too difficult to follow and all of the skills he has are lost to the untrained, teacher-eye. Kids who write like this need an intervention that focuses on structure and organization. Typically, I LOATHE teaching step-by-step process writing, but in cases like this, I'm left with little choice. The lessons that I put together for kids in need of this intervention consist of learning how to write a well-organized paragraph. Together, we will work on writing topic sentences, creating strong and clear supporting sentences, and finish up with writing a closing that sticks with our reader. My favorite plans for this type of writing come from Michael Friermood. His Fact-Based Opinion Writing products are geared toward teaching elementary students (grades 3-5) how to write a good opinion paragraph, and they are PERFECT for my struggling 7th graders. They also lack a lot of the "cutesy" images that you find with products for this age group, so my big kids don't feel like I'm making them do "baby stuff." (I do not use the stationary he provides for the final writing piece... it's adorable, but it would be pushing in with my kids! So, we just do our paragraph writing in our intervention notebooks!) My plan is to pull the intervention group for one week (at 15 minutes a pop, this comes to 1 1/4 hours of learning). Long before I ever pull a group, I work hard to make sure that my lesson is broken down into five succinct 15-minute increments. Since time is so precious, you need to make sure not one minute is wasted! I can say that it takes me much longer to plan for a small-group lesson than a 50-minute whole-class lesson because efficiency is so crucial. The first few times you plan a small-group lesson, don't be surprised if your timing is mess. It definitely takes practice to be an effective small-group instructor! After their week is up, then I send them back to completing the bell-ringer at the start of class. I will watch them closely and conference with them lots to make sure that I am seeing a transfer of skills. If I don't, then it is likely that I will put them back in an intervention group in a few weeks to practice again. This intervention model will continue all year. Right now, I have 8 intervention students in one writing class, and 6 in another. By the end of the year, those number should reduce to 3-4 and 2-3. Never in all my years of working with small groups, have I had 100% of my intervention students "graduate" from small group. Don't be frustrated if this is the case! If you can improve 50-60% of those kids, then consider that a huge success!! Type Two: Students Who Struggle with Motivation The next group of kids that I work with are those who struggle with motivation. These are the students who complain a lot about not having anything to write about, spend more time doodling or coloring in their notebook than writing, and who will write the absolute bare minimum for any writing assignment. Many times, these kids produce too little for me to gauge whether or not they also need help with structure. But typically, once I can get them writing, they will likely find themselves in a small group for structure work :) Come October, after we've spent lots of lots of time list writing, the kids who are still struggling to get their pencils moving find themselves using a very special Interactive Writer's Notebook called "Musings from a Middle Schooler." This product contains loads of interactive writing pages that will motivate even the most reluctant writers. The pages can be printed out and glued into a marble notebook. (Most often, I'll have the kids create their own... I don't always have them use all the pages, rather I let them pick and choose the ones they like!). Cover Table of Contents page Table of Contents cont. and an "All About Me" page "My Life Story in Two Pages" My Favorite Thing Comics I created this project just last school year and it's been an absolute smash! The kids (especially my boys!) LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it! In absolutely no time, they are writing like crazy. And once I can get their pencils moving it doesn't take me long to get them producing some actual pieces. I don't necessarily pull these kids and work with them in a small group. The first few days, we will assemble our books all together at the back table, but then they go right back to the big group. Rather than do the bell-ringer with the rest of the class at the start of the period, they will work in their "Musings" notebooks. Fifteen minutes of that is usually enough to get them into writing mode for the rest of class. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * So, that's how I make writing intervention work in my classroom. Phew!! That was long, folks!! I apologize for my wordiness and I am grateful if you stuck it out until the end! Also, I'm sure that I've left out some crucial details of my practice, so please do not hesitate to ask me any questions you still have! Do you have any good intervention tips or strategies that work for you? I'd love to hear about them. Drop me a comment and share! Happy Teaching!!
