Writing Activities for Teaching English in Middle School

Writing skills are among the most important English lessons taught to middle school students. These skills are those that they will utilize throughout high school, college and their careers. Expository, persuasive and five-paragraph essays as well as metaphors, similes and personification are key learning objectives throughout the middle school grade years. Simply lecturing these concepts to children can be ineffective. Interesting writing activities help children understand and retain lessons better than memorization of lectures. Below are writing activities for teaching English in middle school.

Quill Pens and Essays

Essay writing is a fact of middle school life that most middle school students abhor. Make the task seem more interesting by purchasing a package of colored feathers at a retail store like Wal-Mart or a craft store. Allow the students to select the feather color of their choices and tape it to their pencils to create their own quill pens. Then either present students with creative writing prompts, such as "I wish..." or "Imagine you are a..." or let them choose a prompt of their own. Specify whether the format of the essay should be expository, persuasive or five-paragraph, though. This technique will help them feel like the task of essay writing is something creative-like they themselves are writers.

Personified Fiction Essays

Teach children the concepts of metaphors, similes and personification by first explaining to them what they are. Then have each student write a fictitious essay employing the usage of each. A good prompt for this would be to instruct students to write an essay about talking animals or talking objects. Tell them to ensure they use at least one sentence containing a metaphor and one containing a simile. Moreover, their essays may be in expository format (simply narrating a story), persuasive format (persuading the reader) or five-paragraph format. Advise students that they will be awarded extra points and perhaps a computer session if they implement all three essay formats into their essay. Moreover, allow students to read their humorous narratives aloud to each other as well.