A Taste of Things to Come: Prep for Middle School Writing

Description

Ready? Set! Go! Elementary school will soon come to an end, and it’s time to prepare for the writing learners will do in middle school English language arts! As a secondary teacher, Mrs. Lemons has always wanted to design a curriculum for the upper elementary learners in order to hit the ground running when they hit middle school writing. This class is designed so students understand various genres and how their writing should change based on their purpose and audience. They also receive explicit grammar instruction through sentence combining, strengthening their foundation of sentence writing and becoming more sophisticated.

GOOD NEWS–We had so many requests to extend the number of classes, and we listen to parents! So, we have been busy writing more curricula, and this course covers a complete year’s worth of writing! We have a comprehensive curriculum for 49 weeks! Note: classes that begin in September are easier than the classes at the end of the summer. There is a comprehensive scope and sequence. However, the classes stand-alone each week, so you can pop in and out as you like!

Why This Course?

These classes stand apart from other writing classes because of the explicit instruction, modeling, and authentic, thoughtful, and constructive feedback from the instructor. Learners will practice with different writing genres each week, a mix of creative, expository, argument, research, poetry, technical, scientific, historical writing, and more. Using Google Docs, learners get more practice typing and formatting their papers digitally. They then revise and edit, based on feedback from the instructor, which greatly increases learning. All of this is just like we do in upper-grade levels! Feedback and evaluation will be provided in class and when students turn in work.

Course Type

This is a Live Subscription Course, which means your weekly subscription renews automatically every Sunday for the week’s class ahead. You can go into your account and stop your subscription anytime you need. It’s flexible for your schedule!

WEEKLY SCHEDULE: Pop in and out as you like!

