Hello! Today’s free 8^th grade middle school writing lesson focuses on a description of someone who gets angry, and whose friend calms them down. Students can read the excerpt, answer some questions to guide them in noting important points, then follow the instructions to complete a writing assignment in which they describe someone becoming angry and being calmed down, in their own words.

This lesson includes basic instructions for Language Arts teachers of Grades 8 and up – how you use these materials is up to you. Let’s get started! (Click here to download the lesson in a Word file.)

Grade 8 Creative Writing Lesson: Feeling Furious

This selection comes from a book called ‘In Good Company, Some personal recollections of Swinburne, Lord Roberts’, by Coulson Kernahan (1858-1943). Kernahan and his wife were successful novelists. He occasionally worked as an editor as well. An editor is not only someone who assists in polishing another author’s work; the term assembles a collection of different pieces of writing, such as the ‘editor’ of a magazine.

As You Read

This author describes Swinburne’s moody personality by communicating his own observations. He tells us about the man’s library, his facial expressions, his presumed thoughts, and his emotions. The author does not tell the reader specifically who Swinburne is. He simply relates what he observes, and leaves us to our own impressions.

There is only a single line of dialogue in this passage. It appears in the middle of the text, a sort of beacon or flag between the build-up to Swinburne’s temper tantrum, and the event itself.

Text: Feeling Furious

Swinburne was furious.

I had lunched with him and Watts-Dunton at The Pines, and afterwards he had invited me upstairs to his rooms, so that he might show me the latest acquisition to his library: a big parchment-bound book tied with ribbons, the Kelmscott reprint of one of Caxton’s books. He waxed enthusiastic, I remember. Then he took up the proofs of an article he was writing, in order to read some passages from it. To verify a quotation, he walked to his shelves in search of a book, talking volubly meanwhile, and turning, as was his custom, to look directly at the person whom he was addressing. Swinburne’s library was comparatively small and select, for he was as exclusive in regard to the books he admitted to his shelves as he was in regard to the men and women he admitted to his friendship. Knowing exactly, I suppose, where the required volume was to be found, his hand went as confidently towards it—even though his face was turned away from it, and towards me—as the fingers of a musician go towards the keys of a piano at which he does not look. For once Swinburne’s instincts played him false. Taking down the book without glancing at it, and still pouring out a torrent of words, he opened it, his eyes on my face, and shaking the forefinger of his right hand at me, said:

“Here it is! Listen!” and dropped his eyes upon the page.

To my astonishment his face suddenly crimsoned, the eyes that might once have been bright blue, but were now faded, and, in fading, seemed to have caught and retained something of the colour of the great seas and of the grassy fields upon which they have so often and so lovingly lingered, glowed with green fire like that we see in the eyes of an angry cat, and he flung the book away from him in a tornado of wrath. He had taken down the wrong volume, an anthology, and opened at a page on which was printed a poem by the particular writer who, like the wearer of a red coat intruding thoughtlessly upon the domain of an angry bull, happened at that particular moment to be the subject of his capricious wrath.

Sir James Barrie says somewhere that “Temper is a weapon which we handle by the blade.” I did not wish to witness any tragic instance of the truth of this statement. Seeing my host literally trembling and quivering in every limb with the intensity of the excitement, and of the anger into which he had worked himself, my one anxiety was to distract the attention of this representative of the proverbially irritable race of geniuses from the disturbing subject, and to soothe him back to his normal calm. I finally hit upon a topic in which he was keenly interested, and, little by little, he quieted down, until I could see that he had talked himself out and was ready for the afternoon nap in which it was his custom to indulge.

Questions

1. What is the meaning of the statement, ‘Temper is a weapon which we handle by the blade’?
2. Do Swinburne’s inner workings lead him to lose his temper, or does he react solely to an outside influence?

Assignment

Describe a real or fictitious event in which someone became extremely angry, and you (or your narrator) had to quickly calm them down. Try to make your description entertaining, possibly even humorous, so that your reader will want to read about this potentially upsetting situation. You may wish, as this author as done, to punctuate your description with a single line of speech, right in the middle.

Middle School Writing Lessons to challenge young minds

Teachers can include this lesson in any English Language Arts or Character Development class, either in a classroom or homeschool setting. This lesson can also be found in the Canadian Winter Homeschool Materials complete printable Grade 8 Reading and Writing collection: Excellent Excerpts Level One.

Other free writing lessons from Canadian Winter Homeschool Materials, just choose a category: Level One (Grade 6), Level Two (Grade 7) and Level Three (Grade 8) . Please remember that students’ abilities will vary and teachers should feel free to adjust the materials as needed. Our lessons are often challenging, but if used with the guidance of a teacher or parent, and presented with patience, they will help students broaden their understanding of good English writing!

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Happy learning!

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