Lesson 18 — Activity 1: Writing the Rough Draft


In this lesson, you will put all of the content of the previous lessons to work by writing an essay on a topic of your choice.

You may use the topic you planned in L17-A3 or perhaps you would prefer to start from scratch with a completely new topic.


When you have completed your planning, you can begin writing a rough draft.



Regardless of which option you choose, here is a reminder of the steps to follow to work through the planning for an essay:

Decide on your purpose:
  • What is your topic? What do you want to write about and what is the main point you want to make about the topic?

Decide on your audience:
  • In addition to your teacher and classmates, who do you think would be interested in reading your essay?

Decide on your format:
  • You are writing an essay, but what kind of essay will it be? Are you writing to explain, describe, persuade, or share a story about a personal experience?


Develop a plan for your essay:
  • Decide on your main point and the three (or more) key ideas that support or explain your main point.
  • Use a planner or graphic organizer that will allow you to see if your ideas are going to be clearly explained to your reader in a logical manner.

Another example of a planner for an essay.


Decide if you need to do some research in order to have support for the ideas you want to share with your reader.

  • Think about where you can get the information and how you will show the reader that your sources of information are believable and reliable.
  • Remember to include a bibliography if you do research for your essay.

Once you have done your preparation and planning, you are ready to write a rough draft of your essay.

Remember the five-paragraph-essay structure:


  • Introduce your topic in your first paragraph.
  • Use each of your three body paragraphs (or more, if you have more than three main supporting ideas) to develop support for your main point.
  • Use your conclusion to summarize your support and show how it reflects your main point.

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