Developing essay-writing skills at secondary

Hand-picked skills guides, lessons and tools to support secondary students as they tackle essay writing in any subject area

Tes Resources Team

Secondary student practising their essay writing skills with a range of supportive resources including essay writing guides, sentence starters and supportive worksheets

Take students through the steps to effective essay writing in any subject with these skills guides, lessons and supporting tools

Most students have a love-hate relationship with essay writing. They recognise that it’s one of the best vehicles through which to demonstrate their understanding of a particular topic or subject area, but crafting an essay can take a long time.

Why not make the prospect less daunting with this collection of hand-picked guides, lesson ideas and top tools to help learners to develop their skills, and their confidence, at each stage of the essay-writing process?

Essay writing guides and lessons

Essay Writing Toolkit
mikegershon

Essay Writing Toolkit

FREE
(138)
A comprehensive guide to essay writing. The toolkit contains over 50 activities to help students improve their essays, as well as a wealth of other information, ideas and links. All aspects of essay writing are covered and the material is suitable for use across Key Stages 3,4 and 5.
Discursive Essay Writing for GCSE: Revision Sheet
shd132

Discursive Essay Writing for GCSE: Revision Sheet

£2.25
(2)
A two-page guide to writing a discursive essay. The topics covered are: 1) The purpose and content of the introduction 2) The role of topic sentences 3) Different forms of evidence 4) Concluding sentences 5) The use of counterargument 6) The content and purpose of the conclusion ...
How to write an essay
anna jordan

How to write an essay

FREE
(22)
How I help students write essays, from KS3 to 6th form. I've tried to make it as much a step by step guide as I can. It is quite detailed, but has examples to clarify.

Sentence starters and vocab mats

Historical Writing Mat
HistoricalPath

Historical Writing Mat

£2.00
(1)
Key vocabulary mat sheet Words to improve historical writing Pupils to use for - Describing History, Explaining History and Making judgements in History
61 Formal Discourse Marker List
StephBee

61 Formal Discourse Marker List

FREE
(3)
Discourse markers list with 61 discourse markers and linkers to help students write and improve structural features in GCSE English. This discourse marker cheat sheet can be used as a classroom poster for connectives, as part of a discourse markers lesson activity or as student revision sheet for d...
PEE Paragraph Sentence Starters
alexandrajoannebrazier

PEE Paragraph Sentence Starters

£3.00
(1)
Used for both Key Stages 3 and 4 in English Language. Designed to be printed double sided (PEE on one side, connectives on reverse, same with writing and vocabulary) for students to use during assessment/guided writing. I have them printed in colour on card and laminated for my classroom and it's a ...

Classroom displays and student handouts

Writing Purposes - Helpsheets/Posters for Literacy and English
TandLGuru

Writing Purposes - Helpsheets/Posters for Literacy and English

£1.00
(4)
These handy helpsheets have been employed by teachers across the curriculum to aid students completing extended writing tasks for a particular purpose. There are helpsheets for: \- Informing \- Describing \- Analysing \- Arguing \- Explaining \- Evaluating \- Persuading \- Instructin...
Display- Write like an Historian- History Essay writing
mossa

Display- Write like an Historian- History Essay writing

FREE
(2)
This is a powerpoint to print as a display or could just be shared with your ALevel, GCSE and KS3 History students of useful words to improve the quality and precision of their writing. The words are themed e.g. useful words to use for cause, for adding an additional point or argument, for change ...
Analytical Verbs Wall Display
miss_literature

Analytical Verbs Wall Display

FREE
(1)
A collection of 60 different analytical verbs used to create a word wall to support students with their analytical writing. My classes have found have this wall display incredibly helpful when writing essays and they need inspiration to vary their use of analytical verbs to help strengthen their work.
FREE Signposting Posters for Classroom Display
James Heafield

FREE Signposting Posters for Classroom Display

FREE
(2)
**10 Free Signposting and Key Words/Phrase Posters to make a Classroom Display** This display will help students with essay writing in a number of subjects including Religious Studies, Philosophy & Ethics, Politics, History & English.