College and scholarship committees eagerly want to pay real money to reflective, focused, and ambitious young adults.

Who are sitting in your desks; they just need your help to tell their story of their history, their present, and their future.

Support your students with this everything’s-included print-and-go, very-low-prep writing kit.

Included in this project kit:

• Project Step-By-Step Overview sheet – take students from brainstorming to submitting in 6 scaffolded, check-off-able steps
• 7 Free Write sheets – get students going with different prompts to encourage their budding ideas
• Essay Plan sheet – solidify their ideas to prepare for a teacher conference, before beginning the writing stage
• Outline sheet – help students start strong with a basic organization framework
• Overview sheet – offer action-driven directions to each part of the Personal Statement Essay
• Annotated Sample Essay sheet – provide an example of a complete Personal statement Essay
• Peer / Self Edit sheet – help to catch any aspects that need improvement
• Reflection & Rubrics sheets – give clear expectations for fast scoring and meaningful feedback
• PDF & Google files of all student materials

Note: student worksheets are available as print PDF and editable Google Docs; reference sheets are available as print PDF and uneditable Google Slides

This resource is 17 PDF pages, plus Google files.

What grades is this intended for?
It was designed for high school students. If your middle school students are strong writers, this may work. Be sure to examine the preview and product description closely to decide if this resource is a good fit. 

What supports are included? How can I modify this?
Each step of the writing process comes with highly scaffolded student forms and how-to reference sheets, including check-off-able actions, graphic organizers, examples, and explanations.  

Student forms come in editable Google file versions to allow you to modify activities by shortening, re-leveling, translating, or using text-to-speech software to support student needs. Static how-to reference sheets are non-editable to protect copyright. 

Can I use this in a homeschooling setting?

Definitely! Step-by-step forms for brainstorming, outlining, and editing forms and detailed how-to sheets with a sample essay and skill sheets guide you and your student(s) through this complete writing process for this writing format and skills. 

Is this editable? What file types does this resource come in?

The planning, outlining, and rubric forms are available in print PDF and editable Google Doc files that can be customized to meet your student's needs. The how-to reference sheets are available in print PDF and non-editable Google Slides files.

What standards does this address?

Several! Standards vary, but this resource supports these from various states:

• Develop writing by planning, revising, and editing
• Introduce, develop, and support a claim with relevant evidence
• Follow proper conventions of grammar and punctuation
• Produce clear and coherent writing that is appropriate to the task, purpose, and audience

What are the terms of use for this resource?

This resource, including all ancillary files, may be used as needed for regular, non-commercial single-classroom use between a teacher and their students. 

This includes printing copies and sharing digital files with students through a secure platform, like Google Classroom or Canvas, email, or a classroom-only shared drive.

The using and sharing of any part of this resource in any manner outside the above-mentioned capacity is strictly prohibited. Prohibited uses include, but are not limited to,

• posting files on the open internet or in a Facebook group
• emailing files to or sharing print copies with others (without purchasing additional licenses)
• uploading or storing files in a shared cloud drive accessible by anyone other than students
• including any part, or any derivative work, within any commercial endeavor like curriculum development, professional training, or for-profit teaching like Outschool, or selling this resource as your own in either print or digital formats

Doing so violates the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), copyright law, and these terms.

By downloading this resource from Let’s Cultivate Greatness, the original user has been granted one license for a single teacher (or number of teachers matching the number of licenses purchased) and their students at any one time. 

Let’s Cultivate Greatness retains the full copyright of this resource.

This was great for AVID seniors at the beginning of the school year! It really made it feel like a complete lesson instead of me just telling me students "write your personal statement" which would not have been nearly as engaging or helpful  –  Rachel R.

Purchased it to help my daughter plan her admissions essay and it was very detailed and clear with step by step activities to help her be successful.  – Jill M.

I used this resource for an 11th grader getting started on college applications early. She was so engaged in the prompts that she told a few of her friends about it and they all wanted to work on them together over the summer. Based on the materials inside, I think the deep thinking required for a lot of these prompts will help them tremendously when they start their applications in the fall.   – Paige M.