Writing Teaching Resources
Teaching writing strategies and the writing process this school year? Explore a comprehensive collection of teacher resources for elementary and middle school ELA teachers — all created by teachers!
Stocked with graphic organizers, writing prompts, templates, worksheets and so much more, this collection of printable and digital activities is designed to help you as you help your students become more effective communicators and unleash their creativity and imagination.
Save time on lesson planning with resources that have been through a careful review process by an expert member of our teacher team to ensure they're ready for your classroom and your students!
Are you looking for tips and tricks to add to your teacher toolkit this school year? Read on for a primer from our teacher team, including engaging activities for teaching writing in elementary and middle school and a look at some of the different writing strategies your students will need to learn.
11 Writing Strategies Kids Should Know by the End of Middle School
We can't talk about teaching kids to write without talking about the different writing strategies that can help them do just that!
When it comes to teaching our students to become confident writers who articulate their ideas effectively, here are some of the strategies our teacher team prioritizes:
1. Brainstorming
Brainstorming is something we often do in the classroom, and it's a crucial part of learning to generate the ideas that will drive students' writing as they progress through their educational journey. Kids should know how to create a list of potential topics or points related to a particular writing assignment.
With younger students, this is often done as a whole group by writing ideas and points on chart paper. In upper grades, students transition over to using text-based materials to generate ideas and talking points.
2. Outlining
Before diving directly into any assignment, our students should be able to create a structured framework or outline. Teaching students how to create this outline will help them organize their thoughts and arguments for penning their essays, reports and research papers.
3. Using Graphic Organizers
Technically graphic organizers are classroom tools, so you may not think of their use as a writing strategy per se. However, learning to use these tools is another means of providing kids with the tools they need to organize their ideas and information before they sit down to write.
These organizers are particularly useful for expository writing — students can use them to outline main ideas, supporting details, and transitions.
Students can also take advantage of story maps when they are working on narrative writing to plot the key elements of a story, such as characters, setting, conflict, rising action, climax and resolution.
Graphic organizers such as the OREO strategy and hamburger paragraph are also great tools for students to use when working with opinion and persuasive texts.
4. Freewriting
Writer's block is the enemy of creativity, and it can easily frustrate young students who don't know where to begin.
When students freewrite, they write continuously without worrying about grammar or punctuation. This writing strategy can be extremely freeing — hence the name! — and helps frustrated writers move past that writer's block, generating fresh ideas.
5. Peer Editing
Learning to review and provide constructive feedback on each other's work is a great writing strategy to employ in your classroom to help students improve their writing quality and enhance their editing skills.
The strategy allows your students to learn from one another, and it arms them with an important tool they can use well into the future — calling on peers to provide a critical eye to a piece of writing.
6. Using Sensory Language
Working on descriptive writing? With this writing strategy, students engage the reader's senses through vivid and sensory language to create a more immersive experience.
7. Including Transitions and Connectives
As students become more proficient in the writing process, learning to use transitional words and phrases allows them to create smooth transitions between sentences and paragraphs. This strategy makes their writing more coherent and polished.
8. Incorporating Evidence
In persuasive, opinion, and expository writing, students are taught to support their claims with evidence and examples to strengthen their arguments.
It takes some practice to train your students to use evidence in their writing, so it's often a good idea to start with something simple, like the R.A.C.E.S. strategy.
9. Crafting a Thesis Statement
In expository, opinion, and persuasive writing, crafting clear and concise thesis statements that summarize the main point or argument of their essay helps students be more focused and organized in their writing. This strategy can also have the effect of empowering students to express their ideas confidently and persuasively.
10. Incorporating Introductions and Conclusions
With this strategy, students practice crafting effective introductions and conclusions that grab the reader's attention and leave a lasting impression.
11. Following a Revision Checklist
Teaching your students to use a revision checklist is a strategy that will help them be more self-reflective, evaluating their own writing against the checklist criteria and becoming more aware of their strengths and weaknesses.
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Author's Purpose Anchor Chart
A poster highlighting the three main reasons an author writes a piece of text - to persuade, to inform, to entertain.
