Pre-writing materials to prepare your students for a Guided Draft

 

Click here to download a PDF of all pre-writing materials!

Before starting a Guided Drafts assignment, we recommend that students have done some pre-writing and have an idea of what they want to write. Feel free to use your own materials, but here are some optional pre-writing materials! You can use these documents in conjunction with each other, or choose one to prepare your students for the assignment.

To assign a Guided Draft, click here!

💡 All the pre-writing worksheets below are designed to work either as printed paper handouts or as PDF files that students can type into directly and save to their computers.

Persuasive Essay Pre-Writing Materials

• Selecting a Thesis
  • Helps students weigh two opposing opinions in order to land on a thesis
• Generating a Thesis and Topic Sentences
  • Guides students through a thesis and topic sentence brainstorm
• Generating Reasons from Evidence
  • Helps students decide on topic sentences by organizing evidence into reasons that support their thesis
• Outlining
  • Supports students as they plan out their essay in more detail

Argumentative Essay Pre-Writing Materials

• Selecting a Thesis
  • Helps students weigh two opposing controversial opinions in order to land on a thesis
• Generating a Thesis and Topic Sentences
  • Guides students through a thesis and topic sentence brainstorm
• Generating Claims from Evidence
  • Helps students decide on topic sentences by organizing evidence into claims that support their thesis
• Outlining
  • Supports students as they plan out their essay in more detail

Literary Analysis Pre-Writing Materials

• Analyzing a Text to Brainstorm Essay Ideas
  • Helps students analyze key elements of a text to brainstorm ideas that they could develop into a thesis
• Evidence Cards
  • Helps students collect evidence from a text to help them generate a thesis or to support a thesis students already have
• Generating a Thesis that Responds to a Prompt
  • Guides students through analyzing a prompt in order to land on a thesis that responds to it (especially helpful for students preparing for a standardized test with a prompt) 
• Identifying a Theme to Use in a Thesis
  • Helps students identify one of the text's themes and use that theme to land on a thesis.
• Generating Supporting Ideas from Evidence
  • Helps students decide on topic sentences by organizing evidence into supporting ideas
• Outlining
  • Supports students as they plan out their essay in more detail

Expository/Informational Pre-Writing Materials

Planning for All Expository/Informational Essays

• Generating Ideas, Evidence, and a Thesis in Response to a Prompt
  • Helps students annotate a prompt, then brainstorm ideas and collect evidence in order to land on a thesis
• Generating a Thesis and Topic Sentences
  • Guides students through a thesis and topic sentence brainstorm
• Generating Supporting Ideas from Evidence
  • Helps students decide on topic sentences by organizing evidence into supporting ideas that support their thesis
• Outlining
  • Supports students as they plan out their essay in more detail

 

Planning for Cause/Effect and Compare/Contrast Essays

• Planning for a Cause/Effect Essay
  • Helps students brainstorm causes or effects of their topic in order to narrow their focus and generate a thesis
• Planning for a Compare/Contrast Essay
  • Helps students brainstorm similarities and differences between two topics in order to generate a thesis

Narrative Essay Pre-Writing Materials

• Brainstorming Conflict
  • Helps students brainstorm a conflict for their narrative by considering character desires and challenges
• Developing Setting and Characters
  • Helps students brainstorm details about their narrative’s setting and characters (especially helpful for planning how to set the scene at the beginning of a narrative)
• Outlining Your Narrative’s Conflict
  • Supports students as they plan out their narrative’s main conflict in more detail (especially helpful for developing the action in a narrative’s middle section)
• Brainstorming Theme from Conflict
  • Helps students brainstorm a theme for their narrative by considering how the main conflict will impact the story’s characters (especially helpful for planning the end of their narrative)

 

Rhetorical Analysis Essay Pre-Writing Materials

• Generating a Thesis
  • Helps students identify the author's purpose and rhetorical choices in order to land on a thesis
• Analyzing a Text to Develop a Thesis
  • Helps students analyze the rhetorical choices an author makes, selecting the choices that best support the author's purpose in order to develop a thesis
• Finding and Analyzing Evidence
  • Helps students collect evidence of an author's choices from a text and identify how these choices impact the audience and support the author's purpose
• Outlining
  • Supports students as they plan out their essay in more detail

 

SAT® Essay Pre-Writing Materials

• Analyzing a Text for Persuasive Strategies
  • Helps students analyze an author’s strategies in a persuasive text (especially helpful for planning an SAT essay in an untimed practice setting)
• Time Management Strategies for the Test
  • Suggests a time management strategy that students can practice and use on test day
• Outlining
  • Supports students in planning their essay with a quick outlining approach they can replicate on test day

 

Compare and Contrast (Text Analysis) Essay Pre-Writing Materials

• Brainstorming Ideas for Comparing Texts (Poems or Narrative Texts)
  • Helps students analyze key elements of two poems or narrative texts to brainstorm ideas they could develop in their essays
• Brainstorming Ideas for Comparing Texts (Argumentative or Informational Texts)
  • Helps students analyze key elements of two argumentative or informational texts to brainstorm ideas they could develop in their essays
• Generating a Thesis Using a Venn Diagram
  • Helps students brainstorm similarities and differences between two texts in order to generate a thesis 
• Generating Topic Sentences from Evidence
  • Helps students decide on topic sentences by organizing evidence into ideas that support their thesis statements
• Outlining and Collecting Evidence
  • Supports students in choosing an organization strategy and outlining their essays with evidence 

 

Poetry Analysis Pre-Writing Materials

• Reading Closely to Arrive at an Interpretation
  • Helps students brainstorm an interpretation with scaffolded questions that move them through several readings of a poem to arrive at a deeper meaning or message
• Glossary of Terms to Describe Features of a Poem
  • Supports students in identifying and describing poetic devices with a glossary of terms and annotated examples
• Outline
  • Supports students as they plan out their essay in more detail

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