Guided Writing Activities Teaching Resources
Get guided writing activities, prompts, and more to help your students develop their writing muscles in your classroom. This elementary school teaching resource collection was created by the expert ELA teachers on the Teach Starter team.
These curriculum-aligned resources will save you time on your ELA lesson plans with classroom-ready printable and digital worksheets and activities that you can edit to differentiate instruction for individual learners.
What Is Guided Writing?
Guided writing is a technique used to help individuals improve their writing skills by providing them with a structure or set of guidelines to follow while they write. This can include prompts, examples, or specific instructions to help the writer focus their thoughts and organize their ideas more effectively. The goal of guided writing is to help the writer improve their writing skills and develop their own unique style over time.
What Does Guided Writing Look Like in the Classroom?
In a classroom setting, guided writing typically involves you, the teacher, providing students with a specific topic or prompt to write about, along with a set of guidelines or instructions to follow. This could include a specific word count, a specific format (such as a persuasive essay or a descriptive paragraph), or a set of key points that the student should address in their writing.
You may also provide examples of well-written pieces that students can use as a model for their own writing as well as giving feedback on the students' writing so that they can improve their writing skills.
Guided writing can take place in a whole-class setting, where a teacher leads the class through the writing process, or in small groups or one-on-one sessions where a teacher can provide more personalized instruction and feedback.
How Does Guided Writing Help Students Improve Their Writing?
Not sure if you want to add guided writing to your instruction techniques? Our teacher team has dug through the educational research on the topic for a more in-depth view.
Research has found that guided writing can be effective in improving various aspects of students' writing skills. For example, studies have shown that guided writing can:
- Improve students' writing fluency, increasing their ability to generate written text quickly and easily
- Enhance students' writing accuracy, including improved grammar, spelling, and punctuation
- Increase students' writing complexity, helping students achieve a higher level of sophistication and maturity in their writing.
- Help students develop a greater sense of self-efficacy
- Encourage students' motivation to write
- Facilitate the provision of feedback and support from the teacher
Of course, the effectiveness of guided writing will depend on the specific approach and context in which it is implemented. For example, some research has suggested that guided writing may be more effective when it is used in conjunction with other writing instruction methods, such as independent writing, peer review, and self-reflection.
In general, when guided writing is well-designed, it can be an effective tool for improving students' writing skills, but we suggest using it as part of a comprehensive writing instruction program.
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Google Slides Interactive- Past, Present, and Future Verbs Activity
Develop student skills using the correct forms of past, present, and future tense verbs with this Google Slides Interactive activity.
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Amelia Earhart Constructed Response Worksheet
Use this passage, second grade writing prompt, and worksheet to help students write a constructed response paragraph about Amelia Earhart.
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Complete and Incomplete Sentence Task Cards
These task cards are best used as independent practice or formative assessment assignments during sentence structure lessons.
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Simple, Compound and Complex Sentences Worksheets
Use this set of five grammar worksheets to teach about the structures of simple, compound and complex sentences.
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What's Missing? - Alphabet Worksheet
A set of worksheets to practice writing the letters of the alphabet in order.
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Write About It! Winter Sentence Builder Pack
Differentiate writing instruction in primary grades with a group of leveled informational writing prompts about winter
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Persuasive Writing Planning Template
A planning template to use when writing a persuasive or opinion text.
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Super Synonyms List
Boost your students’ vocabularies with a synonyms list to reference in their daily writing lessons.
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Daily Grammar - Sentence Structure Warm-Ups – Grades 3 and 4
An engaging 40-slide interactive Google Slides deck to use in grades 3 and 4 when learning about grammar and sentence structure.
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Using a Thesaurus - Worksheets and Anchor Charts
Practice using a thesaurus with a printable thesaurus anchor chart and differentiated practice worksheets.
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Christmas Writing Prompts for Beginning Writers
Celebrate Christmas time and practice those writing skills with your young sentence writers.
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Write About It! How to Cook a Turkey
Bring Thanksgiving dinner into the classroom with a group of leveled informational writing prompts about turkey!
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Find What Doesn’t Fit: Relevant Details Worksheet
Practice determining what details are relevant and irrelevant to a topic while providing a purposeful context.
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Past, Present, and Future Tense Worksheets - Grades 1/2
Provide students with additional verb tense practice with worksheets focusing on changing verbs into past, present, and future tense.
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Dressing Up A Sentence - Interactive or Printable Activity
Encourage students to add more descriptive language into their sentence writing with this activity.
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Narrative Writing Word Wall
A set of 44 vocabulary words related to narrative texts and narrative writing.
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Simple, Compound, and Complex Sentences PowerPoint
A 23-slide editable PowerPoint template that introduces simple, compound, and complex sentences.
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Read and Draw a Story Worksheets
Practice reading comprehension with kindergarten and first-grade students with a set of Read and Draw comprehension worksheets.
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Adverbs Match-Up
Skip those comparative and superlative adverb worksheets and try out an adverb matching game.
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In My Classroom Concept Book
A printable concept book for children to discuss things around their classroom.
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Guided Writing Groups - Progress Tracker
Track student progress during guided writing sessions with this template.
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Opinion Writing Anchor Chart - Letter Writing
Demonstrate writing a persuasive letter with an opinion writing anchor chart.
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Benjamin Franklin - Constructed Response Worksheet
Learn facts about Benjamin Franklin with an informational reading and writing activity focusing on the constructed response format.
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Brainstorming for Essays Worksheet
A worksheet to practice using Venn diagrams, mind maps, and cause and effect maps to brainstorm for various essays.
- Guided Writing Activities Games
- Guided Writing Activities Templates
- Guided Writing Activities Writing Templates
- Guided Writing Activities Worksheets
- Guided Writing Activities Interactive Activities
- Guided Writing Activities Task Cards
- Guided Writing Activities Sorting Activities
- Guided Writing Activities Word Walls
- Guided Writing Activities Posters
- Guided Writing Activities Instructional Slide Decks
- Guided Writing Activities Graphic Organizers
- Guided Writing Activities Dominoes
- Guided Writing Activities Board Games
- Guided Writing Activities Matchup Games
- Guided Writing Activities Bingo
- Guided Writing Activities Labels Signs Decorations
- Guided Writing Activities Craft Activities
- Guided Writing Activities Mini Book
- Guided Writing Activities Checklists
- Guided Writing Activities Bulletin Board Displays
- Guided Writing Activities Card Games
- Guided Writing Activities Writing Checklist
- Guided Writing Activities Dice Games
- Guided Writing Activities Color by Code
- Guided Writing Activities Projects
- Guided Writing Activities Active Games
- Guided Writing Activities Cut and Paste Worksheets
- Guided Writing Activities Flashcards
- Guided Writing Activities for Pre-K
- Guided Writing Activities for Kindergarten
- Guided Writing Activities for 1st Grade
- Guided Writing Activities for 2nd Grade
- Guided Writing Activities for 3rd Grade
- Guided Writing Activities for 4th Grade
- Guided Writing Activities for 5th Grade
- Guided Writing Activities for 6th Grade