7th Grade Writing Practice

Prompt: Its no secret that sometimes great discoveries come as a result of really big
mistakes. Sometimes the mistakes lead to greatness, and sometimes they lead to
disaster. Write an essay in which you take a position on whether or not mistakes are
a key part of discovery.
Task 1: CUB the prompt.
Task 2: Change the prompt into a question.
Task 3: Reread the prompt and determine whether it calls for an informative or an
argumentative essay.
Task 4: Write a clear controlling idea or claim statement based on the prompt.
Task 5: Put the following in the correct order for a body paragraph:
A. elaboration
B. point statement
C. elaboration
D. evidence
E. evidence
Task 6: Using the prompt and the titles in task 7, write two sentences of background information
that could be used to start your introductory paragraph.
Task 7: Read the following passage set and source titles. Circle 2 sources a person should
include in his/her essay based solely on these titles.
Goofs and Great Inventions passage set title
Source 1: Lost Cities, Lost Treasure
Source 2: How a Melted Bar of Chocolate Changed Our Kitchens
Source 3: In Praise of Careful Science

Task 8: Read the following pieces of evidence and circle the domain-specific vocabulary in each.
Source 1: By 1871, the adventurer Heinrich Schliemann started digging up Troy his way
without regard to the fragility of what lay buried under the surface. He had workers open up
huge trenches in the earth, shoveling out layers of debris and artifacts that had lain undisturbed
for centuries. Although he had discovered treasure, the damage done to the site was profound
making it impossible for scientists to identify whether Schliemann had actually discovered Troy.
Source 2: The Raytheon Companys manufactured the Magnetron, a magnetic device used for
tracking moving vehicles and other moving objects on Earth or in space. It wasnt until a
scientist standing near the Magnetron noticed that the bar of chocolate in his pocket had melted,
that the idea was developed to use a smaller form of the Magnetron in homes. It took more than
20 years, a lot of patience, and many mistakes before Raytheon perfected a microwave oven
that people could use and could afford!
Source 3: When Pierre and Marie Curie discovered radium, they spent years after the 1898
discovery studying it unaware that its radioactivity was slowly killing them.
Task 9: Pretend you are going to use all of the evidence in Task 8 in your first body paragraph.
Write a point statement that reflects the focus of the evidence.
Task 10: Choose one of the above evidences and write a substantial elaboration for it.