Less than $5 8th Grade Writing-Essays Worksheets (by date, oldest first)

• Do you need help getting your students to understand how text is structured and how authors craft their writing?
• Do you want them to practice aligning ideas and writing their own?

Help your students master paragraph structure with this comprehensive resource designed for middle and high school learners. "Building Strong Paragraphs" focuses on key writing skills such as identifying topic sentences, supporting details, and crafting thesis statements. This ready-to-use packet includes practice worksheets, engaging exercises, and thesis sentence-building activities that will enhance your students' writing abilities.

Ideal for both informational and argumentative writing, this resource walks students through the entire process of constructing well-organized, coherent paragraphs. Whether you're teaching how to develop supporting sentences, transition between ideas, or conclude effectively, this resource covers it all!

What's Included:

• Graphic Organizer for understanding structure
• Identification exercise
• Two Unique Passages per skill: topic sentences, thesis statements, supporting sentences & concluding sentences
• 9 Passages
• 20 Pages
• Available as a PDF and a Word Document

Perfect for:

• Grades 6-10
• English Language Arts (ELA) Teachers
• Writing Workshops
• STAAR Writing Prep
• Argumentative and Informational Essay Practice

Benefits of this Resource:

• Aligned with Common Core Standards and TEKS for writing.
• Great for differentiated learning in classrooms with ELLs and students needing extra practice.
• Supports critical thinking and writing clarity.

Who is this for?

• Middle and High School Teachers: Perfect for educators looking to strengthen their students’ paragraph-writing skills with structured, step-by-step activities.
• ELA Teachers: Aligned with TEKS and Common Core standards, this resource is ideal for anyone teaching informational and argumentative writing.
• Students Preparing for Standardized Tests: Great for test prep, including STAAR writing, helping students improve clarity, coherence, and overall writing structure.
• Special Education & ELL Support: Easily adaptable for differentiated instruction, making it an excellent tool for classrooms with diverse learners, including English Language Learners and students with varying writing levels.
• Homeschool Educators: A valuable resource for guiding students through the fundamentals of paragraph writing at home.

Should students be allowed to use cell phones in school? This is an argumentative essay prompt, two articles, a graph, and outline sheet. Your kids will all have their own opinions about cell phone usage and whether or not schools should ban cell phones. This comes complete with rubric. This is a pdf.

*Update* Available under TeachShare Digital Resources which adds an interactive layer on top of the pdf for distance learning.

If you want the Google Drive editable version here it is

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Should schools ban soda? This is an argumentative essay prompt, three articles, and outline sheet. Your kids will all have their own opinions about sugary drinks and whether or not schools should ban soda. This comes complete with rubric.

Google Drive Version can be found here

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Should students be required to wear school uniforms? This is an argumentative essay prompt, two articles, a graph, and outline sheet. Your kids will all have their own opinions about uniforms and whether or not schools should require uniforms. This comes complete with rubric. This is a pdf.

If you want the Google Drive editable version

CLICK HERE

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Should students be required to learn how to write in cursive? This is an argumentative essay prompt, three articles, and outline sheet. Your kids will all have their own opinions about whether or not schools should require students to learn how to write in cursive. This comes complete with rubric.

This is for Google Drive

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Should students be required to wear school uniforms? This is an argumentative essay prompt, two articles, a graph, and outline sheet. Your kids will all have their own opinions about uniforms and whether or not schools should require uniforms. This comes complete with rubric. This is for Google Drive

Should students be allowed to use cell phones in school? This is an argumentative essay prompt, two articles, a graph, and outline sheet. Your kids will all have their own opinions about cell phone usage and whether or not schools should ban cell phones. This comes complete with rubric

Should the federal minimum wage be increased? This is an argumentative essay prompt, 3 articles, graphs , and outline sheet. Your kids will all have their own opinions about the federal minimum wage and whether or not it should be increased. This comes complete with rubric

Looking for more argumentative prompts with articles?

Cell phones in School: Argumentative prompt, articles, and outline sheet

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Should you delete your Facebook account? This is an argumentative essay prompt, three articles, and outline sheet. Your kids will all have their own opinions about Facebook and whether or not having an account is a good idea. This comes complete with rubric.

*Update* Available under TeachShare Digital Resources which adds an interactive layer on top of the pdf for distance learning.

