Description | Exposition | Narration | Opinion | Persuasion | All
Give your middle school students something intriguing to write about, whether they are reluctant, eager, or somewhere inbetween.
Free printables for how to create a paragraph, free tutorials on proofreading or in-text citations, current events, asking what they would read to a dog {and other important opinions}, story writing, and much more—you’ll find it all here.
Looking for engaging prompts for your teens? You’ll find those here. >>
Interested in writing prompts for the whole family? Could you use an assortment of prompts bundled together for certain topics or for varying grade levels? Free tutorials and printables included. Find them all here. >>
Thanks for visiting the Middle School Prompts page. If you have a prompt you would like to submit, please contact Sharon Watson.
So Long, Pluto!
Can you believe there’s a day named Pluto Demoted Day? It is August 24, when in 2006, Pluto was demoted from a planet to a dwarf planet.
Recent photos of Pluto by NASA’s spacecraft New Horizons have been fascinating. Here’s one of them, with a lighter shape informally named “the heart”: (more…)
Give Us a New Month
There are twelve months in a year. How many months have you lived through?
By now, anywhere from 120 to 168 months.
January is named after the Roman god Janus. He had two faces and could look forward and backward.
March is named after the god Mars. July is named for the famous emperor Julius Caesar. September, October, November, and December are derived from the Latin numbers for seven, eight, nine, and ten.
I think it’s time to (more…)
Feeling Twitchy?
It was a common practice long ago that travelers in inns slept in the same bed, even if they didn’t know one another. This seems strange to us and, yes, a little creepy now.
Here is a passage from Moby-Dick by Herman Melville in which the narrator Ishmael is telling us about how he decided not to sleep in the same bed with a harpooneer because Ishmael didn’t know how dirty the guy’s clothes would be (“his linen or woolen”) or even if he could trust him: (more…)
What Do You Do for Fun?
Some people like to put puzzles together. Others like to build forts, take hikes, or go camping. Some kids like to read or play a sport.
Derek Jeter, a now-retired New York Yankee, played baseball to have fun: “You gotta have fun. Regardless of how you look at it, we’re playing a game. It’s a business, it’s our job, but I don’t think you can do well unless you’re having fun.”
What do you do for fun? (more…)
You, a Huge Pile of Legos ®, and a Creation
I recently visited Downtown Disney in Orlando, Florida, and enjoyed the huge Legos ® creations there.
Really, they are tremendously interesting. I kept trying to figure out how someone built them and where they put their first blocks to begin these fun displays.
Here are some of the Legos ® pictures I took:.
Put Your Message on a T-Shirt
You’ve seen your fair share of messages on t-shirts, and you’ve probably worn a few t-shirts with writing on them.
Sports teams, music groups, camps, and even hospitals put their messages or advertisements on t-shirts.
They are like wearable billboards, and everyone reads them as you walk by. What message do you want to tell people? (more…)
Chasing Happiness
In the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson writes that our “inalienable rights” are “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
“Inalienable” means you can’t sell your rights or transfer them to someone else. They’re yours to keep.
But what does “the pursuit of happiness” mean? (more…)