• The week starting Apr 9: The Argumentative Piece. It’s time to stake your claim! This is the beginning of argument writing. After brainstorming two sides to an issue, students stake their own claim and then support it. Elaborating by asking three important questions help learners generate ideas. Additionally, they learn how to consider the alternate side of an issue and then how to refute that argument.
• The week starting Apr 16: The Literary Analysis Piece. We will use short sketches, which students love, to learn literary terms, then we will write an analytical paragraph as a class. They will practice doing it themselves for homework.
• The week starting Apr 23: The Literary Analysis Piece, Again. We will use short sketches, which students love, to learn literary terms, then we will write an analytical paragraph as a class. They will practice doing it themselves for homework.
• The week starting Apr 30: The Elevator Summary. After learning the important plot points in a narrative such as exposition, inciting incident, rising action, etc., students will learn how to succinctly write a summary of a narrative without rambling, giving away too many details, and missing the main idea. I call this the elevator summary because it has to be short enough that you could say it in the time it takes to ride the elevator up one floor!
• The week starting May 7: The Elevator Summary, Again. After learning the important plot points in a narrative such as exposition, inciting incident, rising action, etc., students will learn how to succinctly write a summary of a narrative without rambling, giving away too many details, and missing the main idea. I call this the elevator summary because it has to be short enough that you could say it in the time it takes to ride the elevator up one floor!
• The week starting May 14: Just the Facts! The Straight News Article. Students will learn the elements of a straight news article, read examples, and sort details according to how important they are. Then they grab their reporter’s notebook and watch a surprise event unfold. Their job will be to write their own straight news article with organized and sorted facts and without any bias.
• The week starting May 21: The Op-Ed. After reading examples, they jump right in as editorial journalists. They learn how to see both sides of an issue, introduce facts and evidence, and refute the opposing argument in their own opinion article. The topic is high-interest and many students have passionate opinions!
• The week starting May 28: Email Etiquette. Is email a dying form of communication? Certainly not, especially in education and business. Students learn email etiquette, such as having the right attitude, using professional words, choosing the correct style, and including the proper parts of a professional email. Keeping their audience and purpose in mind, students learn how to deal with a problem by addressing it head-on in a polite email.
• The week starting Jun 4: The Better Book Review. Book reviews are everywhere, and students read them a lot! They read them on amazon.com, on other websites, they hear from friends, and they have to decide if they want to read the book. We will look at various book reviews from different places to see which book reviews are good and which ones are not; students will come up with a list and outline for writing their own book reviews.
• The week starting Jun 11: It’s Greek to Me! The Drama. It’s time to break out the Greek mythology! Students will read a short drama, learning how dramas are written. They will rewrite the ending to one drama, practicing with the unique structure.
• The week starting Jun 18: Technical Writing, Simplified. Have you ever heard of Wikipedia Simple? While focusing on technical writing, integrating precise instructions, content-specific vocabulary, and a clear process, students will write a Wikipedia Simple page explaining how to do something they’re good at: mounting a horse? Tap dancing? Shooting a hockey puck? Playing a video game? It’s a hard genre of writing but they will learn to break down a sequenced process and communicate in writing.
• The week starting Jun 25: The Personal Narrative. What is the meaning of life? We probably won’t discover the answer to that question, but students will think of a significant memory in their own lives and pull out the deeper meaning, reflecting, thinking, remembering, and then will write a memoir, a personal narrative. While doing this, they learn to blend important narrative elements such as dialogue, thoughts, feelings, action, and descriptive writing.
• The week starting Jul 2: The Response to Literature. Writing a response to a piece of literature is more than just saying whether it was good or not. Students will read a piece of literature and learn to use textual evidence to answer a question. This is forming a foundation of argument writing and literary analysis, and the practice of this genre of writing prepares students for the most difficult writing they will do in secondary English classes. I break this down for students so they understand the difference between an argument, evidence, and analysis, but in age-appropriate terms.
• The week starting July 9: The Blog. Based on a real-life travel experience or on a virtual field trip, students become travel bloggers, detailed, casual, and with great personalities. We explore the genre of the blog and how different it is from formal pieces of writing. Students learn to write to a specific audience and how to modify their writing stylistically so that their blog is informal and interesting to read. This opinion writing teaches students to use specific details in their writing as well. I always travel to Bermuda, my favorite place on the planet, in my mind and in my model blog, and students can go anywhere they want virtually!
• The week starting July 16: Elaboration Techniques in an Expository Paragraph. Have your kiddos ever said, “I don’t know what to write?” They stare at a blank page or a blinking cursor on the computer as their mind draws a blank. They need to be taught how to elaborate, or write more, much more. Students will use information and data to write a well-developed, fully elaborated main idea paragraph. They will learn how to ask themselves elaboration questions to guide their thinking and writing so that they have rich, specific details, descriptions, and reasoning in their paragraphs.
• The week starting July 23: Create it, Write it, & Sell it! Learners become inventors and advertising executives as they develop their own products and then write ad copy to sell it. While doing so, students will learn elements of persuasive writing and create an advertisement with convincing techniques. Will they create a magical mini-dinosaur that does their homework? Or will they create flying shoes that will take them through the air to a friend’s house? Their imaginations can run wild!
• The week starting July 30: Writing about a Historical People–The Who. We are preparing them for historical research and writing, but we’re breaking it down! This week, students learn how to look at a historical figure, take notes, then paraphrase the notes in a biographical piece we call the VIP Sketch.
• The week starting Aug 6: Writing about a Historical Event–The What & the How. We are preparing them for historical research and writing, but we’re breaking it down! This week, students learn how to look at a historical event, take notes, then paraphrase the notes in an expository piece informing the reader of a historical event.
• The week starting Aug 13: Writing about Historical Context–The Where. We are preparing them for historical research and writing, but we’re breaking it down! This week, students learn how to look at a map and its key and make sense of the importance of geography in historical research. Then they write an informational piece describing the place and why it was important to an event.
• The week starting Aug 20: Writing about Historical Context–The When. We are preparing them for historical research and writing, but we’re breaking it down! This week, students learn how to look at a timeline, take notes, then describe what happened led up to the main historical event, the timing of the main event, and what happened after the main event.
• The week starting Aug 27: Writing about Historical Significance–They Why or “So What?” We are preparing them for historical research and writing, but we’re breaking it down! This week, students think about the significance of the historical event by doing a little more reading, taking notes, and then paraphrasing their notes in an argumentative piece about the significance of a historical event.