When teaching narrative writing in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grade, there are so many writing skills to cover. They range from creating a sequence of events (beginning, middle, and end) to more difficult
Looking for a new way to help your students explore and express themselves through the power of writing? Use these 7th grade prompts to get them started!
Helping student with narrative writing is so important. Using prewriting and planning strategies paired with teacher modeling and writing lessons that stress description, writing dialogue, and story elements can help create great narratives. Also key is teaching revision strategies that can help writers improve their writing. Perfect for grade 3 writing, grade 4 writing, grade 5 writing, third grade writing, fourth grade writing, fifth grade writing, teaching narrative writing, writing lessons, writing anchor charts
When I look back to my first experience teaching five paragraph essays to fifth graders, I can remember how terribly unprepared I felt. I knew that the five paragraph essay format was what my students needed
Looking for a new way to help your students explore and express themselves through the power of writing? Use these 7th grade prompts to get them started!
Daily grammar practice is a tool that helps students practice and master grammar standards. Learn more about grammar spiral review in the classroom.
I have always found writing to be one of the most challenging subjects to teach. More specifically, informative, or explanatory writing has always been my biggest nemesis!! My students often come to me with varying levels of writing background, their own unique styles, and a variety of topic interests. It has taken me many years to fine tune my craft for teaching informative writing. Over the years, I have developed mini-lessons to help my students to better understand this particular genre of writing, and to be able to effectively craft informative essays of their own. Today I would like to share 4 mini-lessons that I use in my classroom to get my students started with informative writing. Understanding the Genre First off, it is important that students understand the genre of informative writing. They need to be exposed to a variety examples of what informative writing looks and sounds like. I like to start off my unit of informative writing by "Diving Into Informative Texts." I provide my students with tons of books, magazines, newspapers, and other texts. I give them time to flip through the pages, skim the text, and just "explore" the contents. Once they have had a chance to explore, I ask them to record their observations. From there, they share in small groups, and eventually whole-group, continuing to add to their lists. Following this lesson, I usually have my students take notes on "What is Informative Writing?" This is much more teacher directed, but I know that I am getting across the information that I want them to have. Once they have experience with real life examples, and after our discussion, they have a much better understanding of the genre and what is expected of them when they start to write their own. Selecting a Topic You would think that selecting a topic would be easy for students. After all, they have so many interests!! However, it can be difficult to guide students toward selecting a topic that will lend itself to a meaningful informative essay. I like to start off by having students create lists of their interests. To guide it a bit more, I give them specific topics to focus their lists so that they don't end up with a list of their favorite video games!! (See pic below) Students are encouraged to list interests based on things like people, places, animals, historical events, hobbies and interests, and technology. This usually takes a bit of time, research, and discussion. Sometimes students are not prepared to think of ideas off the top of their heads. I like to give students time to take their lists home and discuss with family members. I give them time in class to discuss different ideas in groups and eventually as a whole group. Once their lists are complete, I have them hang onto them for the year, so that they can refer back to them when it comes time to choose another informative writing topic. They can also add to them throughout the year, especially as they learn more and their interests grow in subjects like social studies and science. Once students have their lists together, they eventually have to pick a topic. I like my students to start out with a few. I explain to them that they want to choose a topic that is not too broad, but that will also allow them to write about a variety of subtopics. I have them pick their favorite three topics, and list either subtopics or more specific topic ideas that fall under the umbrella of their overall topic. I sometimes take it a bit further by having students create a T-Chart to show what they already know about their topic and what they hope to learn. (See pic below). If they are not able to generate subtopics, or complete their T-Chart, then we have to have the conversation about whether their topic is a good choice for a meaningful essay. Completing their lists of subtopics and T-Charts gives students a great starting point for the direction they want to take with their essays. Finding Reliable Sources Unless students are already experts on their topics (which might be the case with a how-to), a fair amount of research is necessary before they begin writing. With so many online sources out there, it is very important to teach students how to find those that are credible and reliable. I tell my students to look for the following indicators: Is the information current? Are sources cited on the page? Are credentials provided for the author? Is the website maintained by a reliable news source or organization? Students often need a lot of guidance and practice with this. We usually select a group topic to walk through each of the steps of informative writing. This gives us the chance to do some research as a class. We open up different sites, look for the indicators above, and critique the reliability and credibility of each source. By the time students get to their own topics they have become internet "detectives", and know exactly what to look for!! Writing a Lead I find that my students have the hardest time writing those first and last sentences of an essay. To help them out with writing a lead, I like to provide them with different strategies and examples. Some of my favorites for informative writing are: Ask a Question Interesting Fact Quote Set the Scene The examples help to give them an idea of how these sentences might look and sound. We also come up with examples for our whole-class topic that we take through the whole process of writing an informative essay. I then ask that they write a lead for each type, so that they have the opportunity to choose the one that would best fit their topic and the direction they want their essays to take. My students are always pretty excited about their leads, and this gives them the confidence they need to move forward with writing the rest of their essays!! These mini-lessons are just the tip of the iceberg. When I first introduce my students to informative writing, we usually spend several weeks going through the whole process. If you would like to learn more about other lessons for writing, visit my teacher shop. There you can find units for Informative Writing and Opinion Writing to help guide your students through these mini lessons, plus many more!!
