Middle School Writing

The ability to communicate effectively through writing is critical even in this digital age. Mrs. Mary Schoendorf, the Academy’s middle school English teacher, works closely with our students to ensure they are proficient in writing prior to moving on to high school. Her writing projects spark the students’ imaginations as they refine writing skills.

Recently, students in the sixth grade completed a cross-curricular writing project using adjectives. While watching various nature scenes and listening to Louie Armstrong’s song “What a Wonderful World,” the students listed the adjectives they heard in the song. Then, each student drew a nature scene and picked one adjective that described it. They passed their work around the class and each of their classmates picked a different adjective about their classmate’s artwork. Finally, the students wrote a short story about their scene using the adjectives provided by their classmates.

Our seventh graders recently worked on refining their persuasive writing skills by creating “help wanted” advertisements for a new Apostle. This was also a cross-curricular activity as the students had recently completed a research paper on Jesus’ Apostles. Using their research, they used the qualities and characteristics they felt were most important to create the advertisement. The students also practiced critical thinking skills when asked to decide what sacrifices an Apostle would need to make in order to follow Jesus, and include that in their advertisement.

The eighth grade students have started a new, rather challenging, writing project. Using the start of a story, Moe’s Café, the students have inserted themselves into the plot and are writing three short stories. Sound easy? Here is the catch - the stories must be 90 words or less, fully developed, and include all the elements of plot: exposition, conflict, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution. How’s that for a challenge?

We are very proud that our middle school writing program prepares the students so well for high school and beyond.