YOU’RE DONE! YOU DID IT! It’s time for Middle School!

• If you have finished these classes, here is the next full year of writing curriculum, similar to this one but more advanced:
  https://outschool.com/classes/smart-cookie-ongoing-middle-school-english-a-complete-curriculum-8kWkrY37?usid=0BAnv5zn&signup=true&utm_campaign=share_activity_link
• To see a comparison of all our middle school English offerings, both semester & ongoing, click here:
  https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FsEVkv77i6YJEtfNi3Er_Jj8b_mU4wli/view?usp=share_link

THE 2023-2024 SCHOOL YEAR BEGINS

Start Your Engines!

• The week starting Sept 3: The How-to Piece. This is a technical piece of writing that forces writers to break down a simple process into its component parts. It takes some thinking and then organizing before they put their pens to paper. Just a heads-up to parents–this class will make your learners hungry! 🙂
• The week starting Sept 10: The Informational Essay. A building block of upper elementary and middle school writing is the informational essay! Scholars will write about their favorite person while learning to use elaboration techniques, descriptive writing, and more.
• The week starting Sept 17: The Simple Summary. Is this a literature lesson or a writing lesson? It’s both! Students will learn two different types of narratives and observe important characters, places, and objects, all in preparation for writing a simple summary. This requires analysis and concise writing skills.
• The week starting Sept 24: Descriptive Writing: an Object. Students will learn all sorts of things and it will be so super great. They’ll do awesome work. Ack! What did I just write? General, no-good words! Learners will understand why specific, clear, and strong language is important as they practice writing descriptively so that their readers develop a sharp, detailed picture in their minds.
• The week starting Oct 1: Descriptive Writing: Developing a Setting. These are not your average, everyday, boring places. The settings our writers will describe are unusual and other-worldly. They will have to use their descriptive writing tools to paint these word pictures!
• The week starting Oct 8: Descriptive Writing: Developing a Character. It’s alive! Students will turn inanimate objects into walking, talking, and maybe even flying characters with detailed external and internal traits. They are authors creating their own unique characters.
• The week starting Oct 15: Descriptive Writing: Feelings. It’s hard to describe a feeling! But students will do it! They will write short passages using descriptive writing to SHOW a character with a feeling rather than just TELL us what a character is feeling.
• The week starting Oct 22: The Problem Story: a Focus on Conflict. We do not live in a perfect world, with perfect people, with perfect lives! The human story is one of conflict. In this lesson, learners will analyze the conflict in a Pixar Short, which takes some critical thinking. The conflict is not so easy to discern without looking a little deeper. They will use this lesson to create a conflict between two characters. They can be characters they have developed on their own, or they can use well-known characters but in a different conflict.
• The week starting Oct 29: The Problem Story: Blend, Baby, Blend. The grammar and punctuation of using dialogue is tricky! But using dialogue in a narrative is a lot more than just what people say! Students learn to give their characters voices by writing dialogue while blending other important narrative elements. They learn to BLEND, BABY, BLEND!
• The week starting Nov 5: The Memory Story: a Personal Narrative. Learners should come to class with a very special object for show-and-tell. The object should be meaningful and be associated with a memory. If they forget to bring one, they will be able to run off from class and grab something. It usually just takes a few seconds. This will be the inspiration for writing a memoir, or the “memory-story” we’re calling it at this age. In class, we will read an example memoir for even more inspiration.
• The week starting Nov 12: The Biographical Sketch. This mini-biography will bring our little writers closer to someone they know. They will learn about a favorite adult through an interview, then they will write the true story about that life. Of course, this will come after they read a sample biographical sketch!

