A Writing Curriculum for Middle School That Has It All

Every ELA teacher has been here: you spend weeks teaching students how to write an essay, and when you sit down to grade, you’re blown away by just how bad the writing is. Additionally, the essays feel choppy and unorganized. Their analysis is missing depth…and text evidence. And you start to wonder if they took anything away from the unit you just spent weeks covering. I experienced all those issues in my classroom as well, which is why I set out to create a writing curriculum for middle school that would help students get results.

The Struggle with Middle School Writing

There are plenty of challenges that come with middle school writing units. From a lack of time to disengaged students, you may feel like you’re facing an uphill battle. I’ve talked to hundreds of middle school ELA teachers, and here are the top struggles they’ve shared:

#1 Lack of Time: If you’re like most ELA teachers, you’re balancing a boatload of standards on limited time. (And even if you do exclusively teach writing, your class periods never feel long enough.) Between reading, writing, and grammar, it’s hard to squeeze everything in.

#2 Students are Disengaged: Glossy eyes and bobbing heads… Getting students to retain information is challenging when they’re barely focused and paying attention.

#3 Grading is Time-Consuming: After the hard work of teaching, now comes the grading! There is so much to read through that you feel the pressure to grade in the evenings and weekends.

#4 Differentiation is a Beast: Not all your students are writing at the same level. And there’s a good chance you could be teaching more than one grade level. Coming up with one writing unit is hard enough. Trying to differentiate and create units for each grade is exhausting.

#5 Piecing Together Curriculum: Lastly, mapping out your writing curriculum for middle school and piecing together lessons for each unit is mind-boggling. You’re not sure how long to spend on each skill or how to best teach a writing concept.

A Better Writing Curriculum for Middle School

As we’ve covered, middle school writing units come with their challenges. But it doesn’t have to be that way. You can reclaim your time on the weekends. And your students can write essays that you’re both proud of.

The Middle School Writing Mastery Collection is a writing curriculum that does things better. Instead of rushing lessons and trying to balance it all, this curriculum will help you go deep into each standard, so students have a strong foundation and can write successfully.

Here’s how The Middle School Writing Mastery Collection does it better:

#1 Uses Writing Conferences Effectively

Forget what you’ve been told about writing conferences. In this middle school writing curriculum, I’ll show you how a more casual, conversational approach to writing conferences will actually boost students’ success and reduce your grading.

You’ll be able to monitor student progress, provide feedback constructive feedback, and help students implement that feedback. This gives students a boost of writing confidence and challenges them to write independently.

The Middle School Writing Mastery Collection includes a bonus workshop on leveraging writing conferences, so you get the full breakdown of how to use them (without the stress and pressure).

#2 Scaffolds and Models the Writing Process

Each unit in The Middle School Writing Mastery Collection includes a complete roadmap and day-by-day breakdown of the writing unit. No more confusion about what to teach or how to balance all the standards, I’ll give you the exact guide to piecing it all together.

Plus, the writing units include student examples, so you can model the writing process and what a finished essay looks like. This boosts writing independence because students have a clear idea of what’s expected.

#3 Makes Differentiation a Breeze

Differentiation is built into The Middle School Writing Mastery Collection, meaning you don’t need to waste hours prepping for multiple grade levels or adjusting for student needs. Each unit includes differentiated mentor texts, exemplars, sample essays, and more.

Choose the example and text options that work best for your students. Then, skip the late nights of prepping adapted work.

#4 Alternates Reading and Writing

The solution to trying to fit all your ELA standards in? Alternating units! It’s nearly impossible to teach an entire lesson on reading, writing, and grammar in a single class period. So instead, students will focus on writing with The Middle School Writing Mastery Collection.

Then, to keep their reading skills strong, they’ll look at mentor texts to model various writing skills and strategies. Therefore, I recommend implementing grammar as a daily bellringer.

The Middle School Writing Mastery Collection

Reclaim your weekends and feel good about your students’ essays with The Middle School Writing Mastery Collection. This writing curriculum for middle school includes –

• Six complete writing units: argumentative, narrative, literary analysis, research, rhetorical analysis, and expository.
• Lesson plans, teacher slides, differentiated exemplars, reference pages, and more for each unit
• Writing and grammar curriculum maps + writing pacing guides
• Literary Analysis + Leveraging Conferences workshop, an in-depth look at teaching literary analysis
• Navigating Narratives Workshop, a deep dive into teaching narrative writing

Get instant access to all six writing units, plus the bonus materials and workshops!