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Should students be required to learn how to write in cursive? This is an argumentative essay prompt, three articles, and outline sheet. Your kids will all have their own opinions about whether or not schools should require students to learn how to write in cursive. This comes complete with rubric.

CLICK HERE for Google Drive

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Should students be required to learn second language? This is an argumentative essay prompt, three articles, and outline sheet. Your kids will all have their own opinions about whether or not schools should require students to learn second language. This comes complete with rubric. This is a pdf.

If you want the Google Drive editable version

CLICK HERE

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This is a prompt for whether or not Shakespeare wrote his own plays. It includes three articles, an outline sheet, and a grading rubric for the essay. This is a great resource for if you are covering essay writing but also doing Shakespeare plays or sonnets before or after.

This is a pdf. If you would like the Google Drive edition which is editable please visit here

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Explain how vaccines work. This is an informative essay prompt, two articles,a graph, and outline sheet. Your kids will learn about how vaccines are made and how they work in the human body. This comes complete with rubric.

Should students be required to learn second language? This is an argumentative essay prompt, three articles, and outline sheet. Your kids will all have their own opinions about whether or not schools should require students to learn second language. This comes complete with rubric.

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Explain what impeachment is and how the process takes place. This is an informative essay prompt, two articles, a graph, and outline sheet. Your kids will all learn something about the impeachment process. This comes complete with rubric

This is a prompt for whether or not Shakespeare wrote his own plays. It includes three articles, an outline sheet, and a grading rubric for the essay. This is a great resource for if you are covering essay writing but also doing Shakespeare plays or sonnets before or after. This product works great in any digital classroom. This is editable in Google Docs. You must have Google Drive to use this product! You may sign up for Google drive for free Visit here for help with Google Drive

What is the electoral college and how does it work? This is an informative essay prompt, two articles, a map, and outline sheet. Your kids will all learn how voting isn't as straightforward as some people think. This comes complete with rubric

If you are looking to save time editing and grading student essays, this resource will literally be a life-changer! Over my years of teaching, I believe that I have perfected the peer editing system so as to produce the best student essays possible with minimal errors while cutting down significantly on the time the teacher must spend editing and grading them. This product includes three meticulously-designed peer editing forms with directed questions and editing prompts. Forms are fully editable so that you may change wording to remain consistent with your instruction, grade level, and adapt to any essay. The questions cover everything from basic essay components and quote integration to technical details, grammar, and formatting. Most importantly, this resource also includes a step-by-step guide on how to conduct a 45-50 minute class on peer editing day. I promise that these peer editing forms and accompanying lesson plan will become some of the most valuable resources in your teacher's tool box and that your students' writing will improve without you pulling your hair out reading rough drafts. ___________________________________________________________________________ Check out these related resources for your ELA classroom by Language Arts Excellence: ⭐ Introduction to Dystopia Powerpoint
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This 3-page form asks students to specifically rate their performance on the 6 components of effective effort on a given essay: TIME, FOCUS, RESOURCEFULNESS, USE OF STRATEGIES, USE OF FEEDBACK, and COMMITMENT. This product is modeled after teachings from The Skillful Teacher by Jon Saphier, Mary Ann Haley-Speca, and Robert Gower and encourages a growth mindset in students. I provide this form to my students every single time I assign a paper and am always pleasantly surprised at how honest they are in their responses, especially as the incentive for guessing their grade is 2 bonus points! ____________________________________________________________________________ Also, check out this great lesson plan for teaching Effective Effort by Language Arts Excellence: ⭐Effective Effort Lesson Plan ____________________________________________________________________________ ⭐Click to Follow Language Arts Excellence⭐

This 3-page form asks students to specifically rate their performance on the 6 components of effective effort on a given essay: TIME, FOCUS, RESOURCEFULNESS, USE OF STRATEGIES, USE OF FEEDBACK, and COMMITMENT. This product is modeled after teachings from The Skillful Teacher by Jon Saphier, Mary Ann Haley-Speca, and Robert Gower and encourages a growth mindset in students. I provide this form to my students every single time I assign a paper and am always pleasantly surprised at how honest they are in their responses, especially as the incentive for guessing their grade is 2 bonus points! ____________________________________________________________________________ Also, check out this great lesson plan for teaching Effective Effort by Language Arts Excellence: ⭐Effective Effort Lesson Plan ____________________________________________________________________________ ⭐Click to Follow Language Arts Excellence⭐