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"Broken Chain" and "Oranges" by Gary Soto are great stories to compare! "Broken Chain" is a short narrative story and "Oranges" is a poem. Both are regarding dating and middle-school aged boys. The first task is to summarize. There are a couple of strong comparison questions requiring students to cite examples from the text. This involves students identifying similes and providing meaning for one of them. Additionally, students must figure out words in context and make strong supported infer

This assignment meets two real goals. The first is to have students practice using dialogue correctly. The second is to have students practice getting up in front of their classmates for speeches. After reviewing how to punctuation dialogue, my students draw a number from one to 18 to see which characters they are going to create short conversations for. They are all fun and creative. For example, they may have Russell Wilson and Thor talk about throwing techniques or Santa Claus and Neil Arm

Earnest Hemmingway's "A Day's Wait" is a favorite story I use with my 7th graders each year. This short assignment asks a few quick questions that require students to cite evidence from the story in order to show understanding of theme. Additionally, students must figure out alternative meanings of words and make an inference regarding the meaning of the title. This is a time-tested assignment I pull out for quick review and practice of basic concepts. The story is not included in the assignme

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.

If you are a middle school teacher who is tired of teaching the kindergarten skill of capitalization regarding the pronoun 'I' this product is for you! It shows clear rules out for the pronoun 'I' and its contractions along with graphics. It also has a tongue-in-cheek section for students to fill in the blank on proper use of the pronoun followed by a signature section for students to promise to use it better. The final portion requires for students to write a paragraph using all forms of t

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.

“Who’s Rich and Who’s Poor” is one-page story that makes kids think differently about what being rich and poor means. Students will evaluate the action of a character in the story and react personally to what it means to be rich or poor. Graphic organizer and rubrics are included.

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!

If you are looking for a way to assure student learning, look no further! Students, unfortunately, don't always work on our timeline. Sometimes it takes a student multiple attempts to pass an assessment. I used to be against this because I felt students would fail again and it created more work for me. I hope you love using it as much as I do. It reduces my paper load, and students are really learning the material. It also makes students work harder to do the work ahead of time so they don't

This is a place for students to chart the different genres of books they read.