Middle School Prompts Archives - Page 5 of 18 - Writing with Sharon Watson-Easy-to-use Homeschool Writing and Literature Curriculum

Explore Poetry with “Birches” by Robert Frost

SHARON’S BLOG
Have you ever come across something unusual and wondered how it got that way?

Robert Frost in his poem “Birches” does just that. He finds some birches in the woods that are bent down and wonders what happened to make them curve down. Did a boy come by and climb them, bending them down? Did an ice storm overwhelm the branches?

Then he remembers swinging on birch trees when he was a youngster, and he misses the little boy he once was. He misses the enjoyment of being young and swinging on birches.

Focus on Easter with These 7 Spiritual Prompts

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Are you looking for a way to focus your students’ minds and hearts on the meaning of Easter?

Our special Easter prompts will help your students think deeply on the events and meaning of our dear Savior’s death and resurrection.

These 7 prompts are arranged chronologically from Jesus’ Triumphal Entry through Thomas’s epiphany a week after the resurrection.

Included are prompts with poetry, story writing, definitions, opinions, and more.

Suitable for students in grades 7 – 12.

Use Poetry to Cope with a Traumatic Event

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Has something traumatic ever happened to you or your family?

When Anne Bradstreet’s house burned down, she was heartbroken and wrote a poem about it. Read her poem below in which she pours out her grief, her pain upon losing everything, and what she learned from this terrible situation.

What is unusual about this poem is that Anne’s house burned in 1666, at a time when many people did not value poetry and did not take the time or have the time to write it. Also, it is very unusual that a woman of that time would have been recognized as a poet and have her poems published.

Anne was the wife of Simon Bradstreet, a governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Her work became so famous that her poems were printed in London as well. High praise, indeed, for a Puritan woman of that era.

Here’s her poem titled “Verses upon the Burning of Our House, July 18th, 1666.” You’ll notice that some of the capitalization and spelling is different from ours today:

Strengthen Your Friendships with a Friendship Journal

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Jonathan and David. Anne Shirley and Diana Barry. Calvin and Hobbes. Those are some epic friendships!

The Bible has a lot to say about friendships. It warns us against foolish ones: “Do not be misled: Bad company corrupts good character” (I Corinthians 15:33). Scripture encourages us that a “friend loves at all times” (Proverbs 17:17).

Friendship is important to God. How important is friendship to you?

If we want to make new friends, we have to show ourselves friendly. As Dale Carnegie, the famous philanthropist revealed, “You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.” That’s a challenge in a new group or situation, isn’t it?

Whether you have a new friend or a friend you’ve known since kindergarten, communication is important to the relationship.

A fun way to keep communication open is with a friendship journal. It’s a simple concept: You both answer a question in a journal and share your journal back and forth. You can make your own journal from a spiral-bound notebook or make your own book.

Full Steam Ahead: Steam Power in Ancient Roman Days?

SHARON’S BLOG
We like to think we’re fairly intelligent today, but did you know that the ancient Greeks and Romans harnessed the power of steam and wind 2,000 years ago?

Your students will enjoy these three prompts based on history and technology as they contemplate Hero of Alexandria, an ancient Thomas Edison, and how his inventions might have changed the world.

Random fact: Did you know that Hero invented the first vending machine? Patrons put in a coin and received holy water from his machine!

This week we’ve included plenty of links so your students can dig more deeply into these topics, if they wish.

Geared for middle – high school students.

Basketball: Is it March? Then there’s Madness!

SHARON’S BLOG.

Looking for basketball-related writing prompts? Whether your students are sports enthusiasts or not, you’ve come to the right place!

Have you ever seen tournament brackets like the one in #1? Free printable included!

Fun for students in 5th – 12th grade. Dig in!

10 Personal Writing Prompts Students Will Actually Enjoy

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Why should students write about themselves?

Reluctant writers are more apt to write about themselves and their experiences. Intrapersonal learners have their finger on the pulse of their hearts and thoughts, and they delight in journaling. And all writers enjoy a break from essays to splash around in personal writing from time to time.

Designed especially for 5th – 12th graders.

Dipping toes into water now . . .

6 Literature-Based Writing Prompts

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Literature holds an Aladdin’s cave of treasures that students can plunge their pens into.

Whether it’s imitating good writing, pondering a topic in the story, or using the story to write another, your students will gain a healthy curiosity for great works of literature as they write.

To enjoy these fun prompts, knowledge of the following stories is not necessary.

Terms covered: epiphany, spatial description, and paraphrase.

These literature-based prompts are suitable for your 5th – 12th graders.

Ready to go treasure hunting?

5 New Prompts for a New Year

SHARON’S BLOG
The beginning of a new year is a special time when your students can look back on their past year and cherish their hopes and dreams for the future. But do they know how to express those?

Here are five prompts geared to help them express their ideas through opinion, personal narrative, personification, and so on, as they think about and evaluate their lives.

Suitable for students in grades 5 – 12.

Let’s do this . . .

Do You Have Story Writers? They Will LOVE These Fiction Prompts!

SHARON’S BLOG

You know you have them—those story writers who won’t come out of their bedrooms, the ones who faint at writing essays but love writing stories.

They spend hours creating fictional worlds and populating them with characters in trouble who are looking for a happy ending.

Fiction is a powerful tool to influence readers’ hearts. Let’s equip our fiction writers with practices and insights that will give them success. You can read more about how authors grab readers’ hearts here.

As an added bonus, students who learn how to write more effectively in the world of fiction are absorbing communication skills they will use in their essay and research papers as well.

Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein before she was 19 years old. Christopher Paolini was only 15 when he wrote the first words to his best-selling Eragon. And Jane Austen wrote her first novel at age 14. When will your student be signing autographs?

These prompts are geared for students in 7th-12th grade. Use them now or bookmark them for later.