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.
Celebrate Comic Book Day!
Yes, folks, September 25th is Comic Book Day!
“A day for good triumphing over evil, and for saving the damsel in distress, Comic Book Day is all about enjoying a good comic,” according to daysoftheyear.com.
The dialog in comic books has to be spot-on. It has to be clear, concise, exciting, and informative.
Dialog in comic books and in traditional books has three main purposes: (more…)
Apostrophe or no Apostrophe: It’s Confusing
This week’s grammar tutorial puts to rest some confusing words like “it’s” and “its.”
You can use the infographic below to teach your students about some confusing word usage. After that, there’s an exercise to reinforce the material with your students, and you’ll find the answers below the exercise.
Now, on to the tutorial . . . (more…)
A Strange Way to Get Ideas for Essays
Do you have to write an essay?
Are you stuck for ideas?
Have no fear. Here’s a strange way to get ideas for essays: Use your initials. (more…)
It’s True: “Everyone” Is Singular!
It is hard to believe, but the word “everyone” is singular.
It sounds as though it should include a lot of people; in fact, it should include everyone—and that sounds plural.
But “everyone” is in the list of singular indefinite pronouns, which are listed here: each, every, either, neither, no, one, no one, everyone, someone, anyone, nobody, everybody, somebody, anybody, nothing, everything, something, anything.
I grouped them by their endings: -one, -body, and -thing. You also could list most of them by their beginnings: no-, every-, some-, and any-.
This week’s blog, which is another in a series of grammar tutorials, includes the following:
- An infographic to teach the material
- An exercise for your students
- Answers to the exercise (more…)
National Make Your Bed Day
National Make Your Bed Day is September 11. Why it is on the same day as National Patriot Day, I’ll never know, and if you’d rather do that prompt, here it is.
Being able to explain how to do something is an important skill. Have you ever explained to an adult how to do something on their computer or smart phone? Or taught a younger kid how to tie shoes or ride a bike? (more…)
Too Many Question Marks and Exclamation Points?
Welcome to yet another of biting, incisive grammar question like this one: “Mom, is this sentence supposed to have one question mark or two at the end?”
Other grammar tutorials
If you’re dying to know what the other grammar tutorials are about, click here for one on punctuation in dialog. (Tarzan and Jane help out on that one.)
End Punctuation
I’m fully aware that the heading “End Punctuation” could be the heart’s cry of your struggling students.
However, this week, your students will wrestle with the thorny problem of what to do if a sentence is a question (interrogative) but there’s already a question mark to the left of the end quotation mark.
Take a look at the infographic, which is the lesson. (more…)
What Contest Would You Like to Win?
Would you like to be a gurgitator?
Miki Sudo is a speed eater or a gurgitator, someone who eats competitively. According to the August 2014 issue of mental_floss magazine, this petite woman “entered her first food challenge less than three years ago on a whim.”
It took her 33 minutes and 12 seconds to eat (more…)
