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As esl teachers, we’ve all had those students who do great on their grammar exams , speak up confidently in class, and are always first to raise their hands for activities - and yet, when it comes time for a writing assignment, they can barely squeeze out a few short sentences. this can be frustrating for the student and teacher alike - but it’s the symptom of a problem that’s well-known in every teaching community: speaking and writing are two very different skills. as with any new skill, practice is key - but students who have trouble writing aren’t usually keen to take on even more writing practice. after all, they might think, if their grammar and vocabulary are correct, and they don’t need to write in english for their jobs, what’s the point of drilling this skill the answer is, of course, that the ability to write in english is key in the world and the workplace - from writing cover letters and cvs to drafting emails and client presentations. the responsibility is at least partly on you, the teacher, to provide assignments that draw your students into the writing process. busyteacher.org is your number-one stop for exactly those kinds of assignments. our 730 writing worksheets will provide your students with intriguing writing prompts , and with a variety of writing exercises that’ll help them watch their own improvement as it happens. our worksheets even break down the writing process into its core components, so you can figure out exactly where in the process each student is struggling, and intervene with exercises to help him or her through that trouble spot. the writing worksheets here on busyteacher.org will help familiarize your students with all the sub-skills involved in writing - from choosing a topic and constructing that first paragraph, all the way to writing movie reviews and short poems. some of our worksheets even cover basics like handwriting and sentence structure - so no matter how much your students need to brush up on their fundamentals, we’ve got worksheets to meet them where they are. you’ll find worksheets on any topic you can imagine, from daily routines and holidays to pop culture, news, and even poetry and song lyrics.   some worksheets just help you lead simple fill-in-the-blank exercises, while others present thought-provoking topics for full essays, or include plans for your students to create their own newsletters. and for students who need help with english school assignments, you’ll also find worksheets on writing essays and test responses. you can browse all of our 730 writing worksheets in thumbnail view, so you don’t have to wait for any of them to load to get an idea of what they’re like. as you scroll down the page, just click on any worksheet that catches your eye - they’re all completely free to download, print, and share in any way you like. and they’re all created and classroom-tested by real esl teachers all over the world - which means you can be confident they’ll work in your classroom, too. if you’ve got a worksheet of your own that you’d like to share with your fellow esl teachers in the busyteacher.org community, just click the “submit a worksheet” button at the bottom of this page. all of these writing worksheets are here to help you - so pick out a few that look interesting, and give them a try in your classroom today. we’re sure you’ll love them as much as the other esl teachers in our community already do. read more... ...less.

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Writing practice worksheets terms of use, finish the story writing worksheets.

• Beginning Finish the Story - The Snow Day
• Beginning Finish the Story - The Fair
• Beginning Finish the Story - Summer Camp
• Beginning Finish the Story - The Birthday Party
• Beginning Finish the Story - The Halloween Costume
• Beginning Finish the Story - The 4th of July
• Intermediate Finish the Story - The Beach Trip
• Intermediate Finish the Story - The Great Find
• Intermediate Finish the Story - Which Way?
• Intermediate Finish the Story - Finding Muffin
• Intermediate Finish the Story - The Zoo
• Advanced Finish the Story - The Troublemaker

Question Response Writing Worksheets

• Beginning Question Response - Your Favorite Color
• Beginning Question Response - Your Favorite Day
• Beginning Question Response - Your Favorite Number
• Beginning Question Response - In Your Family
• Beginning Question Response - Your Favorite Sport
• Beginning Question Response - Your Favorite Clothes
• Beginning Question Response - Your Favorite Music
• Beginning Question Response - How You Relax
• Beginning Question Response - Lunch Time
• Beginning Question Response - With Your Friends
• Beginning Question Response - Collecting Stamps
• Beginning Question Response - Your Birthplace
• Beginning Question Response - Starting Your Day
• Intermediate Question Response - Your Favorite Food
• Intermediate Question Response - Your Favorite Movie
• Intermediate Question Response - Your Favorite Song
• Intermediate Question Response - TV Programs
• Intermediate Question Response - Your Favorite Time
• Intermediate Question Response - Which Country?
• Intermediate Question Response - The Wisest Person
• Intermediate Question Response - Someone You Admire
• Advanced Question Response - A Great Accomplishment
• Advanced Question Response - The Most Exciting Thing
• Advanced Question Response - Oldest Memory
• Advanced Question Response - The Most Productive Day of the Week
• Advanced Question Response - An Interesting Person
• Advanced Question Response - What Have You Built?
• Advanced Question Response - What You Like to Read

Practical Writing Worksheets

• Beginning Practical - Grocery List
• Beginning Practical - TO Do List
• Beginning Practical - At the Beach
• Beginning Practical - The Newspaper
• Intermediate Practical - Absent From Work
• Intermediate Practical - Your Invitation
• Intermediate Practical - Paycheck
• Intermediate Practical - The New House
• Advanced Practical - Soccer Game Meeting
• Advanced Practical - Note About Dinner
• Advanced Practical - A Problem
• Advanced Practical - A Letter to Your Landlord
• Advanced Practical - A Product