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Complete and Incomplete Sentence Task Cards
These task cards are best used as independent practice or formative assessment assignments during sentence structure lessons.
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Persuasive Writing Bump It Up Wall – Grade 4
Help your 4th-grade students "bump up" their persuasive writing with this bulletin board display.
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Be Kind to the Planet Template
A template for students to write ways they can be eco-friendly.
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Roll and Write - Simple and Compound Sentences
Practice writing simple and compound sentences with our Roll and Write activity.
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Simple, Compound, and Complex Sentences Poster
A poster to display in the classroom showing the components of a sentence.
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Narrative Plot Structure - Story Mountain Template
Use a story mountain template to help your students write narrative stories.
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Relative Adverb Scoot Game
Use this relative adverbs scoot game as a warm up or active learning activity to add some color to your grammar lesson!
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Persuasive Writing Planning Flipbook
Explore the persuasive writing structure in this engaging persuasive writing flipbook.
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I Have, Who Has? Game - Silent Letters
Review silent letters in one- and two-syllable words with this whole-class literacy game.
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Write About It! Spring Sentence Writing Worksheets
Introduce new writers to writing complete sentences in early grades with a group of kindergarten writing prompts about spring.
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Simple, Compound, and Complex Sentences PowerPoint
A 23-slide editable PowerPoint template that introduces simple, compound, and complex sentences.
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Google Slides Interactive- Past, Present, and Future Verbs Activity
Develop student skills using the correct forms of past, present, and future tense verbs with this Google Slides Interactive activity.
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Persuasive Writing Bump It Up Wall – Grade 6
Help your 6th-grade students "bump up" their persuasive writing with this bulletin board display.
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Persuasive Writing Bump It Up Wall – Grade 5
Help your 5th-grade students "bump up" their persuasive writing with this bulletin board display.
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Types of Verbs PowerPoint Presentation
A 26 slide PowerPoint presentation to use when teaching various types of verbs.
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Printable Seek and Find — In the Park Theme
A fun, search and find activity for students.
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Rhetorical Devices Word Search
Familiarize your students with the most common rhetorical devices with a fun word search.
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Modal Language Interactive Activity
Explore the language of modality with your students using this digital game perfect for your persuasive writing lessons.
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Building Strong Sentences Teaching Presentation
Share this 15-slide teaching presentation with your students to help them understand the key grammar concepts of compound sentences,coordinating conjunctions and clauses.
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Cornell Notes Template
Help your students organize their notes with a free Cornell Notes Template.
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Time Order Words - Transition Words Word Wall
Help your students demonstrate the passage of time in their writing with 35 time-order transition word cards.
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Persuasive Words – Modality Word Wall with Information
Immerse your students in high, medium and low modality words with this set of 56 word wall cards.
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Spelling CCVC Words - Worksheets (Differentiated)
Develop students’ ability to segment and blend the sounds in CCVC words with this set of differentiated worksheets.
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Printable Book - Dinosaurs
Learn about dinosaurs with a printable book for preschoolers, kindergartners, and first-graders.
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No More "Said" - Card Game
Promote vocabulary development and encourage your learners to "show not tell" with a card game.
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4th Grade Writing Worksheets: Tornado Text-Based Writing
Enhance your students' comprehension, vocabulary, and writing skills using 4th Grade writing worksheets and a high-interest reading passage about Tornadoes.
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Simple, Compound, and Complex Sentences Sort
Practice reading, identifying, and writing simple, compound, and complex sentences with a sorting activity.
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Famous Historical Figures - Biography Graphic Organizer Packs
Dive into a research project on key figures in history with a set of Important Historical Figure graphic organizers.
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Dogs Make The Best Pets - Reading Comprehension PDF
Assess 3rd grade reading comprehension skills with a printable Reading Comprehension Test using an opinion text.
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Cursive Writing Worksheets PDF - Alphabet
Practice writing the alphabet in cursive with a pack of printable cursive alphabet worksheets.
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Exploring and Building Narrative Characters PowerPoint
A 14 slide editable PowerPoint template to use when teaching younger students about how to build a character for a narrative text.