ELA Grades 6-8 Common Core Activities: Task Cards, Escape Room, Close Reading & Digital Slides

Give your middle schoolers rigorous reading, writing, and language practice that feels like a challenge, not a worksheet packet.

What's inside (60-page PDF + 20-slide interactive file):

• Teacher Guide (4 pages): contents, standards alignment by activity, pacing ideas, LOW PREP setup, and a grade-level map for grades 6, 7, and 8.
• Task Cards + Station Rotation (17 pages): 32 task cards in 4 stations (Literature, Informational Text, Language, Writing), 4 station signs, and a 4-page recording sheet. Formats include two-part questions, find the mistake, sort, sequence, match, rank, revise, and constructed response.
• Escape Room: Lockdown at the Harbor Archive (13 pages): 6 locks (number, directional, word, and color-sequence), story page, teacher setup, student code sheet, hint cards, and a reflection page.
• Close Reading + Writing Packet (20 pages): an original short story, two public-domain poems (Sandburg, 1916; Dickinson, 1891), an original argument speech, and an original informational article, with an annotation guide, text-dependent questions, vocabulary in context, evidence organizers, argument and explanatory writing prompts, lined pages, and a student-friendly rubric.
• Answer Keys (5 pages): every card, every escape room code, and sample close reading answers.
• Interactive Slides (20 slides, PowerPoint and Google Slides): drag-and-drop sorts, sequence strips, matching tiles, and type-in boxes, with an answer key.

Standards: RL.6.1, RL.7.1, RL.8.1, RL.6.2, RL.7.2, RL.8.2, RL.6.3, RL.7.3, RL.8.3, RL.6.4, RL.7.4, RL.8.4, RL.6.5, RL.6.6, RL.7.6, RL.8.6, RI.6.1, RI.7.1, RI.8.1, RI.6.2, RI.7.2, RI.8.2, RI.6.3, RI.7.3, RI.6.4, RI.6.5, RI.7.5, RI.8.5, RI.6.6, RI.7.6, RI.8.6, RI.6.7, RI.6.8, RI.7.8, RI.8.8, W.6.1, W.7.1, W.8.1, W.6.2, W.7.2, W.8.2, W.6.9b, W.7.9b, W.8.9b, L.6.1, L.7.1, L.8.1, L.6.2, L.7.2, L.8.2, L.6.4, L.7.4, L.8.4, L.6.5, L.7.5, L.8.5 (and their sub-standards; full list in the Teacher Guide).

LOW PREP: Print the card pages, cut on the dashed lines, and post the station signs. Copy the escape room locks into numbered envelopes. Close reading pages are copy and go, and the slides upload straight to Google Drive or open in PowerPoint.

License: Single-classroom license. For school or team licenses, send a message through the store's Contact page.

Designed by a classroom teacher and instructional coach. Illustrations are created with AI tools; all content is written and reviewed for standards alignment and classroom use.