In this set of 7th grade writing prompts, students will tackle questions like what they love about themselves & what they’ve learned.
I giggled to myself as I created the title to this blog post! If you are new to my blog, I'll have you know that this is the THIRD time I've written an "ELA in
Need to know how to help students write summaries? These lesson ideas and summarizing ideas and tips for the upper elementary classroom will help you teach summarizing and help your students write summaries as they read.
Paragraph writing doesn't have to be hard! Use Paragraph of the Week to make writing practice a fun part of your writing routine!
If there are two things my students know, it is that I assign paragraphs often and that I grade writing with very high standards -especially in the second
1. Attach an image (photo, magazine, etc.) to a notebook page and write about it. 2. What things will people in the future say about how we live now? (Examples: They ate that? They believed that?) 3. Pick one from each list to make a creature and animal combination. Now write a short story or scene in which this creature appears. List 1 List 2 Vampire porcupine Ninja armadillo Zombie pig Pirate goat Mummy lobster Clown possum Banshee shark Wraith moray eel 4. Imagine a future in which we each have a personalized robot servant. What would yours be like? What would it do? What features would it have? 5. What does your name mean? Free write about names: names you like, names you don’t, how a name can affect a person’s life, how you feel about your own name, why your parents chose your name, etc. 6. Create a brand new holiday with its own traditions, rituals, foods, and activities. 7. What road-trip would you take if you suddenly could? Write about it. 8. List six true sentences that begin with the words “I'll never forget…” 9. Imagine that we lost all electricity, water, and gas for a month without any time to prepare. Write about how your life would change and how you would survive. 10. Make your bucket list for the next 5 years, the next 10 years, and for life. 11. Tell this story: “Well, I thought it was going to be a regular summer doing all our regular things…” 12. List 10 places in the world that you would most like to visit, 10 places you’ve been, and 10 places you would never want to go. 13. Think about hospitality in your family. What’s it like to have guests in your house? Do you prefer to have friends to your house or to go to a friend’s house? 14. Pick a family member of two and write about his or her reputation in your family, or tell a family legend. 15. A guitar pick, a red balloon, and a wicker basket. Write a scene or a poem that includes these three objects. 16. What animal would judge us the most? Write a scene (based on truth or fiction) where two or more people are doing something silly, and they're being observed and criticized by animals. 17. Write about your own worst family vacation memory. 18. Write about your best family vacation memory. 19. Imagine that someone says to you, “Because that's how we've always done it!” Write this out as a scene. (Think: Who said it, what were the circumstances, how did you respond, etc.) 20. What do you think about when you can't sleep? Turn it into a piece of writing. 21. What traditions does your family have? List all of them or just pick one and write about it. 22. Think about your strongest emotion right now (irritation, boredom, happiness, contentment, etc.) and find five quotes about this emotion. 23. What do you struggle with the most? Write about it. 24. Write a self-portrait. 25. What can we learn from contrast? Write a description of something very dark (like a crow) in a very light place (like a field of snow). Make the dark thing seem innocent and the light thing seem ominous. 26. Write about someone who has no enemies. Is it even possible? 27. Think of a person from your past who really deserved a good scolding but never got one. Write a fictional piece where you tell that person off intelligently. 28. Can honesty honestly be bad? Write about someone, fact or fiction, who gets in trouble for being too truthful. 29. The word “fat” carries a negative connotation. Write a story or observation where something fat is celebrated. 30. What animal lives beneath your human skin? A mouse? A cougar? Or what? Explain with writing. 31. Write about the best piece of advice you ever received. 32. Remember a favorite book from your childhood. Write a scene that includes you and an old copy of that book you find somewhere. --> 33. “I was so mortified, I wanted to crawl in a hole!” Write a short narrative (fiction or nonfiction) where this is your first sentence. Illustrate it if you want. 34. Should books ever be banned? Discuss. If no, explain why. You might want to look at a least of commonly banned books. If yes, explain under what circumstances. 