Less than $5 Writing-Essays Handouts (by date, oldest first)

Looking to help your students master the passive voice for standardized tests like the STAAR? This 16-page resource is your go-to guide for teaching passive voice with a gradual increase in complexity.

Start with the basics of identifying subjects and verbs in sentences, then progress to understanding direct objects and other key components essential for a full grasp of passive voice. This packet is designed to make learning passive voice engaging and effective.

Included are:

• 5 Pages of handouts to make sure to make sure students understand each part of passive voice.
• Practice pages that progressively challenge students, ensuring they can identify and use passive voice with confidence.
• Exercises in evaluating and revising sentences, crucial for mastering the revising sections of tests.
• 2 editing passages for applied practice, perfect for honing skills in a test-like environment.

Ideal for both classroom use and independent practice, this resource is an excellent tool for students in middle and high school.

An easy to read format to get your students writing!

And check out these other resources!

• All Things English For Middle & High School Students
• Defending Disney Villains
• Revising & Editing Workbook
• Revising & Editing for Group Lessons
• Bell Ringers for the Semester
• Everything Writing

• 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.

Graphic organizers can be helpful as a visual aid when students are writing.

• Helps students focus on their thoughts for planning, decision-making, and writing an essay

• Helps students see the connections, patterns, and relationships between facts, concepts, and ideas 

• Organizers provide a visual depiction for writers by showing them where each piece of the essay is placed within an essay

Persuasive essay maps are used as a visual aid to map out points and arguments for a persuasive essay or debate.

• 1st - determine your claim or thesis
• 2nd - identify three (3) reasons to support the claim or thesis
• 3rd - identify three (3) facts or examples to validate each reason

I hope your students/children enjoy this concept map by understanding the importance of why a graphic organizer is needed, as well as understanding the variables of a concept map.

The Persuasive Essay Map is in Google Slides, Powerpoint, and PDF formats.

Happy Writing!

Tina Arozena

Big Easy Homeschooling Mom

Graphic organizers can be helpful as a visual aid when students are writing.

• Helps students focus on their thoughts for planning, decision-making, and writing an essay

• Helps students see the connections, patterns, and relationships between facts, concepts, and ideas 

• Organizers provide a visual depiction for writers by showing them where each piece of the essay is placed within an essay

Spider maps are used to display the main concept or idea in a circle in the middle of the map and supporting ideas branch off from the main concept circle.

I hope your students/children enjoy this concept map by understanding the importance of why a graphic organizer is needed, as well as understanding the variables of a concept map.

The Spider Map is in Google Slides, Powerpoint, and PDF formats.

Happy Writing!

Tina Arozena

Big Easy Homeschooling Mom

Graphic organizers can be helpful as a visual aid when students are writing.

• Helps students focus on their thoughts for planning, decision-making, and writing an essay

• Helps students see the connections, patterns, and relationships between facts, concepts, and ideas 

• Organizers provide a visual depiction for writers by showing them where each piece of the essay is placed within an essay

Narrative plot graphic organizer:

• Starts with the introduction or exposition
• Followed by the rising action of the story
• Rising action hits a climax
• After the climax is the falling action
• From the falling action, we come to the conclusion

I hope your students/children enjoy this concept map by understanding the importance of why a graphic organizer is needed, as well as understanding the variables of a concept map.

The Narrative Plot Graphic Organizer is in Google Slides, Powerpoint, and PDF formats.

Happy Writing!

Tina Arozena

Big Easy Homeschooling Mom

This word sleuth will provide your students/children with a fun journey in writing ELA Essays with key vocabulary words. It can be done in class, centers, or as a fun homework assignment.

Word sleuth is in PPTX format along with the answer key.

If you and your students/children, enjoy this activity, please go to your purchases and let me a review.

Please follow me on social media: linktr.ee/tidewindacademy

Tina

Big Easy Homeschooling Mom

Graphic organizers can be helpful in being visual aids when students are writing.

• Helps students focus on their thoughts for planning, decision-making, and writing an essay

• Helps students see the connections, patterns, and relationships between facts, concepts, and ideas 

• Organizers provide a visual depiction for writers by showing them where each piece of the essay is placed within an essay

Concept maps are used to display a main idea within the concept and the different ideas that branch out from the main idea.

I hope your students/children enjoy this concept map by understanding the importance of why a graphic organizer is needed, as well as understanding the variables of a concept map.

Concept map is in Google Slides, Powerpoint, and PDF formats.

Happy Writing!

Tina Arozena

Big Easy Homeschooling Mom

Graphic organizers are helpful as a visual aid when students are writing.

-Helps students focus on their thoughts for planning, decision-making, and writing an essay

-Helps students see the connections, patterns, and relationships between facts, concepts, and ideas

-Organizers provide a visual depiction for writers by showing them where each piece of the essay is placed within an essay

Opinion Writing Graphic Organizer:

-Introduction

-1st, 2nd & 3rd reason you disagree

-Counterargument with 3 opposing views

-Rebuttal to opposing views

-Conclusion

I hope your students/children enjoy this concept map by understanding the importance of why a graphic organizer is needed, as well as understanding the variables of a concept map.

