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.
- Plus Plan
Informative Writing - Animal Research Task
Use a printable animal research organizer booklet for students to record facts about animals when learning to write informative texts.
- Free Plan
Cornell Notes Template
Help your students organize their notes with a free Cornell Notes Template.
- Free Plan
Synonyms- Printable Flashcards
Build vocabulary skills with individual Synonym anchor chart flash cards.
- Plus Plan
Types of Poetry - Anchor Chart Pack with Annotations
Introduce structured forms of poetry to your students with this set of 9 annotated poetry posters. .
- Free Plan
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.
- Plus Plan
Simple, Compound, and Complex Sentences PowerPoint
A 23-slide editable PowerPoint template that introduces simple, compound, and complex sentences.
- Free Plan
Complete and Incomplete Sentence Task Cards
These task cards are best used as independent practice or formative assessment assignments during sentence structure lessons.
- Plus Plan
Governments and How They Function – Worksheet
An activity for students to research the government of two economies and write a report to compare and contrast them.
- Free Plan
Snakes and Ladders Game Board Template
Create a fun activity for any subject area with this black-and-white board game template.
- Free Plan
Verb Past Tense Worksheet
A worksheet with simple and irregular past tense verbs added to complete the sentences.
- Plus Plan
Narrative Text Type Poster With Annotations
Display this narrative text with annotations to help students identify the structure of a narrative.
- Plus Plan
Describing Animal Adaptations - Informative Writing Prompt Worksheets
Write to describe animals and their adaptations with a printable pack of informative writing worksheets.
- Free Plan
Rhetorical Devices Word Search
Familiarize your students with the most common rhetorical devices with a fun word search.
- Plus Plan
How to Make a Sundae - Informational Writing Craftivity
Inspire students to write informational text with a fun, summer-themed end-of-year writing assignment and craft.
- Plus Plan
Persuasive Writing Planning Flipbook
Explore the persuasive writing structure in this engaging persuasive writing flipbook.
- Plus Plan
Inflectional Endings - Spelling with Suffixes Worksheets
Spell words with the inflectional endings -ed, -ing, -s, -es and -ies with a pack of printable practice worksheets covering inflected endings.
- Free Plan
Find What Doesn’t Fit: Relevant Details Worksheet
Practice determining what details are relevant and irrelevant to a topic while providing a purposeful context.
- Plus Plan
End of the Year Memory Wheel
Get your students’ minds spinning with this end-of-year reflection activity.
- Plus Plan
Build a Sandcastle-Writing and Craft Activity
Excite your students for the upcoming summer with a narrative writing and craft activity.
- Plus Plan
Common and Proper Nouns - Google Interactive Activity
Identify common and proper nouns by sorting words in their context.
- Free Plan
Capitalization Task Cards (Grades 2-3)
Reinforce capitalization for proper nouns, the pronoun ‘I,’ and the beginning of sentences in text with this set of 24 task cards (extension included).
- Plus Plan
Persuasive Writing Bump It Up Wall – Grade 3
Help your 3rd-grade students "bump up" their persuasive writing with this bulletin board display.
- Free Plan
Inquiry Project - Template
A diverse template to help students craft inquiry questions to produce different types of research projects.
- Free Plan
Five Senses Graphic Organizer
A graphic organizer to use when brainstorming sights, sounds, smells, touches, and tastes.
- Plus Plan
Spelling Suffixes Anchor Charts - Plurals
Help students understand when to apply the right plural spellings based on the ending of any word.
- Plus Plan
Daily Writing Prompts Calendars - Upper Grades
Inspire your students and encourage them to write regularly with a set of printable Daily Writing Prompts in calendar format!
- Plus Plan
18 Editing Worksheets - Spelling, Grammar, and Punctuation
Eighteen editing worksheets for spelling, grammar, and punctuation.
- Plus Plan
How to Stay Healthy – Procedural Writing Project
Get your students writing high-quality procedure texts with this fun “How to Stay Healthy” procedural writing project.
- Plus Plan
Writing Compound Sentences Worksheet
Spark students' creativity with this conjunctions worksheet containing four images to prompt students to write compound sentences.
- Plus Plan
FANBOYS Poster for Teaching Coordinating Conjunctions
Display this grammar poster in your classroom to help students choose appropriate coordinating conjunctions using the acronym FANBOYS.
- Plus Plan
Exploring Opinion Pieces PowerPoint - Grade 1 and Grade 2
A 35 slide editable PowerPoint template to use when teaching your students about the structure and language features of opinion pieces.
- Plus Plan
Writing a Simile Poem - Worksheet
Experiment with similes by writing a simile poem about a special person.