The first semester of ELD Writing focuses on basic writing skills. Writing narrative and descriptive essays, the students focus on sentence structure, organization, grammar and mechanics, and the writing process. Writing good simple sentences and well-organized paragraphs are the goals for the first semester.

During the second semester students focus on essay organization and the logical division of ideas. Students primarily write persuasive and compare/contrast essays. They also complete a major research paper, learning to outline, cite sources, organize material, and write a bibliography.