The Opinion Writing Graphic Organizer is in Google Slides, PowerPoint, and PDF formats.

Happy Writing!

Tina Arozena

Big Easy Homeschooling Mom

Graphic organizers can be helpful in being visual aids when students are writing.

• Helps students focus on their thoughts for planning, decision-making, and writing an essay

• Helps students see the connections, patterns, and relationships between facts, concepts, and ideas 

• Organizers provide a visual depiction for writers by showing them where each piece of the essay is placed within an essay

Venn Diagrams show the relationship between two ideas. A venn diagram can have two or more circles. When the circles overlap, the venn diagram shows the similarities between the two or more ideas. In the spaces where the circles do not overlap, it shows the differences between the two or more ideas.

I hope your students/children enjoy this compare & contrast by understanding the importance of why a graphic organizer is needed, as well as understanding the variables of a Venn Diagram.

Venn Diagram Graphic Organizer is in Google Slides, Powerpoint, and PDF formats.

Happy Writing!

Tina Arozena

Big Easy Homeschooling Mom

Follow me on social media:

Social Media Links

Graphic organizers can be helpful in being visual aids when students are writing.

• Helps students focus on their thoughts for planning, decision-making, and writing an essay

• Helps students see the connections, patterns, and relationships between facts, concepts, and ideas 

• Organizers provide a visual depiction for writers by showing them where each piece of the essay is placed within an essay

Bubble maps are used to display two different main ideas, their similarities, and their differences.

I hope your students/children enjoy this bubble map by understanding the importance of why a graphic organizer is needed, as well as understanding the variables of a bubble map.

Bubble map is in Google Slides, Powerpoint, and PDF formats.

Happy Writing!

Tina Arozena

Big Easy Homeschooling Mom

Follow me on social media:

Social Media Links

Explain the effects of cell phone addiction. This is an informative essay prompt, two articles, a graph, and outline sheet. Your kids will all learn something about cell phones that they may never thought of before. This comes complete with rubric

This includes two Articles "How do hurricanes form? A step-by-step guide" and "How Do Hurricanes Form?" plus a graph titled "Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale" . After reading these two articles students are given a prompt for an expository essay on how hurricanes are formed. There is also an outline sheet included for students to use in order to help them organize their essay. Plus a rubric for easy grading of final essay.

***** Check out my other Writing Resources*****

Writing Thesis Statements

Counterclaim and Rebuttal

Writing Graphic Organizers

Interactive Essay Writing Flipbook

Argumentative Essay

Essay prompt and articles :Narcissism

Essay prompt and articles: Colonization in Africa

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

Looking for more argumentative prompts with articles?

Minimum Wage - Argumentative prompt, articles, and outline sheet

Facebook: Argumentative prompt, articles, and outline sheet

Did Shakespeare write his own stuff?:Argumentative prompt, articles, and rubric.

Should Schools Ban Soda? - Argumentative prompt, articles, and outline sheet

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

This includes two Articles "The History of Narcissistic

Personality Disorder" and "Selfies, Facebook, and Narcissism: What's the Link? Exploring the link between Facebook and Narcissism" plus a graph titled "College Students' Narcissistic Personality Inventory Scores 1982-2006" . After reading these two articles students are given a prompt for an expository essay on narcissism. There is also an outline sheet included for students to use in order to help them organize their essay. Plus a rubric for easy grading of final essay.

***** Check out my other Writing Resources*****

Counterclaim and Rebuttal

Interactive Essay Writing Flipbook

Argumentative Essay

Writing Thesis Statements

Essay prompt and articles: Hurricanes

Essay prompt and articles: Colonization in Africa

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

Looking for more argumentative prompts with articles?

Minimum Wage - Argumentative prompt, articles, and outline sheet

Facebook: Argumentative prompt, articles, and outline sheet

Did Shakespeare write his own stuff?:Argumentative prompt, articles, and rubric.

Should Schools Ban Soda? - Argumentative prompt, articles, and outline sheet

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

Looking for more argumentative prompts with articles?

Minimum Wage - Argumentative prompt, articles, and outline sheet

Facebook: Argumentative prompt, articles, and outline sheet

Did Shakespeare write his own stuff?:Argumentative prompt, articles, and rubric.

Should Schools Ban Soda? - Argumentative prompt, articles, and outline sheet

Interactive essay writing flip book is a great reference and a guide to help students with writing essays. Includes methods and examples for introductions, transition words, citing evidence, body paragraphs, counterclaim and rebuttal, and conclusions. It cuts down the process of writing an essay step-by- step to help students understand and be able to apply the skills on their own. ***** Check out my other Writing Resources***** Writing Thesis Statements Counterclaim and Rebuttal Writing Graphic Organizers Argumentative Essay Essay prompt and articles :Narcissism Essay prompt and articles: Hurricanes Essay prompt and articles: Colonization in Africa

This is a prompt with three sources. Students must respond to what are the effects which colonization has had on Africa. Rubric and Outline sheet are included. Great prompt for high school students.

***** Check out my other Writing Resources*****

Counterclaim and Rebuttal

Writing Graphic Organizers

Interactive Essay Writing Flipbook

Argumentative Essay

Essay prompt and articles :Narcissism

Essay prompt and articles: Hurricanes