Fran57

Quick and ready-to-use, this assignment has my middle school students loving poetry and creating some of their own 'inspired' versions of this classic! This assignment takes the old favorite, 'Twas the Night Before Christmas, and teaches students about poetic devices such as rhythm, rhyme, couplets, and syllables. After learning about this age-old poem, students are given a ten-line start of a poem with a classroom flair inspired by this same poem. Students must finish the poem using rhyming

Use this short assignment to review the most difficult part of writing a paragraph, concluding sentences! I find this very effective in helping my 7th graders. I hope it works for you as well!

This common core historical fiction book project asks students to revisit specific parts of the novel read and explain how that portion of the novel helped him/her understand more about a certain aspect of history. Because direct citation is required, students cannot "Google" the answer. This is a genre my middle school students love and a useful activity to show learning and critical thinking. Please let me know what you think!

This excellent source for middle school narrative writing provides students the one thing they crave and desire more than anything else when writing - choice! It includes three well-developed narrative writing prompts. Each prompt allows students to write personal, biographical, or fictional narrative stories. It includes a proven graphic organizer that helps students develop character and plot and a revision checklist that aligns with the common core rubric.

Using the story Rikki Tikki Tavi by Rudyard Kipling, students work on character trait identification citing specific evidence from the text, writing a summary using a provided graphic organizer, and finding and identifying appositives in the text. All include four-point rubrics are included. The story itself is readily available other places, but is not included in this assignment due to copyright.

Microwave popcorn sound and smells fill the air as inspiration for this descriptive writing paragraph. Kids love this and the results really focus on showing versus telling. Rubric is included.

This is a basic resource guide to help students formulate a theme using a simple, three-step process. It is very effective!

This book project is a basic, but effective, book project that helps students practice finding specific evidence to support a theme of a book read by students. I have used this before, but added a section for revision, as my students need more practice with this. This project does not teach theme. It does, however, help students to practice its implementation.

This is a quick guide for students to use in identifying what type of genre they are reading for independent books.

This organizer helps students to analyze theme and character emotions in a way that drives plot. When using this as a guide for writing fiction, my students create much stronger plot with deeper and richer details. The best part is that it can be used with any sort of narrative!

This book log helps students keep track of books read during a school year, enjoyment level, and whether or not it was used for a book project. Please let me know what you think!

This book log helps students keep track of books read during a school year, enjoyment level, and whether or not it was used for a book project.