Descriptive Writing Activities for Middle School
By MARISSA DESPINS Updated April 08, 2024
Halloween is my favorite time of year to work on descriptive writing. Haunted houses, pumpkin patches, and spooky cemeteries make great settings for descriptive stories. In this post I will take you step by step through one of my very favorite descriptive writing activities for middle school. It is a fun activity to do in the weeks leading up to Halloween, as it keeps the kids engaged and focused when things start to get a little crazy.
Download this engaging descriptive writing activity to use in your classroom by clicking on the image or button below!
Descriptive Writing activities for middle school
Read on for step by step instructions for these engaging descriptive writing activities for middle school!
1- Student Notes
We begin our unit by reviewing some of the key elements needed for great Halloween stories. These include scary settings, creepy characters, an engaging plot, and spooky Halloween elements. To make sure we all have the same core understanding of these important literary elements, we take notes and place them in our Interactive Notebooks. This way, we can refer back to them throughout the writing process.
2- Story Building
The next step in our story writing process involves choosing the characters, settings, plot, and Halloween items we want to include in our stories.
Each student is asked to sort through image cards, and choose the elements that they want to use in their stories. I like to give students a lot of different cards to choose from. This way, we ensure that there is something to engage each student. It also ensures that we have a wide variety of different stories being written.
3- Replacing Boring Words
During the next phase of our writing, we begin to plan out our stories. We use templates to help us describe the different characters, plot, setting, and Halloween elements we have chosen.
After students have written their descriptions, I encourage them to use these Overused Word Replacement Fans to make their writing more exciting. Like a mini thesaurus, these fans help the kids replace boring words, and brainstorm exciting ways to describe the key elements in their stories.
I made several of these fans to keep in our classroom. It was easy to simply cut out the templates, laminate them, and attach them together with a binder ring. I keep them on the side of our classroom throughout the school year. This way, students can easily grab them whenever they are looking for words to spice up their writing.
For a great freebie featuring lists of over 250 words for students to use to improve the mood and tone of their writing, check out our guide to using mood words!
4- Drafting and Publishing
Drafting and publishing is the most important part of these descriptive writing activities for middle school. After students have planned out their stories, we begin writing our first drafts. We use templates to work through our beginning, middle, and end. These templates work great because they encourage students to write COMPLETE stories. Nothing is worse than reading through an engaging introduction and climax, only to have it end with “And then I woke up”. Please tell me that I am not the only teacher that has had to read through stories like this! By using these templates, students focus on making sure their stories have a strong beginning, middle, and end before moving on to their good copies.
When drafting and editing are complete, students complete their good copies. I pass out some different Halloween themed writing papers for students to use. When they are done, we spend some time sharing our writing with the class. It is a great way to spend the final English class before Halloween – especially if you turn off the lights, turn on some spooky mood music, and read by flashlight!
I hope this post inspires you to try out some spooky descriptive writing with your middle school learners. If you do happen to try this out, let me know all about it in the comment section!
For additional Halloween based writing activities, check out our Halloween worksheets and Halloween STEM ideas!
Interested in checking out these descriptive writing activities for middle school?
Click here or on the image below to grab this resource to use in your own classroom!
Looking for more Halloween activity posts?
Check out some of my previous posts here:
Halloween Short Stories for Middle School
More Spooky Halloween Short Stories
Halloween Activities for Middle School
Spooky Halloween Activities for Upper Elementary
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Click here or on the images below to download a FREE activity to teach plot! It includes detailed student notes and fill in the blank notetaking templates!
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