Middle school is a time when students are introduced to different types of essays. Writing essays helps develop important skills like researching information, organizing thoughts, and communicating ideas effectively in written form. Some of the most common types of essays assigned to middle schoolers include:
Narrative Essays
One of the first essay types students often write is the narrative essay. A narrative essay tells a story about a personal experience. It has a beginning, middle, and end and uses descriptive details and techniques like dialogue to bring the story to life for the reader. Narrative essays allow students to focus on storytelling and using descriptive words and phrases. Students typically write short stories or personal anecdotes in a narrative essay format. This helps them learn to structure a story while also practicing descriptive writing.
Descriptive Essays
Another common early essay is the descriptive essay. As the name implies, descriptive essays focus on using vivid and sensory details to describe a person, place, object, experience, or event. The goal is to help the reader visualize what is being described through careful details about appearance, sounds, smells, textures, etc. This type of essay introduces students to the importance of selecting precise word choices that engage the five senses and bring a topic to life on the page. Descriptive essays often paint word pictures of landscapes, cities, animals, activities, emotions, and more.
Compare and Contrast Essays
Students often write compare and contrast essays as they start exploring more analytical writing. A compare and contrast essay analyzes the similarities and differences between two or more things – people, places, events, concepts, etc. It takes a side-by-side look at subjects, examining their attributes and highlighting ways they are alike as well as distinct from one another. This type of essay teaches students to methodically examine topics and think critically about how subjects are similar and different. Common compare/contrast middle school essay topics involve analyzing books, movies, historical time periods, animals, places, themes or concepts.
Persuasive Essays
Another core essay type is the persuasive essay. In a persuasive essay, a student makes an argument supporting a particular opinion or viewpoint on a debatable issue or topic. The goal is to convince the readers to agree with the writer’s position using well-structured reasoning and compelling evidence. This introduces students to important research, critical thinking and argument-building skills. Middle school persuasive essays commonly address current social issues, ethics, rules/policies and topic interpretation. Teachers may provide prompts or allow students to select their own issue to take a stance on.
Expository Essays
An expository essay explains or informs the reader about a topic, using facts, statistics, examples and other details or evidence to teach them something new. The goal is to help the audience understand a subject in a clear, organized and impartial manner without taking a position for or against it. This essay type promotes objective research and presentation of information. Common expository middle school essay topics explore events, concepts, processes, objects or systems – describing “what” they are and “how” they work or came to be. History, science and social studies lend themselves well to expository essays.
Research Papers
By 8th grade, many students begin writing more formal research papers. Research papers are extensive writings on a selected topic that requires students to locate credible academic sources, summarize information found, and put forth their own analysis or ideas regarding the topic. This introduces the research process and proper use of citations. Typical middle school research papers are 4-6 pages long. Subjects may involve biographies, historical events or figures, science topics, literary works or social issues. The research paper strengthens skills in collecting, analyzing and presenting information from outside sources.
These core essay types are commonly assigned to middle schoolers to spur writing development in varied forms and help solidify important skill sets. With plenty of practice in reading model essays and getting feedback, these essay formats prepare students for the more advanced papers expected of them as they progress in their education. Diverse writing prompts keep learning engaging while progressing students through foundational essay types from simple to more complex styles of academic writing.