Argumentative Writing Worksheets

• Intermediate Argumentative - Cat, Star, or Book?
• Intermediate Argumentative - Soccer or Basketball?
• Intermediate Argumentative - Giving and Receiving
• Intermediate Argumentative - Does Practice Make Perfect?
• Advanced Argumentative - Five Dollars or a Lottery Ticket?
• Advanced Argumentative - The Most Important Word
• Advanced Argumentative - An Apple
• Advanced Argumentative - Too Many Cooks

Writing Worksheets

• Beginning Writing Worksheet
• Intermediate Writing Worksheet
• Advanced Writing Worksheet

Using Precise Language

• Using Precise Language - An Introduction
• Using Precise Language Practice Quiz

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• How To Write Instructions Instructional Writing Ks1 And Ks2

Instructional writing – Best worksheets and resources for KS1 and KS2

1. Get resources. 2. Prepare lesson. 3. Teach instructional writing – These activities, ideas, worksheets and more will help you on your way…

Instructional writing has always been a great exercise for English lessons. It’s all about teaching children how to write specific, unambiguous, step-by-step descriptions of exactly what the reader should do. Here’s our pick of the best resources for KS1 and KS2…

Trap a dragon with Pie Corbett

Teach instructional writing with the bfg, y2 rules of the game writing pack, y1 magical spells instructional writing pack, y2 magical potions instructional writing pack, instructions picture book, viking treasure writing task, instructional writing model texts, how to make ks1 instruction writing fun, the exact instructions challenge.

Try this writing instructions KS2 resource from Pie Corbett to show your class how to write instructions for getting rid of a pesky dragon…

This fun, practical and engaging Roald Dahl lesson from Julianne Britton will prove to be a favourite among pupils. It focuses on identifying and using the organisational and grammatical features of instructional writing.

Children will write a set of instructions after making their very own cup of Frobscottle, from Roald Dahl’s beloved book.

This Year 2 writing assessment resource pack from Plazoom provides the opportunity for KS1 pupils to produce cross-curricular writing that can be assessed against the Year 2 Teacher Assessment Framework (TAF).

Pupils will write the rules of a game or activity from a recent PE lesson, after revisiting their understanding of how to write instructions. A pupil writing checklist is provided to encourage independent proofreading and editing.

This short film is from the BBC series, The Facts About Non-Fiction. In it,, Stefan Gates demonstrates the process of instructional writing using a cake recipe.

He talks through the key features of instructional writing. This includes using the correct technical terms, simple precise language and imperative or bossy verbs.

Inspire Year 1 pupils to write simple sentences to create magical spells. This Year 1 instructional writing pack from Plazoom could be used as a Halloween activity or at any point in the academic year to develop Y1 pupils’ sentence writing skills.

They will read a model text, ‘Strength Spell’, orally reciting it using actions to develop their performance and exploring its use of rhyme. They will then go on to write their own simple spells, orally rehearsing sentences before writing.

This resource pack includes:

• rhyming cards
• vocabulary cards
• magical spells idea cards
• magical spells ingredient cards
• ‘My Magical Spell’ writing paper
• teacher’s notes.

There is also a similar resource pack for Year 2 pupils on writing a wishing potion.

In this article about how to use text types to support children’s writing , James Clements suggests using Neil Gaiman and Charles Vess’s picture book Instructions to teach instructional writing. The lyrical language of the book guides a novice traveller through enchanted woods to find the way home again.

Set pupils the task of writing their own version. As James says, this creative task sure beats writing instructions for how to make a cup of tea.

Use this news story from The Week Junior about the theft of Viking treasure as the starting point for an instructional writing activity.

The task is to write instructions for what someone should do if their metal detector finds something of potential value.

Literacy Wagoll is always a great place to find fully editable model texts , and instructional writing is no exception. You’ll find everything from how to tame a unicorn to how to make an immortality potion.

The above football video, also featured on Literacy Wagoll, features lots of lovely, detailed instructional language.

Getting children to write precise, concise and clear instructions doesn’t sound like the most exciting lesson on the planet. However, these tips from Mighty Writer can help you spruce up your activities.

With instructional writing you can at least rely on some human element of interpretation. For example, we expect the reader to know what a hammer and a nail is when following flat-pack instructions for building their new Ikea bookcase.

But when programming you can’t say ‘move forward a bit’, or ‘go over there’. You need to be way more precise about what a ‘bit’ is and where specifically ‘there’ is.

That’s where the ‘exact instructions challenge’ comes in. Watch and enjoy these excellent videos with your class, then you can adapt the activities into something for your class to ‘program’ their partner and ‘debug’ their instructions where necessary.

How to make a peanut better and jelly sandwich

Josh Darnit  (real name, apparently) and his adorable kids kicked off this challenge with this sandwich-making video. Josh showcases the perfect attitude towards this activity. He blends the computational thinking style of carrying out the instructions with a very human warmth and humour. Plus, the kids are ace.

Best bit:  At  4.10  when the poor boy (Evan) nearly has a meltdown at his dad’s shenanigans.

If the idea of 500 pieces of bread covered in peanut butter and jelly in your classroom is giving you a nervous breakdown, this lovable family followed this up with a  drawing instructions challenge  which might be easier to replicate in school.

How to make a bowl of cereal

Next up, the  Bee family  attempt to make a bowl of cereal, with wonderful descriptions like ‘the scoopy side of the spoon’ (which we believe was a  discarded Pink Floyd album title)  and a wonderfully deadpan poker face from Dad throughout.