35. Ernest Hemingway said to “write hard and clear about what hurts.” Write about something that hurts, whether it’s an emotional, physical, or phantom pain. 36. What if everyone had to wear a shirt with his or her Myers-Briggs personality type on it? What would this change? How would this affect the way people interact with each other? Would you like this or hate it? (If you don’t know your “type,” try this site. 37. William Shakespeare wrote that: “Conversation should be pleasant without scurrility, witty without affectation, free without indecency, learned without conceitedness, novel without falsehood.” Write your thoughts about conversation, or make up dialogue between two characters who are meeting each other for the first time in an unexpected place. 38. Tell this story: “There it was, finally. Our island. Our very own island. It looked beautiful above the waves of fog, but there was still one question to be answered: why had they sold it to us for only five dollars?” 39. Maya Angelou said “I’ve learned that you can tell a lot about a person by the way s/he handles these three things: a rainy day, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas tree lights.” Tell a story in which a character has to deal with one, two, or all three of these scenarios. How does your character respond? 40. You have a chance to go back and completely re-do an event in your life. What is it, and how to you change it? What is the outcome? This can be a real or fictional event. 41. Pick two characters from different books you’ve read this year and have them get in an argument about something (e.g., who has suffered more, who has had a happier life, etc.). 42. The one shoe in the road: why is it there? Write a story about the circumstances that led to one shoe in the middle of the road. 43. You get to guest star on a TV show. What show is it? What happens in this particular episode? 44. What would you pack in your suitcase if you could not go home again? 45. You can only use 20 words for the rest of your life. You can repeat them as often as you wish, but you can only use these words. What are they? 46. What current fashion in clothing do you particularly like or dislike? Why? 47. Choose five symbols or objects that represent you. Why did you choose these things? 48. "When I stepped outside, the whole world smelled like…" Write a scene that starts with that line. 49. Write a poem entitled "Hitchhiking on a Saturday Afternoon." 50. Use these two lines of dialogue in a story: "What's in your hand?" "It's mine. I found it." 51. Write a scene that happens in a parking lot between a teenager and a man in a convertible. 52. If you only had one window to look out of for the next six months, what would you want to see on the other side? Describe the view. How would it change? 53. Write a story for children. Start with “Once upon a time” or “Long ago in a land far away.” Include a dragon, a deadly flower, and a mask. 54. "Did she actually just say that?" Write a scene that includes this line. 55. “Call it a clan, call it a network, call it a tribe, call it a family. Whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one.” — Jane Howard. Write what comes to mind when you read this quote. 56. List five things you want in a relationship. 57. List ten favorite lines from movies. 58. Write about the biggest mistake you made this week. Now write about the best thing you did this week. 59. What is the very first memory that you have? Write about it. 60. What if your pet could only talk to you at midnight for an hour? 61. Write an acrostic poem using your full name and three words that describe you—good and bad— for each letter. For example, S: sensitive, stubborn, smiling. A: artistic, argumentative, agoraphobic M: melodramatic, moody, magical 62. What if you could create your own TV show with all your friends and loved ones as the cast? What kind of show would it be and who would play which parts? 63. Take a photo or draw a picture of every place you go in a day. Put the pictures or drawings in your journal. 64. A to Z: Make an alphabetical list of advice for someone who is about to become a teenager. For example: A: ask forgiveness, not permission. B.: bake cookies. C.: cook something delicious once a month. D: don't compare yourself to others. 65. Find 10 quotes about happiness. 66. Write about 5 things you'd rather be doing right now. 67. Write out the lyrics to your favorite song. Find some pictures to illustrate the song. 68. Who do you spend the most time talking to? Siblings, parents, friends? Make a list of who you actually talk to during the day and estimate the amount of time invested in each individual. Does the list reveal your priorities? Is it proportional to what is important to you? Make notes of what you talk about in your daily conversations. 69. Find a quote for each month of the year. 70. Animals can sometimes seem remarkably human. Describe an experience with an animal that acted in a very human way. 71. Imagine you opted to have yourself frozen for 50 years. Describe your first days unfrozen, 50 years in the future. 