Back to School Opinion Writing Prompts - Teaching Made Practical

Back to School opinion writing prompts / essay topics for 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade

Back to school season offers opportunities for some engaging opinion writing and is a great way to collect a writing sample from your new 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade students. Use the back to school opinion writing prompts below as inspiration.

If you find that your upper elementary students are lacking some opinion writing skills, these opinion writing tips and paragraph frames can help provide scaffolding.

1. MOST IMPORTANT CHARACTER TRAIT

Start the year off by having students think about what character traits they like in others. You can have students think about this in a general sense, or have them think more deeply about what character trait is most important in specific people. For example:

the most important character trait in a teacher
the most important character trait in a student
the most important character trait in a friend

This is a great writing prompt to help set a positive tone for the year while practicing writing and character traits. It also helps cultivate a culture of kindness in your classroom.

2. MOST IMPORTANT RULE

This back to school opinion writing prompt pairs well with lessons on your classroom rules and procedures. As a class, brainstorm a list of classroom rules or procedures. Then, have your students do some opinion writing on which rule is most important.

3. FAVORITE MOVIE, TV SHOW, BOOK...

Have students think about their favorite TV show, movie or book that they watched / read over the summer and write about it, explaining why it was the best.

Help your students be successful with their opinion writing with these no prep opinion writing templates. They walk students through the entire writing process and include paragraph frames for additional support.

No prep opinion writing template for 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade

4. WHAT I WISH I COULD CHANGE ABOUT SCHOOL

Have your students write a short opinion essay on one thing they wish they could change about school. Students will enjoy this prompt, and it might provide some valuable insight for you as well! While some students will probably choose things that you can't change, like better cafeteria food or starting school later, some students might offer up thoughtful ideas.

5. FAVORITE THING ABOUT SCHOOL

Some of your 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade students were probably eager to come back to school, but others would happily do summer break all year long. Have these students reflect on something good about school and write an opinion piece explaining what their favorite thing about school is and why.

6. KINDEST THING SOMEONE DID

People of all ages would benefit by spending more time celebrating the kindness they see in others. Have your upper elementary students think about all the kind things people did during the summer break and explain which action was the kindest and why. Reflecting on the kind actions of others will hopefully spur them on to more kindness themselves.

You might also like these other back to school writing ideas and activities.

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