Best bit:   3.47  ‘He was so close’.

How to make fresh orange juice

With kids of varying ages offering instructions the results of this one differ greatly. That’s other than the fact that dad has to drink a number of efforts, none of which can be called anything close to ‘orange juice’. All much to the children’s delight, of course.

Best bit:  The infectious laughter of the kids throughout.

How to make an ice cream sundae

This one is a great example of how ambiguous pronouns can be misinterpreted. Less of a problem in everyday speech, but it highlights how often we can use them and presume the other person will know what the ‘it’ is that we’re referring to.

Also, is it bad that I still want to eat the finished efforts?

Best bit:  The swirls at  3.25 .

How to clean your teeth

After eating all of that lovingly prepared food you should probably give your old chompers a bit of TLC.

And if you were unsure as to the best way to go about it, the  Holderness family  have prepared some detailed instructions for you to follow to the letter.

Best bit:   1.41  ‘And scrub’.

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Y3/4 INSTRUCTIONS Writing Unit - 4 Lessons

Subject: English

Age range: 7-11

Resource type: Unit of work

Last updated

14 January 2022

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Four lessons about instruction writing for English. Each lesson contains differentiated activities. Each lesson has a PowerPoint, planning and resources provided with learning objective and success criteria. The rest of the unit is available here: https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/resource-12563241

• To answer questions about a set of instructions.
• To find features and compare instructions.
• To sequence a set of instructions.
• To write a set of instructions.

ks2 ks3 y3 y4 y5 y6 English writing comprehension reading lks2 uks2

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Instructional Writing Methods: How to Write Instructions Lesson Plan

• Trent Lorcher
• Categories : High school english lesson plans grades 9 12
• Tags : High school lesson plans & tips

How to Write Instructions Introduction

Writing lesson plans often focus on academic writing. Everyday writing, however, is far more useful. As part of your writing curriculum, include assignments that requires students to write instructions. Begin by teaching students how to write instructions, the most important of instructional writing methods.

An instructional writer must know his or her subject thoroughly, use appropriate and consistent word choice, use the active voice, use the imperative mood, include formatting clues, and limit first person usage. Most importantly, the writer needs to be clear and concise.

Beginning with a Purpose and Audience

Remember as you teach how to write instructions and instructional writing methods that the purpose is to inform.

• The introduction should be very brief and should provide enough background information for the reader to determine whether or not the article will satisfy his or her need. The introduction is the only appropriate place for creativity.
• Keep it simple. Your reader doesn’t care about how much you know, where you learned your information, who your paternal grandfather dated in the 8th grade, or what color underwear you have on. They are reading your article for a specific reason. Avoid vague words or technical jargon. If a technical term must be used, be sure to define it the first time you use it.
• Re member your audience . If the reader were an expert, he or she wouldn’t need your instructions. No matter how clear you think you are, somebody will misinterpret the directions. Pictures are helpful.

Instructional Writing Methods: The Body

When learning or teaching how to write instructions, remember the purpose is to give instructions.

• The most important section of an instructional article is the instructions. Your article should follow a natural progression of steps, broken into small parts for easy comprehension. Numbered and bulleted lists along with strategic spacing make articles easier to understand. If the order of steps does not matter, use bullets. If the order does matter, use numbers
• Show clearly who does what if multiple parties are involved. Begin each instruction with an imperative verb. Don’t mix background information with instructional tasks. Be specific on what the reader should do after completing each task.

Instructional Writing Methods: Revise and Test

Make sure instructions are clear!

• Conduct an experiment before completing your final draft: find volunteers to read your instructions and implement them; observe; take note of any problem; revise and repeat until satisfied with the results.

This post is part of the series: Writing Assignments

Find different writing assignments to give your students.

• Writing Lesson Plans: How to Write a Biography
• Teach Your Students How to Write Science Fiction
• Teaching Instructional Articles: How to Write Instructions
• Lesson Plan: How to Write an Essay Introduction
• Sophmores Assess Their High School Role While You Assess Their Writing

Top 7 English Homework Tips for Teachers, Students and Parents

7 ways to create meaningful English homework. Tips for teachers, parents and students

Homework. The bane of student life everywhere. And teachers too! Won’t someone please think of the teachers?

It has been one of the hottest debates among progressives and traditionalists in education circles for many years now; is homework help or a hindrance?

Millions of student hours per year are wasted on busy work, which adds little to student learning. But that doesn’t mean that the judicious use of homework can’t add greatly to student learning, particularly in an area as complex as literacy.

Regarding reading and writing homework, there are good points to be made on both sides. But, as with many hot-button issues, the truth likely lies somewhere in the middle.

In this article, we will look at what we need to consider when we set homework to ensure it provides value to our students’ learning. We will look at what to do, what not to do, and just how much of it to do.

ENGLISH HOMEWORK TIP 1: Bin the Busy Work!

Ask your average student what their pet peeve is regarding their current station in life, and more often than not, homework will be mentioned in the reply. It is just as much a fixture in the life of a student as an oven is in the life of a baker. Unfortunately, as many students robotically complete their homework as teachers that robotically set the tasks. And here lies our first problem – busy work!

