Middle schoolers aren't too young to feel strongly about politics, social issues, consumer rights, or environmental problems. Demonstrate the first steps toward social change with a project about action-oriented writing. Eighth...

Delve into the responsibilities of the president by looking at President Hamilton's opinion of the presidential office in his own words. The second in a three-part series, the resource also offers an interesting compare-and-contrast...

Commas are helpful for separating names of cities from states, setting off interjections, and listing items in a series. Practice the many uses of commas with a set of grammar exercises designed for both elementary and middle school...

Tired of seeing u instead of you and 2 instead of too? Teach your pupils how to write for an academic setting by asking them to correct these six social media posts that are full of grammatical errors, spelling errors, and text speak.

Eighth grades can master the ELA Common Core standards! Show your learners the connection between classroom activities and assignments and the standards with this set of "I Can" statement posters. Each standard has been rewritten as an...

How close are your eighth graders to mastering the ELA Common Core standards? Keep an eye on progress with these charts, which include every eighth grade identifier and full standard text. As you move through the year and teach,...

Where do the commas go? Kids rewrite a series of sentences using commas to set off the appositives in each sentence.

Provide young grammarians' additional practice using appositives to combine short sentences with this short activity that includes a definition and models.

If learners only use simple sentence structure, their essays can fall flat. Model how to combine short, choppy sentences with appositives to add interest and flow to individuals' writing.

Young grammarians identify the appositives in a series of sentences and then rewrite each sentence omitting the word or phrase.

Appositives, those tricky little words and phrases that provide more information about nouns, are the subject of a series of worksheets linked to this resource.

The Articles of Confederation sounds like one big, fancy title to middle schoolers. Here, scaffolded steps help to ease novices into understanding this all-important American document. Discussion questions, lesson activities, and ideas...

Ghost stories are the hook suggested in this proposed unit to engage reluctant readers. 

Gives a clear explanation, with examples, about how and when to use commas when writing dates.

This resource offers a quick explanation of how to use the ellipsis correctly.

This resource contains information regarding the correct use of the ellipsis and examples.

Click on the two cards to match each punctuation mark with one of its usage rules.