Text-Based Informational Essay Writing Prompt | Hurricanes

This upper elementary Common Core-aligned writing resource provides informative writing prompts and articles for students to use in writing an expository essay on hurricanes. Students will complete a text-dependent analysis by using information from 15 different articles (links included!) to support their response to one of the two informative writing prompts. This resource also has a digital Google Slides version that can be used during distance learning!

How to use this in your classroom:

• Choose one or more of the paired articles to have students read and annotate.
• Choose one of the prompts for your students to answer, and the corresponding planning sheets and graphic organizers.
• Students will use evidence from the article(s) to support their thinking as they plan, gather informational support, and fill out the scaffolded essay outline.
• Using the outline, students will be able to easily format and write their essay to be revised and edited, before transferring it to the included final draft paper.

This informative essay resource includes: 

• Teacher directions
• Transition word lists
• Writing prompts (two different prompts included)
• Essay brainstorming sheets
• Informational Essay Graphic Organizers (several versions of the outline)
• Rubric for easy grading
• Blank versions of each page so that you can differentiate to fit the needs of your students
• DIGITAL Google Slides versions of each page with text boxes for students to type
• Links to articles that can be printed at different Lexile levels 

This resource is easily differentiated with the different versions of each page and the graphic organizers can be used to plan out ANY informational essay which makes them great to use again and again in your classroom! 

All links to articles that can be used with this product have been provided. However, please be aware that the website that some of the articles are hosted on has changed, so some of the articles require you to have a membership, but many that I've included links to are still free!

Need more than the prompts?  Check out this complete research paper unit for upper elementary! 

Research Paper | Distance Learning & EDITABLE

TEACHERS LIKE YOU SAID…

⭐ A fifth-grade teacher said, “This was a perfect way to teach my students to write an informational text. It was easy to follow for students and many of them made comments on how they liked the format. It takes the guesswork out of writing. Thank you!” 

⭐ A fourth-grade teacher said, “This is one of the best writing products I have ever purchased from TpT! I love that it is a text-based prompt with so many text options to choose from depending on the needs of your specific students. I also love how detailed the pre-writing tools are to help students organize their essays. For 4th graders who are just beginning to write multi-paragraph essays, this is literally the PERFECT tool to help them develop their writing skills. Thank you so much!”