Homework should ALWAYS be focused. It should be carefully designed and purposeful. Without clear objectives built-in, the homework serves little to no pedagogical purpose. It is more likely to be a waste of the student’s time and the time of the teacher who is doomed to mark it.

The first rule of Homework Club is Bin the Busy Work!

ENGLISH HOMEWORK TIP 2: Make The Homework Fit for Purpose

It may seem obvious, but homework must be suited to the ability of the student. How often have diligent students pulled their hair out struggling over a problem all night, press-ganging parents into the effort, only to be soundly trounced by a problem Einstein himself would need his morning coffee before attempting.

Avoid setting homework that will stretch the student to the elastic limits of their abilities. We don’t want anyone ‘snapping’ here. The material chosen for reading or writing homework should, however, challenge the student to some degree. Just as with strength training, some resistance is required to build ‘muscle’ here.

As in Rule #1 above, homework should be carefully designed to achieve a certain objective. But, one size most certainly doesn’t fit all. Be sure to differentiate homework appropriately for the different abilities of different students. Often, you won’t need to set different tasks, a slight tweak in the instructions given will be enough to make it suitable for the various ability levels.

YEAR LONG DIGITAL READING LOG / DIARY

Leap into the CLASSROOM OF THE FUTURE and ditch your paper-based reading logs or journals FOREVER. This dynamic BUNDLE OF RESOURCES allows you to track and assess your students reading with far more efficiency and effectiveness than ever before. INCLUDING: ✔ A dynamic DIGITAL READING SURVEY which AUTOMATICALLY ADAPTS based upon the genre of book your students are reading and what point of the text they are up to ✔ A pre-written LETTER FOR PARENTS AND STUDENTS explaining how it all works and the clear benefits it offers teachers, students and parents. ✔ A set of POSTERS AND BOOKMARKS matched to your class reading log so you kids can access this ANYTIME, ANYWHERE on ANY DEVICE ✔ A VIDEO TUTORIAL explaining how to edit, customize and deliver this to parents and students with ease, as well as how to sort, filter and manage your student data

ENGLISH HOMEWORK TIP 3: Set Time Limits

We all have both good days and bad days, and all sorts of days in between. Regardless of what sort of day you had, one thing is for sure, there were 24 hours in it. One of the more difficult things as a teacher, especially in a school with a vague homework policy, is just how much homework to set. The answer is, of course, it depends , and while time is certainly an imperfect means of gauging this, it at least provides some guidelines.

Just how much time depends on quite a few things. The time of year, for example. If exams are ongoing, you may want to avoid heaping extra pressure on your students. Perhaps too, your school has a very prescriptive homework policy that restricts your flexibility in terms of how much time you can set for homework tasks.

All that aside, the general wisdom on setting homework is that it should start at around 10 minutes for grade 1 and gradually increase by around ten minutes per grade, up to a maximum of 2 hours per day for the oldest students.

Like most things in teaching, however, this is more of an art than a cold, hard science. Pay attention to your students and how they are bearing up under the workload. Your priority here should always be to maximize the learning done in the classroom, so don’t overdo it.

ENGLISH HOMEWORK TIP 4: Give Timely Feedback

For feedback to be useful, it must be timely. If a student has spent hours composing an essay; researching their material, drafting an outline, organising their structure, writing and rewriting to submit their finished piece only to be told 4 weeks later that the third paragraph lacks purpose, the third paragraph will not be the only thing that lacks purpose.

If feedback is to be of any value, you must strike while the mental forge is still hot. Our students’ lives are most likely busy and interesting. Often their focus will be transient, if not downright fickle. If you want your feedback to stick – it must be delivered while the smoke still hangs in the air.

ENGLISH HOMEWORK TIP 5: Get Creative with the Tasks

Many of our students hate homework. Perhaps ‘despise’ would be a better word. And is it any wonder? Especially when it comes to reading and writing. Learning to read and write well requires lots of practice, and a certain amount of repetition is inescapable. But, I would argue, there should be no reason for homework to be boring. There isn’t a more wondrous subject in the world than literacy, after all!

Reading and writing are very broad areas of learning. Ample opportunities are afforded to allow you to come up with engaging and creative ways for your students to reinforce their learning. You just need to begin with your learning objective and reverse engineer unique ways to get there.

Let’s take instruction writing as an example. Say you have already taught the key criteria of instruction writing: a title, a resource list, some diagrams with captions, bullet or numbered points, use of transition words and imperatives etc. You now want the students to consolidate their understanding of the genre by writing their own set of instructions at home, but how to do it in an interesting fashion?

Well, let’s brainstorm and see if we can’t make things a little more interesting for our students. Recipes are a type of instruction writing. You could set them the task of writing a recipe for their favorite sandwich, but that’s kind of, well, lame!

How about writing a recipe for the most disgusting sandwich in the world? Yes, now that’s much better. Maybe they could word process it too and include Creative Commons images to support the text, Or, they could even make a script and record a video instructional, sharpening up their video-editing skills along the way.

Regardless of which of these methods you choose, your students would still be fulfilling the original objective of reinforcing their understanding of the criteria of the genre.

Bear in mind, however, you should not set homework that requires students to use resources that they don’t have access to, so be sure to give this due consideration when getting creative with your homework tasks.

ENGLISH HOMEWORK TIP 6: Leverage Interest

“ You can bring a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink ”, as the old saying goes – and it certainly applies to homework.

