4/17/23: A Pre-Writing Activity to Help Students Get More Familiar & Comfortable Writing Essays!

Seeing my kids struggle with writing essays is a problem I’m sure every English teacher faces more often than not.

For my kiddos, the struggle seemed to stem from the idea that, after studying great essays in class, they see the finished products in their completeness without ever seeing every important step in the writing process.

A lot of them usually think these polished essays are all written in one sitting, from start to finish, without any revising and editing. Can you imagine?!

Not seeing the process in detail would sometimes overwhelm my students by their mind “filling in” what they thought the writing process entailed.

I always like to point out that even the greatest writers: Stephen King, Mark Twain, J.K Rowling, and many others of my students favorite authors, write, write, and write some more.

Then they keep writing.

Along with revising and revising and then some editing followed by possibly more revising.

I created this simple pre-writing graphic organizer as the bare-bones structure of the classic 5-paragraph essay. The picture below shows what it looks like. 

More experienced writers can play around with the structure of the essay, but for struggling students I find that this template allows them to become more familiar and more comfortable with writing.

Feel free to build on this handout to suit your specific students’ needs!

Every class period and every student has different needs so please make it your own!

Leave a comment with Facebook below or can always message us on Facebook here.


Keep changing the world,
Charlie with Shining Scholar Education
P.S. Consider joining our TPT Affiliate Program for 25% commissions here!


Want to join our email list? Click below!
MS ELAR teachers Click here!
HS ELAR teachers Click here!
And check out our TPT store here!