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.
Flee the Boring Description!
You know that boring description in the last book you read for school?
No, wait. You didn’t read it. You skipped the description because it was so dull.
It’s time to fix that. Here’s a paragraph from H. G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds. Notice the specific and powerful verbs he uses to keep this description of refugees moving along: (more…)
You Live in a Shipping Container?
Yes, folks, some people live in old, repurposed shipping containers—those huge, metal, rectangular boxes used for receiving goods from overseas.
You can read more about repurposing shipping containers and see some cool pictures here.
They are also being used for restaurants, art galleries, and more.
Other people choose to live in micro-units (tiny, tiny apartments) as small as 250 square feet. That’s 25′ x 10′. Measure that out in your house and see how much space that takes up.
If you were to live in a recycled shipping container or in a space as small as these micro-units, how would you arrange your living space? But wait, there’s more!
The Secret to a Happy Family
What does it take to have a happy family?
“Families that eat together, stay together. It’s that simple,” writes Denise Mann in “15 Secrets of Happy Families” on WebMD.com. Do you agree? Is it really that simple?
Rabbi Shmuley Boteach in the same article suggests this: “Have one or two unifying activities that the family does together on a nightly basis.” This could be reading a story or playing a game together. But wait, there’s more!
So . . . You Want to Go to Mars?
The Mars One project isn’t a science-fiction story by Edgar Rice Burroughs or Ray Bradbury.
Mars One is a project that is making plans for taking scientists and colonists to Mars, scheduled for some time in 2024. You can read more about it here.
Are you in? In the United States, you could apply to Mars One for only $38 dollars. Applications are now closed. Out of the thousands who have applied so far, only 40 will be on the trip to put a human colony on Mars. But what’s the hitch? But wait, there’s more!
I Didn’t Finish My Homework Because . . .
. . . I didn’t want to add to my teacher’s already heavy workload.
. . . I put it in my pocket and my mom washed it.
. . . I visited my aunt who has this ancient fan, and my hair caught in it. I had to perform an emergency haircut with her fingernail clippers.
This prompt isn’t about homework, but it is about why things happened. But wait, there’s more!