This rule relies heavily on the relationship you build with your students over time. Allied to the point above, there are a million different ways to teach an objective, but try to engineer activities that leverage the specific interests of your students.

If you are setting a homework task to reinforce reading comprehension skills, for example, are there opportunities for you to select, or allow your students to select, material that they are interested in?

The same applies when selecting topics for writing. Where student interest is engaged, learning often becomes effortless.

ENGLISH HOMEWORK TIP 7: Give Homework At The Start of the Lesson

It is general practice to give homework at the end of the lesson. By then, you will have introduced a lesson objective, worked through some examples during class, and now you can set homework for the students to further consolidate their understanding at home.

It makes sense, right? Well, yes, but there is another option.

Sharing the homework task with your students at the start of class may, at times, be preferable. There are several benefits to this. Often, at the end of class, our students are worn out. They are like greyhounds at the starting gate, raring to go home, to the next class, or for lunch. The last place their attention is is on more of the topic they have just been working on. Setting homework at the start of the class avoids the feeling like you are trying to herd cats at the end of class.

Another strong benefit to setting the homework at the start of the class is that it focuses the students on specific learning goals for the lesson to come. Students will be motivated to engage more with their learning as it will make their homework much easier to do that evening. Give it a go with your class and see!

The Takeaways

Homework should be used as a means of consolidating learning done in the classroom. Tasks should be focused and offer opportunities for students to improve their understanding of important concepts or develop specific skills.

Homework should be designed in such a way that it is manageable by students. It should not be beyond the limits of their abilities and time limits should be set to prevent student frustration from boiling over if they struggle to complete it.

Feedback needs to be given in a timely fashion for it to serve any useful purpose. This means that consideration must be given to your workload when assigning homework. Will you have enough time to mark the students’ work and provide the necessary feedback in a timely manner?

If not, reconsider the tasks you are setting. Remember, you may also find value in peer assessment activities too.

Also, try setting homework at the start of class to motivate student participation in the lesson to come. And, you’ll avoid that tussle at lesson’s end as the students rush for the door!

Literacy is such a fascinating subject area that there will always be room to create interesting homework tasks. You just require a little space to allow your imagination to run freely. The personal interests of your students can provide a great starting point for the creation of engaging and fun homework tasks.

Remember too, there’s an upper limit to how much homework you should set, and it may not always be necessary to set homework. When you do set homework, set it judiciously, and you will undoubtedly add to the learning experience of your students.

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Instructions and recipes

This collection of English non-fiction teaching resources aims to help children write instructional texts.

You’ll find worksheets to help children identify the features of instructions, such as headings, numbered lists, short sentences, time connectives and imperative verbs, along with planning sheets and templates for writing instructions.

There are teaching resources for both key stages including instruction writing activities based on works by Roald Dahl and worksheets to support children with writing clear instructions for making a sandwich or a cup of tea.

You may also like our non-fiction writing resource packs:  Writing non-fiction (lower KS2)  and  Writing non-fiction (upper KS2) which include units on writing a set of instructions and WAGOLL texts. The packs are linked to national curriculum objectives and feature GPS (SPaG) activities as well as non-fiction texts and writing activities.

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These OWL resources will help you understand and complete specific types of writing assignments, such as annotated bibliographies, book reports, and research papers. This section also includes resources on writing academic proposals for conference presentations, journal articles, and books.

Understanding Writing Assignments

This resource describes some steps you can take to better understand the requirements of your writing assignments. This resource works for either in-class, teacher-led discussion or for personal use.

Argument Papers

This resource outlines the generally accepted structure for introductions, body paragraphs, and conclusions in an academic argument paper. Keep in mind that this resource contains guidelines and not strict rules about organization. Your structure needs to be flexible enough to meet the requirements of your purpose and audience.

Research Papers

This handout provides detailed information about how to write research papers including discussing research papers as a genre, choosing topics, and finding sources.

Exploratory Papers

This resource will help you with exploratory/inquiry essay assignments.

Annotated Bibliographies

This handout provides information about annotated bibliographies in MLA, APA, and CMS.

Book Report

This resource discusses book reports and how to write them.

Definitions

This handout provides suggestions and examples for writing definitions.

Essays for Exams

While most OWL resources recommend a longer writing process (start early, revise often, conduct thorough research, etc.), sometimes you just have to write quickly in test situations. However, these exam essays can be no less important pieces of writing than research papers because they can influence final grades for courses, and/or they can mean the difference between getting into an academic program (GED, SAT, GRE). To that end, this resource will help you prepare and write essays for exams.

Book Review

This resource discusses book reviews and how to write them.

Academic Proposals

This resource will help undergraduate, graduate, and professional scholars write proposals for academic conferences, articles, and books.

In this section

Subsections.

Mighty Writer Blog

Make instruction writing fun in ks1, no teacher could deny that instructions are an artform..

…. Especially if you want your pupils to follow them.

Precise, concise and clear, your delivery of instructions is integral to whether a task will sink or swim. So, it’s fair to say that the majority of us perfect the craft early on – or risk some serious classroom chaos.

Instruction writing – or procedural writing – isn’t just an important skill for teaching, of course.

The children in your KS1 class must also learn the merits of writing specific, unambiguous, step-by-step descriptions. Generally covering how to make or do something, these instructions should be clear and easy to follow by the reader, allowing them to assess exactly what they need to do.

