Hello! Today’s free middle school writing lesson is based on a short piece of writing by a mountain climber that describes a moment high up on a rockface. This writing activity focuses on relating a story in the third person. Students can follow the instructions to write their own version of what happened.

This lesson can be used by substitute teachers or as a constructive exercise to help students improve their writing and story-telling skills. Simple exercises like this, which involve accurately relating facts and events, are also helpful as students begin to develop essay writing skills.

Keep reading or download the lesson in Word format:

Grade 7 Writing Activity: Mountain Climbing in the Rockies

This is an excerpt from the real diary of a man named Walter Dwight Wilcox (1869-1949) who travelled on foot through the Canadian Rocky Mountains. High in the mountains, summer never really takes hold and sudden snowstorms are common. This adventurer was struck by the desolate feeling of one such place.

As You Read

Notice how much variety there is in the types of sentences this author constructs. You may wish to go through the text and put brackets around the phrases and clauses in each sentence. Observe how this variety of structure makes the description interesting. If each sentence were simple, and written in the same way, one might become bored with the topic. As it is, the varied language is like the varied landscape: we find ourselves interested in the intricate subtleties of both.

Text: High Mountain Trek

Early Monday morning we had our breakfast and were on foot at four o’clock. The gloom of early dawn, the chill of morning, and the cloudy sky had no cheering effect on our anticipations. Our plan was to traverse the mountain side till we should come to the southeast shoulder, where we had once observed an outline of apparently easy slope.

By eleven o’clock we had reached an altitude of nearly 10,000 feet without meeting with any very great difficulty, but here we came suddenly to a vertical wall of rock about 400 feet high and actually leaning over in many places, a barrier that completely defeated us, as the wall extended beyond our view and offered no prospect of giving out. At the base of this cliff was a steep, narrow slope of loose, broken limestone, and then another precipice below. Along this dangerous pathway we continued for some distance, keeping close to the base of the cliff. The loose stones, set in motion by our feet, slid down and rolled over the precipice, where we could hear them grinding to powder on the cliffs below.

Never in my life have I been so much impressed with the stern and desolate side of nature. The air was bitter cold and had the frosty ozone odor of winter. A strong wind rushed constantly by us, and, as it swept up the gorges of the precipice above, and over the countless projections of the cliffs, made a noise like the hoarse murmur of wind in a ship’s rigging, or the blast of some great furnace. To the south and east, range beyond range of bare, saw-edged mountains raised their cold, sharp summits up to a cloudy sky, where the strong wind drove threatening clouds in long trains of dark and lighter vapors. The intervening valleys, destitute of vegetation or any green thing, were filled with glaciers and vast heaps of moraine and the slides of debris from the adjacent mountain side. All was desolate, gloomy, cold, and monotonous in color. Three thousand feet below, a small lake was still bound fast in the iron jaws of winter, surrounded as it was by the walls of mountains which shut out the light and warmth of the summer sun. Inert, inanimate nature here held perpetual rule in an everlasting winter, where summer, with its flowers and birds and pleasant fertility, is unknown, and man rarely ventures.

Overcome with the terrors of this lonely place and the hopelessness of further attempt to reach the summit, where a snow-storm was now raging, we turned back. As we reached our camp we found Enoch just approaching, according to his promise, and though the afternoon was well advanced, we packed up and moved with all speed toward Laggan. We reached Lake Louise at 10.30 P.M., after almost nineteen hours of constant walking.

Questions

1. Find at least three phrases or words that are especially powerful in communicating what it was like in the high mountains. Did these terms make you feel as if you were right there, seeing the place for yourself?
2. What prevents them from continuing on their trek?

Mountain Trek Writing Assignment

Retell what the author relates in this part of his diary.  Describe what he did, what he saw, and how he felt. Use the third person (‘he’). Rather than copying his sentences and switching ‘he’ for ‘I’, use your own words to summarise his experience in a shorter text (half a page).

Bonus Activity: Mountain Music

To add another dimension to your lesson, try evoking the moody weather and awesome strength of mountain landscapes with the help of music. Students will surely appreciate the inimitable strength of these two pieces by Rachmaninoff. Listening to one or both selections just before or just after reading the text will not only help to fuel the imagination, it will also introduce students to great works of classical music.

Middle School Writing Lessons: Mountains and More!

This stand-alone lesson can be used in any English Language Arts class or homeschool. All Middle School and High School Writing Lessons from Canadian Winter Homeschool Materials will encourage students to read and write at a more advanced level. They are an easy way to inspire Middle School students to try something new, and expand their skillset while enjoying the best of English literature!

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Happy learning!