As regular readers know, one of the many classes I teach is World History to Intermediate English Language Learners.

One of the things I try to do is regularly connect what we are studying in the past to what might be happening in the future. We are just finishing studying imperialism in the late nineteenth century, and their chapter “final” was to write an essay on if they thought imperialism still existed today.

I modified a short piece I found online, The Difference Between Cultural, Political and Economic Imperialism, to make it more accessible, and created a very scaffolded writing prompt which you can download here.

This is the actual prompt but, as you can see from the hand-out, the modified text and scaffolds are critical:

What does the author say are the three kinds of imperialism? Do you believe that any exist today? To support your opinion, be sure to include specific examples drawn from your own experience, your observations of others, or any of your readings.

I’m adding this post to The Best Posts On Writing Instruction, where you can find links to many of my writing prompts.