Instruction Writing Teaches Children to Think Carefully and Literally.

Sequence cards

Rather than writing a list, try a touch of artwork to liven up the task.

Give the class some square cut-outs of paper, with room for both a drawing and some handwriting. Then, ask them to detail a simple activity, part by part.

To further instil the importance of clear instructions, you can turn the cards into a game – if you shuffle them, can a partner put them back into the correct order?

The Long and Short of it

In order for instructions to be clear, they need to be to-the-point.

Provide the class with a narrative which contains instructions that are bloated by other information – part of a larger story, perhaps.

Task the class with stripping away the wider information and producing clear instructions, which are easier to understand and follow than the original text. It’ll make the importance of clarity crystal clear!

Heading in the Right Direction

Instruction writing can still be creative!

If the class aren’t so keen on writing instructions for cake baking and tooth brushing, try something more adventurous.

How about directions to a fantasy land?

Turn left at the lollipops, straight past the dragon’s paddock and you’ll see the castle straight ahead!

Once the children have mastered the written structure, why not draw a marvellous map to match?

Looking for more information on teaching KS1 literacy?

Check out our brand-new resource!

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73 ESL Writing Activities to Spark Your Students’ Creativity and Imagination

From a student’s point of view, writing assignments are something to dread.

But from an ESL teacher’s point of view, they should be a challenge worth accepting.

The challenge for you is to motivate your students enough to actually be excited about writing.

Sounds impossible? It’s actually quite simple.

The key is a strong pre-writing activity that boosts their confidence and adds to their vocabulary at the same time.

So, how do you get your students’ writing off to a great start?

In this post, we’ll look at some different ESL writing activities that will transform your students from hesitant writers to confident wordsmiths in their own right.

Writing Assignments Based on Stories

Writing activities prompted by music, writing practice exercises based on images or pictures, writing assignments based on food, writing activities based on mysteries, exercises to practice writing emails, activities to practice writing advertisements, assignments to practice writing reports, creative writing activity: class newsletter/newspaper.

Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere. Click here to get a copy. (Download)

People of all ages love a well-told story, and using stories to teach ESL is a sure winner.

A story for a pre-writing activity could be in the form of:

• A  movie . It could be a biography, sci-fi film, thriller, action-packed adventure, fairy tale or even a cartoon.
• A  story read aloud from a book. If you’re using this, read in a way that brings the characters’ voices to life (including the narrator’s), hold the book up to show any pictures within or scan them and project onto a screen as you read. You can also search YouTube videos of famous authors or celebrities reading a book aloud, and show these in class.
• A  story from the news . It could be from the TV, radio, newspaper or an online news site .
• A story read by your students. In this case, you could let them read a story silently or with a partner, and take as long as they like to think about the important parts.

No matter what you choose, it’ll be a great lead-in to the ESL writing exercises below.

1. Re-tell the story as is, or summarize it. (This works best for beginners, who are still getting their feet wet in the waters of English comprehension.)

2. After watching “Finding Nemo” : Tell the story from the point of view of the whale, the dentist’s daughter or Bruce the shark.

3. Explain to Marlin how he should take care of Nemo better.

4. Make up a story about a farm animal/zoo animal/jungle animal. What if a baby ___ was lost? What if a child was lost in the city? What if you found a lost child?

5. After the story of “Goldilocks” : Tell the story from the baby bear’s point of view.

6. What if the baby bear and Goldilocks became best buds? What would happen?

7. After discussing “The Gingerbread Man” : Tell the story from the fox’s or gingerbread man’s point of view.

8. What did the old woman do wrong that made the gingerbread man run away?

9. How do you make a gingerbread man? What other shapes could be made instead?

10. After “Little Red Riding Hood” : Write the story in the first person—from the point of view of either Red Riding Hood or the wolf.

11. What should Red Riding Hood have done when she met the wolf?

12. After watching a “Lord of the Rings” movie: What would you do if you had the One Ring? Write about a magical quest you and several friends would have if you could.

13. After watching a “Pirates of the Caribbean”  movie: What if you were a pirate? What adventures would you have if you were a pirate?

14. After watching “Titanic” : Write about what you discover when you dive onto the wreck. Or imagine you were on the ship when it sank, and talk about how you escaped.

15. Whose fault was it that so many people drowned on the Titanic? What should they have done?

16. After watching a “Star Wars”  movie: Imagine you’re a space explorer and write about what happens when you meet some characters from “Star Wars.”

17. After watching a “Terminator”  movie: Imagine your teacher is a robot that has come back from the future. Or imagine you have come back from the future—what would it be like?

18. After watching a “Harry Potter” movie: Make up some magic spells and explain how you’d use them.

Everybody loves music! Watch your students’ faces light up as soon as they realize that they’re about to be treated to some songs rather than chalk-and-talk. Music stirs the emotions, after all, and can get your students excited about writing.

Here are some ideas for music you can incorporate into ESL writing activities:

• Classical music. There are some pieces of well-known classical music that specifically tell a story , and many of these are available on YouTube.
• “Fantasia 2000,” particularly “Rhapsody in Blue.” This wonderful, wordless animated story can kick off so much great writing!
• Movie music. The music that goes with a movie tells watchers how they should be feeling, and could be a good jumping-off point for some writing.
• Popular songs and music. Self-explanatory. Check out the most popular or trending artists on YouTube or Spotify for ideas.
• Kids’ songs . There’s something about singing a catchy little tune that makes the words stick in your mind more than just saying them. These can lead to some interesting writing, too.

19. After Prokofiev’s “Peter and the Wolf” : Tell the story from Peter’s point of view.

20. After Saint-Saëns’ “The Carnival of the Animals” : Imagine walking through the scenes with the animals and interacting with them. Write a story from the point of view of one of the animals.

21. Describe the animals in “The Carnival of the Animals.”

22. After Tchaikovsky’s “Romeo and Juliet” : Re-tell this classic Shakespeare story, adding a twist.

23. After watching and listening to “Rhapsody in Blue” : Tell all/part of the story.

24. If you were the main character in “Rhapsody in Blue,” what would you do?

25. Listen to a piece of classical/instrumental music and tell the story that it might be a background to. Imagine that it’s the background music for a movie.

26. Tell the story (real or made up) behind some popular songs like Taylor Swift’s “Wildest Dreams.”

27. Describe meeting someone special like in the aforementioned Taylor Swift song.

28. What happens in your wildest dreams?

29. What if you were a famous pop star or musician? What would it be like? What would you do?

30. Give instructions on how to find your favorite song on the Internet, both music and lyrics.

31. If you play an instrument, or have a relative who plays one, write about some of the basics of how to play. (This could also work as a speaking and listening activity, and then the whole class could write about it.)

32. What is your favorite genre of music, and why? (Be sure to explain what “genre” means !)

33. Do you think young children should be allowed to freely watch music videos?

Some pictures you can use for ESL writing activities include:

• Pictures from social media. If you use social media at all, you doubtless have a barrage of amazing photos and videos on your feed, all of which make for excellent writing prompts.
• Pictures from Google Images . A quick Google search on any (classroom-safe) image will turn up plenty.
• Cartoons . If you have young students, they’ll definitely enjoy this one.
• Pictures selected by your students. Not sure what to choose? Have your students pick their own pictures to write about. You’ll be pleasantly surprised at how vibrant their writing can be when they’re writing about subjects they actually care about.

Regardless of the picture you (or your students) choose, here are some writing prompts you can consider.

34. Tell a story—real or imagined—of what is happening in the picture.

35. Write about what happens next from the pictured moment.

36. Write about what was happening just before the pictured incident.

37. What if that was you in the picture?

38. What if you were the person who took the picture?

39. What if you knew the people in the picture? What would you say to them?

40. Describe all of the elements in the picture. This is great for vocabulary practice.

41. Describe how someone in the picture might be feeling.

42. Explain how to get into  a pictured predicament (for example, in the picture here , how did he get into the boat without the crocodile eating him?) as well as how to get out of it.

43. Express an opinion about the rights and wrongs of the pictured situation. For example, for the same picture above: Should crocodiles be hunted and killed? What should happen if a crocodile kills someone?

Many of your students likely enjoy thinking and talking about food. So why wouldn’t they be motivated to write about it?

How you integrate food into your ESL writing assignments depends on your classroom arrangements and the amount of time you’re willing to put into preparation.

In any case, here are some ideas:

• Start with the preparation and sharing of food before writing about it.
• Look at pictures of food, and talk about them before moving on to writing.
• Have students research food-related topics on the internet.
• Start with a story about food.

Here are the specific food writing prompts:

44. After the story of “The Gingerbread Man”: Think about food that develops a life of its own, and what would happen with it. (This can also open up a discussion about cultural foods.) For example, make up a similar story about another piece of food (e.g., spaghetti or rice that comes alive). What if you felt something moving in your mouth after you bit into your burger?

45. Write a story (real or imagined) about being very hungry and/or finding/buying/stealing food to meet a desperate need.

46. Write a story about trying a new, unfamiliar kind of food—maybe in a (relevant) cross-cultural setting.

47. Write a story about finding and eating a food that has magical properties. (Maybe read or watch some or all of “Alice in Wonderland”  first.)

48. Describe interesting/disgusting/unusual/delicious/colorful foods, especially after a class tasting lesson. (Prepare students first with suitable taste vocabulary .)

49. Describe a food that’s unfamiliar to most students in the class. (This is particularly helpful for classes where there are students belonging to minority groups who hesitate to speak up.)

50. Describe an imaginary magical food.

51. Give instructions for preparing a particular recipe.

52. After a class activity or demonstration involving food: Write down what you have learned.

53. Give instructions for producing food—growing vegetables, keeping animals, etc.

54. Give instructions for buying the best food—what to look for, looking at labels, checking prices and the like.

55. Write about your opinion on food and health in First World and Third World countries. (Explain what makes a country “First,” “Second” or “Third World” first.)

56. Write about your opinion on the cost of food.

57. Write about your opinion on GMOs or genetically engineered foods .

There’s nothing quite like a good “whodunnit,” and students will always enjoy a good puzzle. You can base various pre-writing activities around the two games below to get the class warmed up for ESL writing practice.

• Conundrum. This is an example of a game that can be played as a speaking and listening activity, and can lead into some good writing. The game starts with a simple statement or description of a situation like the ones described in situation puzzles . Students ask questions and receive yes/no answers until they work out the explanation for the situation.

