Middle School Tutorial Archives - Page 3 of 6 - Writing with Sharon Watson-Easy-to-use Homeschool Writing and Literature Curriculum

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

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.

SHARON’S BLOG

Compare and Contrast: 2 Solid Methods

Have your students ever been asked to write a compare-and-contrast paragraph or essay but don’t know where to begin? Do they have trouble organizing their thoughts and information before comparing and contrasting?

Your 5th – 12th graders will learn two solid methods for compare-and-contrast writing with this free tutorial. It’s packed with two separate exercises, one for each method, and contains complete instructions and colorful worksheets. Your students will learn how to organize their thoughts before writing with either method, and then they’ll write two paragraphs using each method.

Students already know how to compare and contrast in real life: They do it every time they want to buy something and are torn between two choices. They go through the process mentally, and it’s likely automatic and subconscious.

SHARON’S BLOG

Would you like your students to understand how to use proofreading marks? Do they know that they do not have to proofread for everything at once?

And did you know that it is easier for students to proofread if they practice on someone else’s mistakes?

Explore the posts below, appropriate for 7th – 12th graders. Click on any post’s image or link below to get started. FREE tutorials and printables included.

What will your students learn today?

SHARON’S BLOG

Looking for a fun way to teach grammar concepts to your 7th – 12th grade students?

This bundle of tutorials is geared to hold your students’ interest with colorful infographics and quirky sentences to work on. Each tutorial contains a lesson, an exercise, and the answers, all free for you to download and print at your leisure.

Commas with compound sentences, dialog punctuation, singular indefinite pronouns, and much more!

Use them now or bookmark them for future use.

Some of the tutorials below are featured in our eBook Let’s Eat Fifi. Read more about that 23-lesson grammar book here.

Click on the individual images or the links below for each tutorial.

Word Choices Bundle: Attention to Detail

SHARON’S BLOG

Do you “have a plan” or have you “hatched a scheme”? Are your students writing about the “circulation” of the blood or about how the blood “circulates”?

Do they understand how to use specific adjectives? Do they know the power of connotations? Do they turn sluggish nouns into working verbs? Do they define their terms?

Enjoy these nine tutorials that teach all of these things and much more. They will instruct your students in the finer art of using the elegant English language. Now students are not just writing; they are communicating.

Appropriate for 7th-12th graders. Use the lessons now or bookmark them for future use.

It’s time to dive into the splashy end of the pool . . .

Equip Your Students with These 11 Essential Writing Tools

SHARON’S BLOG

Could your students use some writing tools?

Your students have to come up with a paragraph or an essay, but they do not know where to begin. They do not know where to get ideas, how to formulate a plan, how to narrow down their topic, how to organize their ideas, how to write a credible paragraph, and so on.

Does this sound familiar?

Then you’ve come to the right place! Use the links below to equip your students with the writing tools they need to be successful this year. Many of these links contain tutorials and free worksheets to download. I hope you like #s 10 and 11. Thousands of moms and teachers have already downloaded them and found happiness.

Ready? Let’s go . . .

SHARON’S BLOG

Our word choices can have a huge impact on our readers. Or the words can muddle them. Let me give you an example.

If I write that a toddler is a good eater, I suddenly have a communication problem. The word “good” is not specific enough. Does “good” mean that the toddler is neat while eating? Does it mean that the child eats a large quantity of food or perhaps a variety of food without complaining? My readers will not have a clear idea of my meaning.

Your middle school students will learn this in the first writing prompt. I’ve written a very boring paragraph about something that seemed exciting to the student, but the words I selected were flat, overused, and not specific enough.

Teens will have fun with the second writing prompt as they practice using specific words and phrases to get a point across or create a focused mood.

Ready? Let’s go . . .

Write an Introduction: The Benefits of Owning a Pet

MIDDLE SCHOOL PROMPTS

What are the benefits of owning a pet?

I’m sure you could list a few benefits off the top of your head. Good. Keep those in mind as we learn about an essay’s introduction.

When you write an introduction, you’ll want to include a few key items:

1. An intriguing first sentence to capture your reader’s attention. It’s called a hook.
2. A clear idea of what the article or essay is about (its topic).
3. A sentence that is the main idea (thesis statement) that will guide the rest of the article.

Here’s an example of an introductory paragraph about the TV remote. Although it seems serious, this student is actually poking fun at the idea that the TV remote has affected society:

MIDDLE SCHOOL PROMPTS

“Long, long ago, in a lavish lodge near the village of Liverwurst, lived a lovely lass called Linda the Lonely.

Linda was lonely because, ever since she was a little girl, she had been
locked in the lodge by her wicked uncle, Lord Ludwig of Liverwurst.”

So begins “The Legend of Linda the Lonely” in The Sesame Street Book of Fairy Tales.

By now you have noticed something strange about the first paragraph of poor Linda’s story—it’s full of the letter “L.”

MIDDLE SCHOOL PROMPTS

Advertising is everywhere. TV commercials bombard you 18 minutes out of every hour, but they are not the only places companies try to sell their products. Think of billboards, huge pictures of food products stuck to restaurant windows, and even your lowly cereal box.

Yes, even after you’ve bought the cereal, you still get advertisements about it. Take a look at a cereal box and notice all the adjectives there to describe the cereal and tell you how great it is. Here’s a sentence from my Cinnamon Life® cereal: