A Plethora Of Writing Examples For Middle School (& High School)

When I started my first job as a professional newspaper reporter (This job also served as an internship during my junior year in college — I just didn’t leave for about 6 years.), I quickly realized that all my experience, and all my years of journalism education had not been enough to help me write stories about drug busts, fatal car accidents and tornadoes. All the theoretical work I’d done, and all of the nifty little scholastic and collegiate stories I had done, did not prepare me for real world writing.

At that point, I had to find a solution quickly. After all, I had a deadline to meet, and it was only a few hours away.

One of my colleagues, who also served as a mentor, had the solution. She introduced me to the newspaper’s “morgue.” This was a room filled with filing cabinets in which we kept old — dead — stories arranged by reporter. Whenever I wasn’t’ sure how to write a story, all I had to do was check the morgue for similar stories. If I needed to write a story about a local drug bust, for example, I’d find another story on a similar incident, study its structure, and mentally create a formula in which to plugin the information I’d gathered.

Once I’d gained more experience, and had internalized the formula for that particular type of story, I felt free to branch out as the situation — and my training — warranted.

I do the same thing when I want to write a type of letter, brochure, or report that I’ve never written before.

This is what writing looks like in the real world.

Research by “Write Like This” author Kelly Gallagher indicates that if we want students to grow as writers, we need to provide them with good writing to read, study, and emulate. My personal experience backs this up, as does the old adage “all writing is rewriting,” oft quoted by everyone from LA screenwriters to New York Times bestselling authors.

Of course, if you’re a new teacher like me, there is one problem with providing mentor texts to my students: I have a dearth of middle school level writing sitting around in my file cabinets.

Fortunately, the Internet is full of sources, so I scoured the bowels of Google to find examples. I know how busy you are, so I’m sharing.

Expository writing examples for middle school

Below are several sources of expository writing samples for middle school students.

• The Write Source Expository Writing Samples
• Holt, Rinehart, Winston Expository Essay Models

Finally, here is an article in the New York Times that will help you teach your students real-world expository writing skills.

Descriptive writing examples for middle school

• Descriptive Writing Samples from Novels
• Milwaukee Public Schools Descriptive Essay Samples (p. 137)
• Holt, Rinehart, Winston Descriptive Essay Models

Narrative writing examples for middle school

• Writing Samples by Steve Peha (PDF)
• The Write Source Narrative Writing Samples
• Oregon Department of Education Scored Writing Samples (Ideas and Organization)
• Oregon Department of Education Scored Writing Samples (Sentence Fluency and Conventions)
• Oregon Department of Education Scored Writing Samples (Voice and Word Choice)
• Oregon Department of Education High School Scored Narrative and Argumentative Writing Samples
• Holt, Rinehart, Winston Narrative Essay Models

Argumentative/persuasive writing examples for middle school

• The Write Source Persuasive Writing Samples
• Oregon Department of Education High School Scored Narrative and Argumentative Writing Samples
• Holt, Rinehart, Winston Persuasive Essay Models

Reflective writing examples for middle school

• Reflective essay examples from Lake Washington Girls Middle School

If you know of any other online writing example sources, please feel free to share them in the comments below.