After Conundrum, here are some of the activities your students can do:

58. Write a story about the sequence of events involved in a situation brought up in the game.

59. Devise and describe your own situation puzzle.

• Putting their hands inside a cloth bag (or just feeling the outside) to guess what an object is.
• Smelling substances in opaque jars with perforated lids, and trying to guess what they are.
• Tasting mystery foods on plastic spoons (with blindfolds).
• Looking at pictures of mysterious objects from obscure angles.
• Listening to and guessing the origins of sound effects. (You can record your own, or use some from the Internet .)

(Important: Make sure that whatever you’re using for your guessing game is safe for your students, especially if they involve having to touch, taste or smell the object.)

After a guessing game, your students can:

60. Write about a possible mystery object and a magical quality it could possess.

61. Describe what you thought you saw, heard, felt, tasted or smelled.

For both games, here are some writing prompts you can do:

62. Give instructions for playing one of the games.

63. Give instructions for the perfect crime.

64. Give your opinion about a recent crime and the punishment for it.

Emailing can often be a scary task for your students, especially if they’re using a new, strange language like English. You can utilize an email writing activity to help your students build confidence and get more comfortable writing in English.

Email can also teach your students things like proper language (formal or informal), structure and format. Email-related writing activities for ESL students can offer ample opportunities to teach all of these three aspects.

Since emails involve two parties (the sender and the receiver), you’ll need to pair your students up for this activity. Here’s how to prepare for it:

• Create one set of worksheets explaining details relevant to the sender. For example, it could contain information about a sender’s upcoming birthday party that they want to invite the receiver to.
• Create another set of worksheets with the receiver’s details. The worksheets could contain questions about food dishes or gifts, or it could say that the receiver can’t make it for one reason or other.

Once the above has been done, give one set of worksheets to the “senders” and the other to the “receivers.” Then, here’s what your students will do:

65. Based on the senders’ worksheets, write an email inviting the receiver and explaining the key aspects of the event featured in the worksheet.

66. Based on the receivers’ worksheets, write an email explaining why you can or cannot make it to the party, and/or what other information you need about the event.

Advertisements are everywhere, and you can bet that your students have a few favorite ads of their own. Advertisement-related writing activities work across age groups and can be adapted to most students and their needs.

This great ESL writing assignment can help your students put the adjectives they’ve learned into good use, as well as showcase their creative writing and persuasion skills.

You can find advertisements everywhere, including:

• YouTube videos
• Newspapers and magazines

You can also bring an object (or handful of objects) to class that your students can write ads about.

67. After your students carefully examine the object(s) you brought into class: Write all the adjectives you can think of about it.

68. For a more challenging writing exercise: Write an ad about the object. How would you persuade someone who knows nothing about the object whatsoever to buy it? (Your students may or may not use the adjectives they wrote down earlier. Encourage them to be creative!)

Your students have likely already done some kind of report during the course of their studies. Also, writing reports is a skill that’ll be useful to them once they enter college or the corporate world (if they aren’t in it already). If you feel that they need a little more practice in this area, use this ESL writing assignment.

First, discuss how research and structure matter to reports—and perhaps show them a few samples. Then, give them a few questions to base their reports on, like:

69. What can you say about (insert topic here) in terms of (insert specific angle here)? (For example, “What can you say about the government’s efforts to improve the local park in terms of its impact on the general public?” Of course, you should adapt this question to the level of your students.)

70. After talking about a YouTube video on bears eating salmon : What would happen to the bears if the salmon ran out? 

This ESL writing activity is a bit more intensive and will allow your students to employ many different aspects of their ESL knowledge. Crafting a class newsletter will build collaboration, communication, listening, speaking and, of course, writing skills. If they’re not sure how to build a newsletter or newspaper from scratch, they can always swipe from premade templates like this one .

The newsletter/newspaper can follow a specific theme, or the articles can consist of a hodgepodge of random topics based on questions like:

71. What is the most interesting thing that happened in school this year? It can be the funniest/scariest/most heartwarming incident. Write a feature article about it. (Make sure to explain what a “feature article” is .)

72. Write a report highlighting the key events in some recent local festivals or concerts.

73. Going off of the last exercise, write an ad inviting the reader to buy a product or attend an event.

Once all of the articles are done, you can start putting them together. Make sure to walk your students through these newspaper layout tips . And when the newsletter/newspaper is finally published and circulated out there for the world to see, remember to congratulate your students for a job well done!

No matter what writing assignments you choose, make sure to keep the excitement level high so that your students are enthusiastic for your next writing session.

Whether they write by hand or type on a computer, remember to encourage them as much as you can by focusing on the good points rather than just running all over their mistakes with a red pen.

Lastly, find ways for them to share their efforts—whether online, on the classroom wall, bound together in a book to be passed around, etc.

They can also read aloud to each other, share with their parents and siblings and even share with other classes!

For more ESL assignment ideas, check out this post: 

Great ESL homework ideas can be difficult to come up with. So check out these 13 great ideas for ESL homework assignments that your students will love. Not only are they…

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Instructions Homework

The worksheet, available for download below, is based on instructions for making tea and sandwiches.

This could be used as a lesson or a homework activity.

Download File

The Giving Calendar

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