72. Imagine that you are an astronaut who has been doing research on the moon for three years. You are do to go back to earth in a week when nuclear war breaks out on earth. You watch the earth explode. Then what? 73. Create a menu from a fictitious restaurant. Make sure the restaurant has a theme, such as Classic Books, and the food should all be given appropriate names (e.g., “Mockingbird Pie”). 74. Preconceived notions are often false. Describe a time when you discovered that a preconceived notion of yours (about a person, place, or thing) turned out to be wrong. 75. Create a story using words of one-syllable only, beginning with a phrase such as: “The last time I saw her, she...” “From the back of the truck...” “On the night of the full moon...” “The one thing I know for sure…” 76. Describe a significant person (teacher, neighbor, mentor, coach, parent, sibling, sweetheart) with as many physical details as possible and as many similes as possible. (E.g., “Her hair was as golden as straw.”) 77. Write about your first name—why you were given it, what associations or stories are attached to it, what you think or know it means. Do the same for your last name. What name would you give yourself other than the one you actually have? 78. Parents are our first and most important teachers. Describe a valuable lesson you learned from one of your parents. 79. Imagine a moral dilemma (for example, you see someone shoplift or a friend tells a blatant lie to her parents about where she was last night) and explain what you would do and why you would do it. 80. Review an obituary, birth, or a section from the police record or classified ads section of a local newspaper. Choose one and tell the story behind it. 81. List the most attractive things about your current hometown. Now list the most unattractive things. 82. Come up with a list of nouns and a second list of verbs, all of one syllable each. Describe a scene or situation, using a minimum of ten words from each list. 83. Where is your happy place? Write about it and include a picture or drawing. 84. Create a how-to manual for something you can do well (make a craft, bake cookies, restring a guitar, apply make up, etc.). Describe the process so that someone else could complete the task based on your directions. Use present tense verbs. 85. Free write on this quote by Samuel Johnson: “Ignorance, when voluntary, is criminal.” 86. Find a favorite quote and work it into an illustration. (Inspiration here.) 87. Make a soundtrack for your life so far. List songs that describe you or different times of your life. (Make the actual soundtrack on Spotify, etc. too!) 88. Sometimes we find ourselves in situations that force us to face our deepest fears. Tell about a time when you had to face one of your greatest fears—or make up the story. 89. You’re a talk show host. Pick two guests. Why did you choose them? Are they people who get along, or people with vastly different viewpoints? Write about the episode. 90. What three books do you think should be required reading for everyone? Why? 91. “What you don’t know what hurt you.” Write a story that begins with this statement. 92. Free write on this quote by Woodrow Wilson: “Friendship is the only cement that will hold the world together.” 93. According to a Czechoslovakian proverb, “Better a lie that soothes than a truth that hurts.” Agree or disagree? Explain. 94. Rewrite “The Tale of the Three Little Pigs” by using people that you know as the pigs and the wolf. 95. There is a saying that you should be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it. Describe a time when you wished for something and got it—and then wished you hadn’t—or make up a story in which this happens to the character. 96. As the saying goes, “rules are meant to be broken.” Tell about a time when you broke the rules and what happened as a result. 97. "That's not what I meant!" Write a story that has this line in it somewhere. 98. A blue trash can, a red picture frame, a teddy bear with the stuffing falling out, and a padlock. Put these four items somewhere in a story, scene, or poem. 99. Write your name in outline letters on a whole sheet of paper. Now fill in each letter with words you like that begin with that letter. For example: 100. Make a word collage of who YOU are. Use pictures too, if desired. **HURRAH! You can now purchase this as a digital PDF ($2) at Teachers Pay Teachers. For more creative writing ideas, check out my free WordSmithery creative writing lessons and my popular Ultimate Guide to Creative Writing Resources! Check out 100 other 100 Things posts from the bloggers at iHomeschool Network! Do you have it yet? The Big Book of Homeschooling Ideas—a collaboration of over 50 authors with 103 chapters— is now available! Don't miss this amazing resource!
