March ELA Stations: Fresh Reads & No-Prep Fun for Middle Schoolers
Ahh, March. The month where students have just enough spring fever to make them antsy, but there’s still too much school year left to go full-on summer mode.
The solution?
Engaging, low-prep stations that keep them busy and boost their reading and writing skills (without reinventing the wheel or holding their hands the entire time).
Here’s how I’ve set up my stations for March (all batched ahead of time, of course, to avoid last-minute planning and to allow a little bit of coasting):
🏆 March Theme: Spring Sports & Competition
With slightly longer, warmer days of more sunlight, March brings the excitement of spring sports, teamwork, and competition. I wanted this month’s stations set to reflect that energy with texts and activities that explore perseverance, dedication, and the thrill of the game.
Aaaand it’s mandatory that stations don’t ever feel like “random” activities thrown together to take up time. That’s why my fiction, nonfiction, and poetry stations this month are all thematically linked to the spring sports of basketball and baseball while also presenting learning support for reading, writing, grammar, and vocabulary.
Here’s the math on that:
1️⃣ Fiction Passage (wrote it myself to ensure it was the perfect length and reading level for struggling, easily distracted middle school students) >> “The Basketball Diaries…Sort of.”
- 4️⃣ stations based on ^that passage: reading, writing, grammar, vocabulary
2️⃣ Nonfiction Paired Passages (still just one page total, where one column is about Jackie Robinson and the companion article in the other column is about Michael Jordan).
- 4️⃣ stations based on ^that passage: reading, writing, grammar, vocabulary
3️⃣ Poetry Selection: “Casey at the Bat” (the original version is great for older / more advanced readers but I re-wrote it to make it shorter and more accessible for younger / less independent readers).
- 4️⃣ stations based on ^that passage: reading, writing, grammar, vocabulary
Each station is designed to get students thinking, reading, discussing-on-topic, and writing independently (while you pull students to work with, too…since this is the time that you can work to close gaps).
All stations come in both printable PDF + Google slides versions, too…I love to print off the task cards for the reading stations and have a student cut them out ahead of time, sorting them into baggies for my stations. Too. Much. Screentime!
Here’s what’s inside the March “Spring Sports” stations:
✅ Fiction Reading Station – An excerpt from my very own “The Basketball Diaries…Sort of” which is a semi-sassy first-person point-of-view tale about self-doubt and personal growth. with text-dependent questions and a creative writing extension.
……………………………………………………………………
✅ Nonfiction Reading Station – Two brief articles that ultimately ask students to draw comparisons between two pro-athletes who ventured into baseball while excelling at—and making a name for themselves—in other sports (Jackie Robinson and Michael Jordan).
……………………………………………………………………
✅ Poetry Analysis Station – “Casey at the Bat,” a classic narrative poem about baseball and sportsmanship, with scaffolded analysis questions to help students explore mood, tone, and figurative language.
🛠 How to Use These Stations Like a Pro
These stations are super flexible, ready-made for any schedule:
Monday >> Read the fiction passage aloud together as a class.
Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday >>
Students work in small groups on any of the four stations that go with the fiction passage. Maybe allow 15 or 20 minutes per day for the station. This gives you the rest of class for other teaching and learning needs.
Repeat that process the next week for the nonfiction paired passages. Finish up with the poetry selection the following week.
Don’t want to draw it all out like that throughout the month? Here’s another option:
Since the fiction, nonfiction, and poetry passages are thematically linked, read them all during class one day. Annotate, discuss, etc. like you would anything else.
Day 2, 3, 4, and 5 of that week >> Have all 12 stations up and running in your classroom.
→ 12? Huh? Remember that for EACH of the 3 passages (fiction, nonfiction, poetry) you have four stations (reading, writing, vocab, grammar)… And 4×3=12
→ So you have 12 stations in your classroom that students must complete by Friday end of class. If you have a 60 minute class period, then students can spend 20 minutes per station, completing 3 stations each day of the week. By the end of class on Friday, they’ll be done!
→ Each station includes student choice already built in (task cards, options for how many or which ones within a particular station they can choose to do, etc.) But if you want to include even MORE student choice, especially if you’re already short on time, then consider allowing students to “opt out” of ONE of the three passages. . . Meaning some students might choose to do the fiction and poetry stations (8 stations to complete rather than 12). Others might choose to do the poetry and nonfiction stations (still completing 8 stations, but a different 8 than what others in the class might choose).
🔹 Full station rotation? Run 4 stations over a couple of class periods each week, having students rotate through.
🔹 One-a-day approach? Do a “station-a-day” to keep things fresh and thematically aligned throughout the month.
🔹 Early finisher goldmine? Keep them handy for fast finishers who need meaningful work.
🔹 Extra tutoring or intervention needs? Use the stations for THAT to skip the whole, “Ugh, this would be great for tutoring/intervention but then that’s also what I was going to do during regular class…I need something different…”
However you use them, they’re designed to be plug-and-play so you can set them up in minutes…Especially when you use the Student Instruction Card at each station to avoid the whole “What do I do when I’m done / I’m not finished so what do I do / Where do I put this work / How many of the task cards do I have to do” so YOU can spend time actually working with the students you really need to work with during this time without all the typical interruptions.
🚀 Want the Full March Station Set?
If you’re thinking, This all sounds amazing, but do I really have time to pull it together?
The answer is… nope, and you don’t have to.
Get the entire done-for-you March set of Ready, Set, Stations™, and you’ll get these fully prepped stations —all organized, standards-aligned, and ready to go in both print and Google slides versions.
💡 Click here to take stations off your lesson-planning plate!
