Middle School Writing
Teaching writing in social studies just got easier. This page gathers OER Project’s best resources to help middle school students write clear claims, build strong evidence-based paragraphs, and tackle document-based questions with confidence. You’ll find free activities and writing prompts designed for grades 6 through 8. Use a single activity tomorrow or combine them into a short writing unit.
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Your Writing Instructional Toolbox
Big History Middle School Writing Placement
Quickly locate all of the writing activities in the course including informal writing tasks—claims and paragraphs—as well as formal writing assessments.
Assessments
At OER Project, we know that one size doesn’t fit all, especially when it comes to assessing your students. Use this guide to learn more about our approach to assessment.
Blog: Lesson Plan: Writing
Give your writers agency: they steer ChatGPT as a writing buddy to craft outlines and draft intros, then judge its merits, sharpening their voice and AI savvy.
Blog: What historians know about writing that students (usually) don’t
Boost student essays with historian moves: start with evidence-driven claims, synthesize sources (not just quotes), and hedge informed inferences to write historically!
Claim Writing: Claim, Evidence, and Reasoning
Looking for a lesson that helps unpack claim writing for students? We’ve got you covered.
Lesson 1.4
Claim Testing
How do we know if the claims people make are true? In Big History, we test claims with four claim testers: intuition, logic, authority, and evidence.
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Claim Writing Resources for Middle School
What Are the Claim Testers?
Activity
What Are the Claim Testers?
What is claim testing? You’ll figure that out by deciding if you agree or disagree with a series of claims.
Claim Warm-Up
Activity
Claim Warm-Up
As you build upon your knowledge and develop your reading and historical thinking skills, you also build writing skills. Let’s start with identifying and then writing some claims.
Claim Testing: Practice
Activity
Claim Testing: Practice
Use the four claim testers of intuition, logic, authority, and evidence to test a claim. Read statements that support the claim and determine which statements match which claim tester.
Causation: Extinction Events
Activity
Causation: Extinction Events
What could possibly cause 50% to 70% of species on Earth to die suddenly? Explore the causes and effects of mass extinction events.
Claim Testing: Early Humans
Activity
Claim Testing: Early Humans
Time to test some claims about early humans using evidence from this unit.
Making Claims: Farming
Closer
Making Claims: Farming
Time to make some claims about farming using evidence from this lesson.
Paragraph Writing in Middle School
Turning claims into organized, evidence-rich paragraphs takes time and practice. Review these two lessons where students take really engaging ideas and express their understanding through writing.
Lesson 2.4.4
Closer: Stars Die
How does thinking about the Big History story of stars and elements make you feel? How do you fit in? Time to make a claim and support it with evidence from the lesson.
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Lesson 4.3.4
Closer: Collective Learning
Humans are a learning species—after all, you’re doing it right now. Let’s put it all together and see what you’ve picked up about collective learning.
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Paragraph Writing Practice for Middle School
Cosmic Connections
Closer
Cosmic Connections
The famous astronomer Carl Sagan once wrote, “we are made of star stuff.” But what exactly does that mean?
Characteristics of Life
Activity
Characteristics of Life
What are the main features of life that make it different from nonlife? Use what you’ve learned so far to come up with an answer.
Improving Knowledge
Closer
Improving Knowledge
How did early humans improve upon their knowledge? Time to use what you’ve learned to explain collective learning.
Ancient Wisdom
Closer
Ancient Wisdom
Reflect on what you’ve learned about ancient societies from your own and your classmates’ museum exhibits.
Assessing Acceleration
Activity
Assessing Acceleration
Why has change accelerated so rapidly in the last 500 years? Time to use your new knowledge to explain acceleration.
Visions of the Future Revisited
Opener
Visions of the Future Revisited
You’ve thought about how climate, space, tech, and human systems might impact the future. Now, it’s time to figure out how to deal with those impacts.
Writing Assessments for Middle School
Prewriting: Earth’s Structure and Processes
Assessment
Prewriting: Earth’s Structure and Processes
How has our understanding of Earth’s structure and processes changed over time? Time to unpack the prompt and brainstorm how you’ll respond.
DBQ Sources: Earth’s Structure and Processes
Assessment
DBQ Sources: Earth’s Structure and Processes
Use evidence from the sources to support your response to how our understanding of Earth’s structure and processes have changed.
Writing: Earth’s Structure and Processes
Assessment
Writing: Earth’s Structure and Processes
How has our understanding of Earth’s structure and processes changed over time? Time to unpack the prompt and brainstorm how you’ll respond.
Prewriting: Columbian Exchange
Assessment
Prewriting: Columbian Exchange
How did the Columbian Exchange transform the Americas from c. 1500 to 1750 CE? Time to unpack the prompt and brainstorm how you’ll respond.
DBQ Sources: Columbian Exchange
Assessment
DBQ Sources: Columbian Exchange
Use evidence from the sources to support your response to how the Columbian Exchange transformed the Americas.
Writing: Columbian Exchange
Assessment
Writing: Columbian Exchange
You’ve brainstormed the topic and read the sources, now it’s time to write!