NOV 19 – 25: NO CLASS

• The week starting Nov 26: The Fable. We all know those memorable characters we meet in fables. Fables are different from other stories, and that’s not just because they teach a moral. They are written with certain characteristics. Our scholars will read fables to understand the genre, then they will write their own!
• The week starting Dec 3: The “If I Were…” Poem. Just like artists use tracing paper to learn different strokes and artistic techniques, authors can mimic beloved poetry to learn poetic elements and stretch their creative muscles. Writers will write the “If I Were…” poem this week. I will warn you though. This lesson, along with the next one, has been known to develop passionate poets! You have been warned.
• The week starting Dec 10: The “New Animal” Poem. Again, poetry does not have to be scary! It’s fun to bend language, learn to rhyme, and develop and maintain a rhythm. Again, lifelong poets are born in this lesson.
• The week starting Dec 17: The Pet Essay. Do you have ferrets? Parakeets? A pet stuffy? Students will learn the aspects of expository writing as they write a three-paragraph essay on what it’s like to own a pet. They will especially learn to organize and how to elaborate. No easy tasks! But, they will do it and do it well!

Dec 24 – Jan 6: NO CLASS

• The week starting Jan 7: Writing about a Literary Character. This class is a combo of literary analysis, critical thinking, and writing. Students watch Pixar Shorts, analyzing a character for his external and internal traits. This teaches them to look closely at a narrative, evaluate a character, and analyze the author’s craft of character development.
• The week starting Jan 14: Writing about a Literary Character. This class is a combo of literary analysis, critical thinking, and writing. Students watch Pixar Shorts, analyzing a character for his external and internal traits. This teaches them to look closely at a narrative, evaluate a character, and analyze the author’s craft of character development.
• The week starting Jan 21: The TEE-it UP Opinion Essay. Using fairy tales and fables, students learn to discern an issue, what side of the issue is presented in the literature, and then respond to that literature with their own opinion. Opinion writing is a type of argument writing and this lesson starts to build a foundation of writing and supporting arguments.
• The week starting Jan 28: Another TEE-it UP Opinion Essay. Using fairy tales and fables, students learn to discern an issue, what side of the issue is presented in the literature, and then respond to that literature with their own opinion. Opinion writing is a type of argument writing and this lesson starts to build a foundation of writing and supporting arguments.
• The week starting Feb 4: The Literary Analysis Argument Essay. Easy as A-B-C. Here we go! We are working on argument writing and how to support arguments with details from narratives.
• The week starting Feb 11: Another Literary Analysis Argument Essay. Easy as A-B-C. Here we go! We are working on argument writing and how to support arguments with details from narratives.
• The week starting Feb 18: The Gift of Poetry. It’s all about the verbs in this poetry lesson. We won’t rhyme, but we’ll segment poetic parts and create a couple of poems that can be given as gifts. Parents might want to wait to watch this recording for a couple of weeks. 😉
• The week starting Feb 25: The Imitation Poem. Have you ever placed a piece of tracing paper over a picture to learn how to draw something? This is sort of what we’re doing in these two classes. Students will study classic poems while learning about poetic devices (metaphor, personification, & rhyme). Then we place that tracing paper, or rather, we imitate the poems but use new ideas. This helps students look deeply and analytically at a poem while trying their pen at using the same poetic devices and techniques.
• The week starting Mar 3: The Imitation Poem, Again.
• The week starting Mar 10: The Argumentative Piece. It’s time to stake your claim! This is the beginning of argument writing. After brainstorming two sides to an issue, students stake their own claim and then support it. Elaborating by asking three important questions help learners generate ideas. Additionally, they learn how to consider the alternate side of an issue and then how to refute that argument.
