Reading about history is nothing like experiencing it firsthand. Encourage your eighth graders to do the next best thing with a historical narrative prompt, in which they describe the experience of a first-time traveler on the...

Get your middle schoolers up to scratch with analogies using this worksheet. Pupils complete 10 analogies by determining the associations between the words and using the provided bridge sentences.

"The Difficult Journey" is a one page, fictional, reading passage about the hardships of a family moving west in a wagon train. It is followed by constructed-response questions which require students to provide evidence from the story;...

"Pioneer Families" is a one page, nonfiction, reading passage about pioneers who traveled west in wagon trains, the hardships they faced, and how they worked together to build communities. It is followed by questions which require...

Read about the settling of Oregon country and how westward expansion prompted Congress to make it a territory.