5th grade writing doesn't have to be a struggle! This blog post will provide all of my best tips and ideas for teaching your fifth graders to succeed as writers. I’ve had classes where writing
In this set of 7th grade writing prompts, students will tackle questions like what they love about themselves & what they’ve learned.
Reading Response activities will likely form a major part of your reading programme, whether you are running guided reading groups, a daily 5 system,
Do you have struggling writers who just don't seem to be growing? Do you have reluctant writers who don't seem to get much writing completed? In every class that I have ever taught, there has always been a handful of kiddos that just don't like writing. These students can be toughest to reach. You have
Our pdf list of 300 7th grade spelling words is filled with words your students need to know. Find links to more 7th grade spelling resources, too.
Learn how to teach your students tone and mood in writing, and get access to exercises to help them practice – read on to find out more!)
When I think about student writing, one of the most difficult concepts to teach is sentence fluency. Much of excelling at fluent writing revolves around students’ background with literacy. Certainly,...
Three quick and fun writing activities to help energize student writers. Get those creative juices flowing with these easy lessons!
By The Daring English Teacher When it comes to teaching writing in the middle school ELA or high school English class, it can oftentimes feel like there is just so much content to teach. And in all honesty, that is entirely true. We simply do not have enough time to teach students every single thing they need to know in order to be the best writers they can be. However, we can focus on essential skills one at a time to build strong writers. When I first teach a type of writing to my students, I provide direct instruction and activity-based assignments so that students have an understanding of the genre of writing and what is expected of them. At the beginning of the new unit, I use this ELA writing instructional resource to directly teach students about either argument, narrative, or informational writing, and then we spend time each day working on developing the information using some of the included writing graphic organizers. In addition to sharing the above resource that I use for teaching writing, this blog post will also include three strategies to help you improve your writing instruction. Teaching Writing Tip 1: Simplify it and Break It Down One of the most vital steps in teaching writing to middle school and high school students is simplifying and breaking down the writing instruction into small, manageable chunks. One of the easiest ways to do this by focusing on less. Rather than having my students write an entire essay or paragraph, I will ask for three sentences: a topic sentence that answers the prompt, an evidence sentence with a properly introduced and cited quote, and one commentary sentence for an explanation. By breaking down the writing process into small, manageable chunks, students are less intimidated and more focused on demonstrating their writing abilities. You can read more about how I break down writing instruction and snag a free download by reading this post about teaching writing in the secondary ELA classroom. Teaching Writing Tip 2: Use Sentence Frames One of the most effective ways to scaffold writing instruction is by providing students with meaningful sentence frames. There are so many benefits to using sentence frames in the classroom, and even high school students benefit from them as well. When teachers include sentence frames during their writing instruction, they are teaching students HOW to academically organize and write their ideas. To read more about using sentence frames in the classroom, you’ll want to visit this blog post about scaffolding writing instruction through the use of sentence frames. This blog post also contains sentence frames that you can use today in your classroom as well as a free sentence frame download! Teaching Writing Tip 3: Incorporate Grammar In addition to simplifying writing assignments and using sentence frames, another key area to help students become stronger writers is by focusing on grammar. When students know how the parts of speech work together and when student understand how language works, they will naturally become stronger writers. The three biggest grammar lessons that I’ve found help students improve their writing