Opinion writing graphic organizers help students brainstorm and outline their thoughts before drafting a piece of writing.
Without an opinion writing graphic organizer, students may have trouble structuring their ideas in a way that supports them as they share their opinions and thoughts regarding various topics.
Within this post, you’ll find 7 simple yet effective opinion writing graphic organizers for students.
Download a free set of these organizers towards the end of this post.
Opinion Writing Graphic Organizers
1. OREO
The OREO opinion writing graphic organizer uses an acronym to help students remember how to structure their persuasive writing essays.
- O = start opinion
- R = reason #1
- E = evidence to support reason #1
- O= restate opinion
Students may provide as many reasons and evidence as needed to support their stance.
2. Transition Words
If you want students to practice using transitions within their opinion essay, use this simple yet effective opinion writing graphic organizer.
- Students first state their opinion.
- They then provide three reasons, writing a transition word before each one.
- At the conclusion, they repeat their opinion.
3. Reasons/Examples (Version 1)
When teaching the writing process, it is important to teach students how to show and not tell.
This graphic organizer supports writers in doing so.
- First, students state their opinions.
- They then give a reason with an example. Examples should provide much clarity to support students’ reasons.
- After providing two to three reasons, students state the conclusion.
4. Reasons/Examples (Version 2)
This graphic organizer is similar to the one above. However, it offers more support to students as they brainstorm their beginning and ending conclusion.
- Students choose an opinion writing sentence starter to begin their outline. They then state their stance.
- Afterward, they provide three reasons with examples.
- Writers then choose a conclusion sentence starter to assist them in completing their concluding statement.
5. Sentence Starters
The following opinion writing graphic organizer offers students much support as they outline their persuasive essays.
With the exception of the introduction (which simply asks students to write the topic sentence of their essay), each part of the graphic organizer includes an opinion writing sentence starter.
- Topic sentence
- In my opinion… (first reason)
- Another reason is… (second reason)
- Last… (third reason)
- That is why… (concluding opinion)
These sentence starters help students launch their ideas without the frustration of drafting from a blank template.
See more opinion writing sentence starters.
6. Opinion Writing Bank of Ideas Graphic Organizer
Serve struggling writers and second language learners well using this organizer which provides lots of support to students as they brainstorm.
Each step of the outline includes a bank of opinion writing sentence starters and transitions that students can use to launch their thoughts.
The sentence starters and transitions within the bank of ideas include…
- My opinion is… (introduction)
- I would argue… (introduction)
- My first point is… (introduction)
- I believe… (introduction)
- To begin with… (transition phrase to be used within the body)
- Moreover… (transition word to be used within the body)
- In addition… (transition phrase to be used within the body)
- Consequently… (transition word to be used within the body)
- Finally… (conclusion)
- Now… (conclusion)
- In conclusion… (conclusion)
- At last…(conclusion)
7. Facts and Opinions
As students research facts and opinions to support their stance, encourage them to utilize the following opinion graphic organizer to record their findings.
The fact and opinion graph organizer is divided into the following sections:
- Topic
- Facts
- Opinions
- Evidence to support opinions
Final Thoughts
Now you have a collection of opinion writing graphic organizers to give students as they prepare to draft opinion and persuasive writing.
These organizers offer the support learners need to fully express their thoughts, ideas, and opinions in a strategic way.
So include a few of these organizers into your writer’s workshop routine this week.
Download these free printable opinion writing graphic organizer templates.