Middle School Fiction Writing Topics
1. Fiction - 6th Grade
a. Natalie Babbitt Tuck Everlasting
Read Natalie Babbitt's Tuck Everlasting. Does the story present immortality as being a good thing or a bad thing? Choose a side and defend your position using evidence from the text.
b. Lois Lowry The Giver
Read Lois Lowry's The Giver. The world created in the book is one without sadness, pain, war or death, but it also has no color, music, individuality or love. Is this an example of a utopia or dystopia? Use examples from the text to defend your argument.
2. Fiction - 7th Grade
a. Daniel Keyes Flowers For Algernon
Read Daniel Keyes' Flowers For Algernon. Discuss the role of Algernon in relationship to the narrative. How does he function as a foil to Charlie? In what ways does he become representational or allegorical? Cite examples from the text.
b. William Golding Lord Of The Flies
Read William's Golding's Lord of the Flies. Consider one of the symbolic objects within the text (e.g. the conch, the sow head, Piggy's glasses, etc.) What does the object symbolize in the context of the story? How is it used and what is the effect?
3. Fiction - 8th Grade
a. Jack London The Call Of The Wild
Read Jack London's The Call of the Wild. Consider the title of the story. What does it mean and how does it relate to Buck? When in the story is Buck anthropomorphized and what causes him to become so? What incites his animal nature?
b. Edgar Allan Poe The Tell-Tale Heart
Read Edgar Allan Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart. Discuss the use of the unreliable narrator. The narrator in this story insists that he is not mad. Do you agree? Cite examples of tone, contradiction, metaphor and word choice to defend your answer.
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