• The week starting Mar 17: The Literary Analysis Piece. We will use short sketches, which students love, to learn literary terms, then we will write an analytical paragraph as a class. They will practice doing it themselves for homework.
• The week starting Mar 24: The Literary Analysis Piece. Is it a reading class or a writing class? It’s both! Learners will read a piece of literature, learn a couple of literary terms, then write an analytical paragraph as a class. They will practice doing it themselves for homework.
• The week starting Mar 31: The Elevator Summary. After learning the important plot points in a narrative such as exposition, inciting incident, rising action, etc., students will learn how to succinctly write a summary of a narrative without rambling, giving away too many details, and missing the main idea. I call this the elevator summary because it has to be short enough that you could say it in the time it takes to ride the elevator up one floor! This is a literature and writing combo class.
• The week starting Apr 7: The Elevator Summary, Again. It’s tough, so we need to practice some more! It’s okay if students missed last week because we teach it again. If students attended last week, they need the repetition! After learning the important plot points in a narrative such as exposition, inciting incident, rising action, etc., students will learn how to succinctly write a summary of a narrative without rambling, giving away too many details, and missing the main idea. I call this the elevator summary because it has to be short enough that you could say it in the time it takes to ride the elevator up one floor! This is a literature and writing combo class.
• The week starting Apr 14: Just the Facts! The Straight News Article. Students will learn the elements of a straight news article, read examples, and sort details according to how important they are. Then they grab their reporter’s notebook and watch a surprise event unfold. Their job will be to write their own straight news article with organized and sorted facts and without any bias.
• The week starting Apr 21: The Op-Ed. After reading examples, they jump right in as editorial journalists. They learn how to see both sides of an issue, introduce facts and evidence, and refute the opposing argument in their own opinion article. The topic is high-interest and many students have passionate opinions!
• The week starting Apr 28: Email Etiquette. Is email a dying form of communication? Certainly not, especially in education and business. Students learn email etiquette, such as having the right attitude, using professional words, choosing the correct style, and including the proper parts of a professional email. Keeping their audience and purpose in mind, students learn how to deal with a problem by addressing it head-on in a polite email.
• The week starting May 5: The Better Book Review. Book reviews are everywhere, and students read them a lot! They read them on amazon.com, on other websites, they hear from friends, and they have to decide if they want to read the book. We will look at various book reviews from different places to see which book reviews are good and which ones are not; students will come up with a list and outline for writing their own book reviews.
• The week starting May 12: It’s Greek to Me! The Drama. It’s time to break out the Greek mythology! Students will read a short drama, learning how dramas are written. They will rewrite the ending to one drama, practicing with the unique structure.
• The week starting May 19: Technical Writing, Simplified. Have you ever heard of Wikipedia Simple? While focusing on technical writing, integrating precise instructions, content-specific vocabulary, and a clear process, students will write a Wikipedia Simple page explaining how to do something they’re good at: mounting a horse? Tap dancing? Shooting a hockey puck? Playing a video game? It’s a hard genre of writing but they will learn to break down a sequenced process and communicate in writing.
• The week starting May 26: The Personal Narrative. What is the meaning of life? We probably won’t discover the answer to that question, but students will think of a significant memory in their own lives and pull out the deeper meaning, reflecting, thinking, remembering, and then will write a memoir, a personal narrative. While doing this, they learn to blend important narrative elements such as dialogue, thoughts, feelings, action, and descriptive writing.

