Middle School Literature Teacher Resources

Scratching your head when it comes to engaging writing prompts? Check out a list of prompts designed for middle school classes, which includes topics for persuasive writing, expository writing, how-to essays, personal narratives, and...

Was he or wasn’t he? We may never know for sure about the origins of King Arthur. But a video that leads middle school and high school viewers through the facts and fictions that have kept King Arthur alive in peoples’ imaginations for...

Enhance a unit on historical fiction with an engaging writing lesson plan. Learners bring the Industrial Era to life as they compose their own historical fiction pieces based on primary source images of Pittsburgh steel workers. 

Historical fiction can be a valuable asset when learning about the past. Integrate several novels written about the Civil War into your social studies unit, with groups of four working collaboratively to comprehend the novel from...

This is a fantastic collection of a wide variety of rubrics for writing, listening, and speaking! The resource contains over 14 rubrics for assessing such items as a summary, autobiographical sketch and narrative, speech, oral report,...

Students discover the wealth of literature written by individuals not born in the United States. They discover the literature of individuals of multiple ethnicities born in the United States. Students compile a list of books they would...

Add to the narrative writing experience. Elementary or middle school writers listen to the teacher read a descriptive passage, then reread the same passage silently. They highlight sensory details and figurative language, then orally...

If you are considering adding or expanding a unit on utopian and dystopian literature you simply must check out this fabulous resource. Packed with plans, activities, project-based and 21st century learning opportunities, the unit uses a...

Students read one of the following books: Minn of the Mississippi, Paddle-to-the-Sea, or Seabird, all by Holling C. Holling, and identify the five themes of geography as well as make a literature journal with chapter field notes. They...

Middle school years can be tough. An educator's guide for the works of Lynda Mullaly Hunt introduces readers to two texts that discuss the struggles pre-teens face during middle school. Chapter-by-chapter questions and activities for two...

Life in the Florida swamps after the Civil War comes alive in the 1946 film adaptation of Majorie Kinnan Rawlings’s The Yearling. The film of this powerful coming-of-age story, filled with love and loss, can be used with or without a...

Lois Lowry's The Giver is one of the most engaging and thought-provoking works of literature in the middle school curriculum. Round out your novel unit with a collection of reading activities, comprehension questions, memoir and journal...

We're off to see the wizard! Practice making inferences in literature with two sample paragraphs from L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Each passage provides questions about the pleasantness of the place it describes, and kids...

The odds will be in your favor that young statisticians will volunteer to participate in this experiment. After watching a short video that is part of the PBS Math at the Core middle school collection, scholars engage in a lottery and...

Students communicate their thoughts on the environment by creating picture books for middle school students. Students include their thoughts on population, deforestation, water, energy, endangered species, and waste in their picture books.

Have you always wanted to try Literature Circles in your ELD class, but couldn't find a good way to start? This lesson is made for you, your middle-school readers and ideally, your SMARTboard (though the lesson could function without...

Demonstrate to your middle school science learners how chalk breaks down in a weak acid. Discuss what affects acidic rain might have on ecosystems. Lab groups then choose one of two questions: "How does acid precipitation affect an...

Here is a one-stop planning resource for Louis Sachar's Newbery Award-winning book Holes. You'll find 21 links to worksheets and various activities designed to span the entire book. Learners draw to help analyze settings and make...

Students review the most recent vocabulary list of French words. Using literature by Victor Hugo and Guy de Maupassant, they discover the history and culture of France. Using a map and the text, they locate the cities and regions of...

Use the internet to research the differences between families in the past and today. In groups, they identify the reponsibilities and roles of each member of the family. As a class, they compare and contrast non-fiction and fiction and...

Upper elementary and middle school scholars study the economic factors that caused so many Arkansans to migrate to different parts of the country looking for work. Use this history lesson plan to help your charges gain a better...

Scott Middle School students demonstrate how to use gerunds properly in their writing. This is an engaging and informative video that is perfect to use as an introduction to your gerunds lesson.

Whether you are teaching mainstream, advanced, or intervention language arts classes, you will find something helpful in a thorough writing packet. It includes prompts, rubrics, responses, helpful hints, graphic organizers, and many...