Middle school students may have outgrown the desire to color Leprechauns and rainbows on St. Patrick’s Day, but they enjoy celebrating the holiday in their own way. It is a wonderful opportunity to activate the imagination with writing prompts and writing activities designed with the Middle School Student in mind.
Grades 6-8 (Middle School) Writing Activities
Better Than Gold: The traditional writing prompt “If I had a pot of gold I would ____” may be a fun activity, but it usually results in an underdeveloped list of the things students would buy for themselves. Your Middle School students have probably written to this writing prompt on several occasions. Try this twist on an old theme, instead.
Lead the class in a discussion about things that are more important or valuable than money and the things you can buy with money. Encourage students to be creative in their responses. Model the process by sharing things that you value. Perhaps a pot of multicolored threads would allow you to create a beautiful quilt or a pot of exotic seeds would furnish you with the beginnings of an exciting and varied flower garden.
Challenge your students to write about finding the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow and what special things it contained that are valuable to them. Make sure students understand that they should develop the piece of writing by telling how they would use these items in their life to make their life more enjoyable.
Sharing the stories aloud provides insight into the values and interests of middle school students. Because of the personal nature this assignment may take, it is wise to ask for volunteers before sharing any of the writing pieces aloud.
Perspective: Middle School students are developing the ability to view the world from the perspective of another person. Challenge them to write about a typical day from the perspective of a Leprechaun who is being hunted by a human being who wants his pot of gold. Encourage students to incorporate sensory details that create images and to express the emotions of the Leprechaun.
Sharing these stories aloud is sure to entertain the class while providing valuable experience with reading aloud, and giving and receiving constructive criticism.
Descriptive Writing: Provide Middle School students with a variety of images of Leprechauns that are similar, but also have some distinct differences. Take care to provide an image that does not have additional images in the background. Allow students to choose one of the images for this exercise in descriptive writing. Challenge them to describe the image.
Once the paragraphs are finished, display the varied images and read the descriptions aloud. See if students can identify the image that was described.
Another fun activity is to challenge students to draw what their classmate has described. Once students are finished drawing, compare the results with the actual image. This activity is sure to bring about a few laughs, as well as, some wonderful pieces of artwork.
Both activities provide the opportunity to discuss what the author of the description did well, and to provide constructive feedback for ways in which he could improve his description.
Middle School Writing Prompts/Story Starters
#1St. Patrick’s Day is just another boring day. No one really believes in all those Leprechaun and pot of gold stories anyway. So there you are sitting in class wondering how long is before lunch, when suddenly you notice a little man creeping in the side door and slinking to the back of the room. Just as you are about to alert the class of this intruder, he dashes over to your desk and whispers something in your ear. Tell what he said and explain what happens next.
#2You awake to find a rainbow stretching across your room. Surely, you must be dreaming. You look at the clock and it’s 2:30 am. You reach out to touch the rainbow and discover it is solid. You crawl out of bed and touch it with you toe, then take a step and then another until you are standing on the rainbow. You decide to climb the rainbow. Where does it lead? Tell what happens when you get to the end of the rainbow.
Providing Middle School Students with writing prompts and writing activities about St. Patrick’s Day that engage the imagination and ignite creativity is a wonderful way to develop writing skills while having fun.