abilities are the parts of speech, dependent and independent clauses, and sentence structure. By focusing a little bit of time on these conventions, your students will become stronger writers. You can read more about how I incorporate these grammar lessons in my classroom and download a free parts of speech interactive notebook activity by reading this post about helping students improve their writing skills by focusing on grammar. After incorporating these three strategies into your writing instruction, you might also be interested in three more tips for teaching writing and three strategies to boost student writing. Teaching Writing Resources: Writing a Persuasive Essay Portfolio - by the SuperHERO Teacher MLA Style and Format - by Tracee Orman Writing Activities - by Presto Plans Teaching the Process for Literary Analysis - by Room 213
In this set of 7th grade writing prompts, students will tackle questions like what they love about themselves & what they’ve learned.
Use Mentor Sentences in your ELA middle school classroom to improve student writing! Find practical ideas to teach writing skills.
Use engagaing videos to teach the elements of narrative writing. Students can analyze the genre by using short videos as they prepare to write their own.
Make the most of your writing block with these funny picture prompts! Go here:
The simple formula that will turn your child into a lifelong learner.
So.... it's been a while!! For most of December and the first two weeks of January, our house was riddled with germs!! And in a house with four small kiddos, this meant lots of children's Motrin, fever checks, tissues, sleepless nights, and filling humidifiers! It's been exhausting, but I am hoping healthier days are ahead!! * * * * * * * * * * Lots going on in my classroom! My students have been working away on our argument unit, and I have to say, they LOVE it! Like, love it so much they want to talk about it the entire walk to specials! It KILLS me to have to "shh" them (I'm a stickler for quietly walking in the halls!) because they are just so spirited about this unit! The kicker are these debate cards that I'm using. I spent the summer Googling like crazy trying to find some refreshing hot topics for the kids to argue over (I was just so over the school uniform and longer school day debate!!). I came up with a GREAT list and created a set of task cards. Here's a sneak peak at a few (the full set of task cards are available in my complete argument writer's workshop available here): Each day, I randomly distribute a few of the topics and give the students five minutes to jot down their gut reactions to the card. I also ask them to brainstorm some potential opposing arguments. Then, I have them find everyone else in the room with the same card and together they discuss/debate. I do have them use a "talking stick" (we use the super-fancy highlighter :) to keep the overly-enthusiastic voices from drowning out the students who are on the quieter side. Basically, I give one person in each group the highlighter and they "begin" the discussion (usually they will start by reading the gut reaction they had when they first saw their topic). If someone wants to respond, they can raise their hand for the stick. Otherwise, it just gets passed around the circle so each kid gets a chance to speak. If a group is struggling, I will go over and raise my hand for the talking stick. Typically, when I throw my two-cents into the mix, it will get them going for at least another few minutes! After 15-20 minutes of talking, students go back to their desks and draft their argument. Typically, I give them 25 minutes (there is absolutely NO TALKING during this time!), and believe me, their hands are FLYING across their notebook page!! Almost always, every single student finishes their essay in that time! It is absolutely amazing how the "talk time" prior to writing gives even the most reluctant writers plenty to say. So far, we've completed this activity three times (students get a different prompt each time), therefore, every kid has three great first drafts in their notebook. And we will probably do this activity two or three more times over the next week. Then, students will be able to take the draft they are most excited about, do a little research on the topic, and turn their draft into a full essay. These debates have just been so much fun. I am eager to see how the final drafts of their essays turn out! Any tips and tricks for teaching argument writing? I'd love to hear about them! Happy Teaching!!
