Description
Includes MLA “cheat sheet” and gallery walk activity with task cards! Teach students how to write MLA citations using these MLA worksheets. They’ll explore common sources and practice writing citations by following MLA format. Suitable for online learning with digital worksheets for Google Classroom®!
Included with these Writing MLA Citations Worksheets and Question Prompts:
- 15 MLA Citations Worksheets – Digital & Print
- Includes visual question prompts featuring common sources, including newspaper articles, textbooks, webpages, YouTube videos, podcast episodes, and more!
- 15 MLA Citation Task Cards and Scaffolding Graphic Organizers
- Can be used to facilitate learning stations, group work, or as an individual workbook
- The graphic organizers offer additional scaffolding to support student learning
- MLA “Cheat Sheet” Quick Reference Card – Digital & Print
- Detailed Answer Key
- Teacher Instructions for using this resource
How to use these Writing MLA Citations Worksheets:
These MLA worksheets will prompt students to practice writing citations for a variety of common sources, helping them develop essential research and citation skills. Understanding how to properly cite sources is a fundamental part of academic integrity and ensures that students’ work is both credible and well-supported. This resource provides multiple options for engaging citation practice, allowing you to choose from MLA citation task cards, a source and citation gallery walk, or a digital MLA workbook—all included in this resource! Whether students prefer hands-on activities, independent work, or collaborative learning, these resources will support their understanding of citation rules and formatting while reinforcing the importance of properly citing sources in research-based writing.
Students can use their MLA “Cheat Sheet” Quick-Reference Card to review the guidelines for MLA 9. This quick-reference guide serves as a personal anchor chart, giving students easy access to essential MLA formatting rules as they practice writing MLA citations. The cheat sheet outlines the key elements required for various source types, including books, journal articles, web pages, and social media posts. By having this structured reference tool on hand, students can double-check their work, ensure accuracy in their citations, and develop confidence in their ability to format citations correctly. The quick-reference card is especially useful during independent practice, group work, or timed activities, as it allows students to quickly verify citation structure without needing to rely on external resources.
This resource includes 15 citation question prompts using images that feature common sources students frequently encounter in their research. These sources include web pages, novels, journal articles, paintings, news articles, and even social media posts! By exposing students to a diverse range of sources, this activity ensures that they are prepared to cite a variety of materials in their academic writing. You can assign these worksheets as an MLA format workbook, allowing students to complete them sequentially for ongoing citation practice, or provide them as individual handouts for daily skill-building exercises. These structured activities help students develop a deep understanding of citation structure, ensuring they are able to correctly format a Works Cited entry for any type of source they may encounter.
Also included are 15 MLA Citation Task Cards that feature the same sources, formatted for individual distribution. These versatile task cards allow for a range of classroom applications, making them an excellent addition to any writing or research unit. I like to laminate these task cards to create a durable and reusable classroom resource that can be used in group work, peer discussions, or citation challenges. One particularly engaging way to use these task cards is through a source and citation gallery walk, where students move through stations, analyzing different sources and writing MLA citations for each one. Additionally, these task cards can be used for student choice activities, where learners select the sources they feel most comfortable citing before progressing to more challenging ones.
This resource also includes a scaffolding graphic organizer to complement the task cards. Students can use this organizer for extra support while practicing citation writing, ensuring they have a structured framework to guide them through the process. The graphic organizer breaks down each component of a citation, helping students recognize the differences between source types and how to format them correctly. This scaffolded approach is especially helpful for students who are new to MLA format or need additional guidance in writing MLA citations. By gradually increasing the complexity of the exercises, this tool helps students build confidence and mastery in citation writing.
To consolidate these activities, a detailed answer key is also provided. This comprehensive key includes teaching notes for each source, offering guidance on how to explain citation formatting to students and why certain formatting choices matter. Because MLA formatting allows for some variation, this answer key also emphasizes that each citation may have more than one correct answer, as long as the essential citation components are correctly included and formatted according to MLA 9 standards. By reviewing the answer key together, students can engage in meaningful discussions about common citation errors, formatting choices, and the nuances of MLA citation rules.
Through these engaging and structured activities, students will develop the skills needed to confidently and accurately cite sources without relying on citation generators. By practicing writing MLA citations in different formats—task cards, worksheets, and digital activities—students will strengthen their understanding of proper source attribution, making them more responsible and capable researchers. This resource ensures that students are well-prepared for academic writing, equipped with the tools and knowledge to format their citations correctly in any research assignment.
✨ Kindly note that due to copyright restrictions, this resource is not editable. This is a common practice within the online marketplace in order to protect the clipartists and software providers that have authorized their intellectual property for the development of this resource.
See what other teachers are saying about this MLA Writing Citations:
“My students responded well to these activities — clear, easy to use, and great for practicing writing citations.”
– Mark S.
⭒ For classrooms utilizing Google Classroom® ⭒
To access the digital version of these worksheets, simply follow the instructions within the resource to copy the files directly to your Google Drive®.
