2 Competitive Activities for Middle School ELA

Get your students up and moving with these two competitive activities for middle school ELA.

Middle schoolers love a little competition, and let’s be honest, so do we as teachers! 

Adding movement and a race-style challenge into your ELA lessons is a simple way to keep energy high while still reinforcing standards. 

Here are two of our favorite “racing” activities that get students out of their seats and thinking critically about reading and language.

1 | The Evidence Race

Focus Standard(s): RI/RL.1 – Citing textual evidence

A big part of middle school ELA is getting students better at finding and using evidence to support their points. The Evidence Race gets them thinking creatively (in a competitive environment) about how details can be used to back up a claim.

How it works:

1. Pick a text (or a few texts) you want students to work from. Print and cut out each line of the text so students have “evidence slips.” You’ll need one set per group. Paired passages work really well for this activity as you’ll immediately have two texts on the same topic to work with. Check out all of our Sparkly Notebook paired passages here!
2. Put students in small groups and hand out the text slips.
3. Make a claim that could be supported by the passage.
4. Groups race to search through their slips to find evidence that supports the claim. When they find one, a member of the group races to you with their evidence.
5. You’ll pause the race to hear the student’s explanation. If their evidence works, it gets counted for their team. If not, it’s dismissed and the search continues.
6. The game continues until all expected pieces of evidence have been found—or until students can’t find any more. Then introduce a new claim and restart the race.

Why it works:

• Students get repeated practice pulling and justifying evidence.
  It transforms what can be a dry skill into an active, fast-paced game.
• It emphasizes that evidence isn’t just “found”—it has to be explained.

As far as competitive activities for middle school ELA go, this one is really fun, standards-aligned, and age-appropriate!

Additional Ideas: We have a bunch of activities and ideas for using paired passages. Check out the blog posts below for more about how to get the most bang for your buck out of our paired passages.

2 | Figurative Language Horse Race

Focus Standard(s): L.5 – Figurative language, word relationships, and nuance

If your students are learning similes, metaphors, personification, or hyperbole, this is a high-energy way to review. 

The Figurative Language Horse Race combines scavenger-hunt skills with a competitive race.

How it works:

1. Print and laminate different colored horse cutouts. Add magnets or sticky tack to the backs so they can “race” across your board or wall.
2. Divide students into groups. Give each group children’s books and a stack of sticky notes in a unique color. (Ideally, each group has the same set of books for fairness.)
3. Announce a type of figurative language (e.g., “Find a metaphor!”).
4. Groups have 3–5 minutes to search their books. When they find an example, they write it on a sticky note and run to the board to add it to their team’s line.
5. If you approve their example, move their horse forward.
6. At the end of the activity, whichever group’s horse traveled the furthest wins the race.

Why it works:

• It forces students to find figurative language in authentic texts.
• The movement keeps them engaged.
• The visible horse race adds a fun, dramatic element to the competition.

Final Thoughts

Both of these activities mix academic rigor with physical movement and fun. They help students practice key skills—citing evidence and identifying figurative language, while giving them the thrill of racing their classmates.

Try them the next time your students need to get up and moving. You’ll be surprised how much energy (and learning) they bring to the room!