Free English Language Arts and Reading Activities for Middle School

This lesson explores how to write a reflective narrative essay, a type of writing where writers reflect on an experience and show how their lives changed.

Want to help your students develop their organizational, analytical, and research skills? Teach them how to write an expository paragraph.

Teaching kids how to write a persuasive paragraph consisting of their opinion and supporting sentences puts them on the right track to being an effective communicator.

No matter what your middle school or high school class is reading, these writing prompts about love will get them ready for Valentine's Day.

School's back in session, which means it's time for a fresh batch of writing prompts for the new year. Have your high school or middle school students try these Back-to-School prompts this fall.

In November, National Novel Writing Month begins for thousands of writers around the world. At the same time, many teachers introduced their classrooms to the NaNoWriMo Young Writers Program, and found their students developing a new-found passion for creative writing.

Get your ELA class into the spirit with these fun Halloween activities for middle school and high school students, and learn from a few masters of horror how to really make those spines tingle and those bones shake.

Have middle schoolers create a Story Spine, find inspiration in everyday objects, and write an advice column.

Help your middle schoolers sharpen their writing and critical thinking skills with activities including a poetry scavenger hunt and an opportunity for them to invent a board game.

For this week's activities, students can create how-to videos, analyze media messages, and respond to summer writing prompts.

Have your students hone their active-listening skills and identify literary terms with these at-home activities for middle schoolers.

Teach students about metaphors and have them write fiction stories with these free downloadable activities for middle schoolers.

Have your middle schoolers write their own haikus, identify themes in works of literature, and create a character's social media profile.

Have middle schoolers identify figurative language, start a dialectical journal, and respond to daily dinner prompts.

Have middle schoolers improve their writing, critical thinking, and reading skills with these activities, which include creating a word cloud and summarizing informational texts.

Sharpen your writing, language, critical thinking, and reading skills with these instructional resources for Grades 6-8, including a poetry scavenger hunt.