Reading and Writing Activities for Back to School in Middle School ELA

Back to school is always a strange time of year. Getting to know brand new students. Adapting to changes in the new school year. Deciding on when and how to jump into your curriculum. It always feels like a weird balance! During the first week of school, I like to keep my lessons light but still content-focused. This allows everyone to shift back into school mode, and a lot of the activities also allow me to get to know my students. I wanted to share some reading and writing back-to-school activities that you can use to ease into the school year.

Back to School Reading Activities

Activity #1: Reading Survey

A reading survey is probably one of my top five favorite back-to-school reading activities. This gives me great insight into my students as readers and helps me adapt my curriculum to my students. For instance, for some years I had mostly avid readers, and this changes how I lead discussions (well, mostly because they do a lot of the leading themselves!). In other years, my students find reading a struggle. I know I need to bring the energy and hype to a new story or novel we are reading.

I suggest having two parts to this survey: A) reading attitudes and B) reading interests. In the reading attitudes, you are getting a feel for their beliefs about reading. For instance, do they think reading is fun or useful? In the reading interest, you are trying to understand the types of books they like and where they typically talk about books.

Activity #2: Book Scavenger Hunt

This activity serves two purposes: getting students familiar with the library and with various books. For a book scavenger hunt, I give my students a worksheet with prompts to find a cookbook, comic book, fairytale, etc. By doing this, they get to explore the library, and hopefully find a few interesting titles.

Activity #3: Show and Tell (Reading Edition)

I always enjoy doing this activity each year, and my students get a kick out of it, too. Have students bring a children’s book they read growing up or a copy of their favorite book to class. They can get a copy from the library if they need to.

Then, have students read the children’s book or the first page! You can do this as a whole class or in small groups. If you want to do this as a whole class, don’t feel pressured to do every student in one day. You can spread students out over the first week of school. This activity is a sneaky way to get students reading out loud and sharing in front of the class.

You can get all of these activities, plus more (for a total of 30 activities) in my Back to School Reading Activities resource. It comes with descriptions of each activity, along with any worksheets or activity pages you would need.

Back to School Writing Activities

Activity #1: Pass the Story

I swear nothing gets my middle schoolers laughing harder during the first week of school than these stories. In this activity, you’ll have each student start with a piece of paper. They will write one sentence that starts off the story. For example, “Once upon a time, there was a magical dragon that lived in a forest.” It can be as ridiculous as they want it to be.

Then, after a set amount of time, students will pass the paper to someone sitting next to them (it’s best if you have everyone sitting in a circle). Students will read the sentence on the paper, and add another sentence. This keeps going until the paper returns back to the original writer.

And you know middle school students…these stories are going to get crazy. 

Activity #2: All About Me

In this all about me activity, give students a piece of paper and have them draw a picture of themselves. Tell them to include details that relate to them, such as a game controller or glasses. (Even if it’s just a stick figure, they can still add details.)

Then, students will label parts of their drawing and give details about themselves. For example, they may draw an arrow to the game controller and write, “I love playing video games after school with my friends.” I usually ask my students to give at least five details about themselves.

Activity #3: Guess Who

In this back-to-school writing activity, each student will write their name on a slip of paper, fold it, and place it in a basket. Then, you will give each student a slip of paper with a name. The students will not reveal the person they got.

Set a timer for 5-15 minutes, and have students describe the person they got without saying their name. For example, they might write, “This person has blonde hair and blue eyes. She plays on the softball team. She wears black Nike tennis shoes every day to school.” Of course, middle schoolers love a roast, so set the expectation before on the type of language allowed.

These back-to-school writing activities can all be found in my Back-to-School Writing Activities resource. The resource has thirty activities with descriptions of each activity, along with any worksheets or activity pages you would need.

I’m all about saving money and making life easier, so I have bundled the Back to School Reading and Writing Activity resources together! That means you actually get 60 activities to start your year strong with fun, engaging content-related activities.

Seriously, your students will be engaged and learning from day one.

>>CLICK HERE<< for the Back to School Reading and Writing Activities Bundle.

If you want some more back-to-school ideas then head to the blog post all about my middle school ELA back-to-school stations.