Brainstorming academic writing cause/effect IELTS argumentative essay narrative essay descriptive essay comparison/contrast essay
Graphic Organizers/Pre-Writing Ideas
and Essay Writing Resources for teachers

Brainstorm worksheet: cluster diagram (PDF)

Outline worksheet for an academic paragraph (PDF)

Holt Rinehart and Winston samples: Graphic Organizers
(one of the most  useful resources  on the Net for encouraging critical thinking foracademic essays)

More Graphical Organizers for Essays

Collection of  10 basic paragraph writing
lessons for ESL students (PDF)

Essay Writing Outlines

Essay outline exercise (PDF):three important qualities necessary in a good boss. and
opinion essay exercise (PDF)

General Essay Outline (PDF)

Blank Essay Outline(word doc)

Brainstorming an Essay (PDF)

OUP Explorations 1 workbook sample- pre-writing strategies..quickwriting, cluster diagrams etc. (PDF)

Comparison/contrast outline (pdf)

Cause/Effect Outline (pdf)

Introductions, attention getters/grabbers / leads /hooks for  elementary essay writing students

Using pictures to teach attention getters (PDF)

Essay outline exercise (PDF)

Writing catchy introductions worksheet  (PDF)

Writing Your Introduction: 4 styles with examples

9 ways of  "getting the reader’s attention"

The introduction should be designed to attract the reader's attention and give them an idea of the essay's main argument (examples)

6 choices for your introduction (PDF handout
with examples)

Sentence writing exercises

Mark the correct parallel sentence a or b (PDF)

Incomplete sentences and other sentence
writing exercises (PDF)

4  different kinds of  parallel structure recognition
exercises for parallel structure ***

3 kinds of faulty parallelism exercises

Rewrite the sentences so they are parallel (PDF)

Read through the parallel series below and circle the element in each that is not parallel

Read the following example sentences and revise any that do not use parallel structure PDF)

Rewrite the faulty sentences using parallel structure
(advanced) (word)

Faulty Parallelism: correct the faulty parallelism in the following sentences.(PDF)


Exercises for topic  & support sentences

Writing support sentences for an opinion paragraph
about television with pictures (PDF)

Writing topic sentences and  detail sentences
lesson (PDF)

Write a topic sentence for each of these paragraphs.
(PDF)

Underline the topic sentence-winter sports (PDF)

Write and find topic sentences (PDF)

Choose the best topic sentence for the paragraph.
(PDF)

Writing exciting paragraphs (PDF)

Fill in each blank with the topic sentence (word)

Write support sentences (PDF)

Exercise for filling in paragraph topic and support details (PDF)

Thesis sentence, topic sentence, supporting
sentences exercises (word)

Put a ring around the letter that corresponds to what you think is the topic sentence(PDF)

Write topic sentences for paragraphs-business
related (PDF)

Choose the best topic sentence and concluding sentence (PDF)

For each limited topic below, select the two items that could serve as topic sentences

Rewrite the following paragraphs by joining simple sentences into complex and compound ones

One sentence in each of the following pairs is the topic sentence. (PDF)

Exercises for writing topic and support sentences


Finding & writing the main idea in paragraphs

Writing main ideas practice- with picture cues (PDF)

Writing the main idea for medical topics
with picture cues (PDF)

Guessing the main idea of each paragraph (word)
and other main idea exercises (click here)

Main idea paragraph exercises (word)

Write the main idea for groups of words (word)

Write the common subject for each group of words (or "write a good title for each list").

Read the short paragraphs and select the main idea

Finding, underlining and writing the main idea


Introductory/elementary writing activities

Elementary sentence writing worksheets (PDF)

Writing simple sentences worksheet (PDF)

Describing a person
model (PDF)
worksheet (PDF)

Describing a Room: vocabulary & worksheets
model (PDF)
worksheet (PDF)

Describing How to Get to a Shop or Restaurant
model (PDF)
worksheet (PDF)