SUMMER SESSIONS BEGIN

(These are new lessons for those that want to continue)

• The week starting Jun 2: The Response to Literature. Writing a response to a piece of literature is more than just saying whether it was good or not. Students will read a piece of literature and learn to use textual evidence to answer a question. This is forming a foundation of argument writing and literary analysis, and the practice of this genre of writing prepares students for the most difficult writing they will do in secondary English classes. I break this down for students so they understand the difference between an argument, evidence, and analysis, but in age-appropriate terms.
• The week starting Jun 9: The Blog. Based on a real-life travel experience or on a virtual field trip, students become travel bloggers, detailed, casual, and with great personalities. We explore the genre of the blog and how different it is from formal pieces of writing. Students learn to write to a specific audience and how to modify their writing stylistically so that their blog is informal and interesting to read. This opinion writing teaches students to use specific details in their writing as well. I always travel to Bermuda, my favorite place on the planet, in my mind and in my model blog, and students can go anywhere they want virtually!
• The week starting Jun 16: Elaboration Techniques in an Expository Paragraph. Have your kiddos ever said, “I don’t know what to write?” They stare at a blank page or a blinking cursor on the computer as their mind draws a blank. They need to be taught how to elaborate, to write more, much more. Students will use information and data to write a well-developed, fully elaborated main idea paragraph. They will learn how to ask themselves elaboration questions to guide their thinking and writing so that they have rich, specific details, descriptions, and reasoning in their paragraphs.
• The week starting Jun 23: Create it, Write it, & Sell it! Learners become inventors and advertising executives as they develop their own products and then write ad copy to sell them. While doing so, students will learn elements of persuasive writing and create an advertisement with convincing techniques. Will they create a magical mini-dinosaur that does their homework? Or will they create flying shoes that will take them through the air to a friend’s house? Their imaginations can run wild!
• The week starting Jun 30: Roadrunner Story-a Setting, Characters & Conflict. Inspired by Wile E Coyote and the Roadrunner, students will learn to establish a setting, develop characters, and design a conflict in narrative writing. We use video clips for inspiration and practice painting pictures with words. Beep! Beep!
• The week starting July 7: A Roadrunner Story–Narrative Writing. Inspired by Wile E Coyote and the Roadrunner, students will write a very short main event of a story, blending narrative elements. They practice writing action, dialogue, descriptive writing, and other narrative elements. You do not need to have attended last week’s class.
• The week starting July 14: A Roadrunner Story–Students write the climax and resolution of a roadrunner story. They will “Blend, Baby, Blend!” Students learn to blend all elements of narrative writing into a story of their own. They do not need to have attended last week’s class.
• The week starting July 21: Writing the Science Report. There’s a method to the madness! It’s okay to be a mad scientist so long as you stick to the scientific method. In this class, students learn the process of writing a scientific report, complete with a purpose statement, hypothesis, materials, method, results, discussion, and conclusion!
• The week starting July 28: Writing about a Historical People–The Who. We are preparing them for historical research and writing, but we’re breaking it down! This week, students learn how to look at a historical figure, take notes, then paraphrase the notes in a biographical piece we call the VIP Sketch.
• The week starting Aug 4: Writing about a Historical Event–The What & the How. We are preparing them for historical research and writing, but we’re breaking it down! This week, students learn how to look at a historical event, take notes, then paraphrase the notes in an expository piece informing the reader of a historical event.
• The week starting Aug 11: Writing about Historical Context–The Where. We are preparing them for historical research and writing, but we’re breaking it down! This week, students learn how to look at a map and its key and make sense of the importance of geography in historical research. Then they write an informational piece describing the place and why it was important to an event.
• The week starting Aug 18: Writing about Historical Context–The When. We are preparing them for historical research and writing, but we’re breaking it down! This week, students learn how to look at a timeline, take notes, then describe what happened led up to the main historical event, the timing of the main event, and what happened after the main event.
• The week starting Aug 25: Writing about Historical Significance–They Why or “So What?” We are preparing them for historical research and writing, but we’re breaking it down! This week, students think about the significance of the historical event by doing a little more reading, taking notes, and then paraphrasing their notes in an argumentative piece about the significance of a historical event.

YOU’RE DONE! YOU DID IT! It’s time for Middle School! 

If you have finished these classes, here is the next full year of writing curriculum similar to this one but more advanced: 

 Smart Cookie

Click to see a comparison of all our middle school English offerings, both semester & ongoing.