Writing-Essays Centers

Transform your students’ writing skills with this STAAR ECR Mastery Resource, designed to make essay writing both engaging and effective for grades 6-8. This product breaks down the often overwhelming task of essay writing into clear, manageable steps, ensuring that your students feel confident and prepared for the Extended Constructed Response (ECR) section of the STAAR exam. Whether for classroom instruction, intervention, or test prep, this resource delivers everything you need to support your students in writing strong, structured essays.

✅ Thorough Skill Development Across 3 Days

This 3-day lesson plan guides students through each critical step of informational essay writing. Starting with a solid foundation in developing a thesis, students will then practice writing claims, supporting them with evidence, and providing sound reasoning. By the end of the unit, students will have completed a full-length informational essay on a highly engaging topic—Fortnite—a subject that captures their attention while reinforcing essential writing skills.

✅ Engaging and Interactive Resources

To maintain student engagement, this resource includes interactive slides that break down each element of essay writing. These slides are designed to support all learners by making the concepts of thesis development, claims, evidence, and reasoning more accessible and relatable. The step-by-step instructions and accompanying answer keys ensure that students receive clear feedback and can refine their skills with guided practice.

✅ Real-World Topic for Practice

Students will have the opportunity to write a complete essay on Fortnite, a popular video game that they are likely familiar with and excited to discuss. This essay topic makes practicing the skills they need for STAAR ECR a fun, relevant experience, allowing them to see the real-world application of writing techniques.

✅ Key Features of the Resource:

• Full 3-Day Lesson Plan: Walks you through each stage of essay instruction, from teaching concepts to peer review and revision.
• Comprehensive Essay Practice: A full-length essay assignment on Fortnite to engage students while practicing thesis, claims, evidence, and reasoning.
• Interactive Slides: Detailed slides to introduce and guide each stage of writing, ensuring clarity and engagement.
• Answer Keys: Provided for every activity so that students can receive clear, actionable feedback.
• Test Prep and Intervention: Ideal for helping students strengthen their essay writing skills, both for general classroom use and targeted interventions.

✅ Perfect for Test Prep and Classroom Instruction

This resource is perfect for helping students master the skills needed to succeed on the STAAR Extended Constructed Response. Whether used for whole-class instruction or focused intervention, the STAAR ECR Mastery Resource delivers everything you need to elevate your students' essay writing abilities.

Prepare your students for STAAR writing success with a resource that not only builds essential writing skills but also keeps them engaged and excited to learn. Perfect for middle school teachers looking for practical, engaging ways to improve writing outcomes.

Additional STAAR resources:

ECR Relay Race: Engaging STAAR Writing Prep Grades 5-8 Comprehension 12 Prompts!

Thanksgiving Argument Writing Unit Debate Topics & Lesson Plans 4 STAAR ECRs

Get your students writing at a higher level by offering them a colorful and coordinated reference for your Writing Center!! This reference guide is ideal for middle school students to use during independent writing assignments. Whether it is class work, center work, writing workshop, or homework, it provides quality writing The pages can be placed in a folder, booklet, or even displayed in a writing center. It helps eliminate questions and shows students ways to write effectively. This is going to help your students work independently while writing. This product is geared toward middle school but can also be used in upper elementary. I make a bunch of these Writing Tools Folders and keep them in my Writing Center and love how it helps students become more organized and independent while writing.

This resource includes 8 Anchor Charts and 3 Cover Page Options

Character Traits which comes in 4 different colors with chevron and swirls styles. The chart contains over 100 character traits that students can use to refer to during various writing activities.

Elaboration Stems which features writing stems students can use while elaborating on evidence in their essays. This chart is essential because students can refer to them while writing but gradually start incorporating them as it becomes a force of habit.

**Other Ways to Say...**which offers students multiple synonyms for overused words such as happy or sad. Great for displaying in your writing center!

Transitions which includes a strong set of transitions every writer should be using to aid in the flow of their writing, whether it's for emphasizing, giving an example or concluding an essay!

Said is Dead! which features other words for said, which is terribly overused in my classroom when there are tons of better choices!

Use This...Not That! which features better word choices for commonly used words and expressions.

Mood...which offers a great choice of words that depict either a positive, negative, or neutral mood!

Tone...which offers a great choice of words that depict either a positive, negative, or neutral tone!

⭐️ LOOKING FOR MORE RELATABLE ACTIVITIES FOR TEENS?

Check out the Pop Culture ACTIVITY BUNDLE - your solution to no-stress lesson planning and easy print and go sub plans.

INCLUDES THESE HIGH-INTEREST TOPICS FOR TEENS...

⭐️ Crocs

⭐️ Netflix

⭐️ Takis

⭐️ Fortnite

⭐️ MrBeast

⭐️ Air Jordans

⭐️ TikTok

⭐️ OpenAI

6-Page Article & Activity Sets - Includes 8 Sets!

Each set includes...

► 1-page pop culture article

► Reading Comprehension - 7 multiple choice questions

► Critical Thinking - 5 short answer questions

► Crossword Puzzle

► Design Page

► Impossible MAZE

This Pop Culture Bundle for Middle School will make your students WANT to work and stay on task as they read about high-interest trending topics among teens. Also available for High School and Upper Elementary School.

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**For personal and single classroom use only. If using with multiple classrooms, please purchase additional licenses at the discounted rate.**

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Help your students master CVC words with this ultimate bundles CVC Unscramble Sentences with short vowels Fix-It, Write-It, Cut-and-Paste, and Draw-It Worksheets! This resource is packed with engaging activities designed to improve early reading, writing, and sentence-building skills, perfect for kindergarten and 1st-grade learners.

Each worksheet includes:

• Unscramble Sentences featuring CVC words to practice correct word order.
• A Fix-It section where students correct capitalization and punctuation.
• A Write-It section for students to rewrite the sentence independently.
• A Cut-and-Paste activity where students cut out words and rearrange them into a complete sentence.
• A Draw-It activity that encourages students to draw a picture related to the unscrambled sentence.

These hands-on activities are great for literacy centers, independent work, or morning tasks. Your students will have fun while strengthening their understanding of CVC words and sentence structure!