Essay Writing Curriculum - How to Write Opinion Narrative College Essays

Use these 9 universal PBL essay and letter writing projects to develop writing, research, and civics skills in your ELA, Social Studies, College Writing, or Business class!

These writing kits come in both print PDF and paperless Google files for your flexibility!

Greatness is practicing the invaluable skill base of communicating effectively.

These projects are print-and-go and perfect for so many uses -- unit project, course capstone project, choice board, or a self-contained writing course!

Each kit includes everything you need -- from step-by-step project coversheets and brainstorming outlines to annotated samples and performance reflections is included in each kit.

Included real-world writing kits:

• Interview Narrative Essay: preserve an oral history or meaningful conversation
• Letter to the Editor: share a viewpoint with the local community
• Letter to an Elected Official: persuade the government to change
• Business Letter: encourage a company to make a change
• Op-Ed Essay: express one's unique point of view to the world
• Personal Statement: make a strong impression on college admissions
• Position Paper: perfect the argumentative 5-paragraph essay
• Thank You Note Card Letter: write notes of gratitude and kindness
• Reflection Essay: culminate a large project or course with meaningful reflection

Each project kit comes with:

• Step-by-step direction sheets, perfect for checking off and student planning
• Overview sheet with a broad and specific context and directions for the finished product
• Brainstorm and outline sheets to fine-tune those great ideas
• Annotated sample sheets, providing clear examples and sentence starter stems
• Peer / Self Edit sheets to improve their rough drafts
• Rubric sheets to reflect and score against standards
• Research sheets to investigate and record findings
• BONUS skill sheet handouts, covering need-to-do skills like finding quality sources and annotating a citation
• Both PDF and Google files versions of all student sheets

Note: student worksheets are available as print PDF and editable Google Docs; reference sheets are available as print PDF and uneditable Google Slides

Tips from My Classroom

These writing-centered projects make up the bulk of the authentic products my students perform as the culmination of our content units in my PBL classroom. Really any topic can easily be made PBL with some creativity!

• We learn what it means to be an American hero, then we research and write to someone we believe fits the definition, thanking them for their contributions.
  
• We explore the democratic practices of the federal government, then interview community members asking for their perspectives.
  
• We study for and take the US Naturalization Test then write an impassioned and informed Op-Ed essay to the local paper regarding the debate about making it a high school graduation requirement.

Arm your students with a writing toolkit and they can move the world. Just guide from the side with this collection of universal project packs that can be tied to any unit of study!

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask! I am thrilled to share my love of project-based learning to cultivate the next generation of doers!

This listing is for one license for regular, non-commercial classroom use by a single teacher only. Commercial use like online teaching (ex. Outschool) or sharing with other teachers (ex. shared drive, in a Facebook group, in a professional development training) is strictly prohibited.

By purchasing a license to this resource, you have access to all future updates at no cost, available under “My Purchases." Multiple and transferable licenses are available for purchase. PDF files are uneditable, other files have editing abilities, unless otherwise stated. All files are protected under federal copyright laws.

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