Polishing Placeholder Prompts

This worksheet is designed for students in Grades 5-7 to strengthen writing clarity, revision skills, and critical thinking by transforming incomplete prompts into fully developed, effective instructions. Students work with prompts that include placeholders such as “[topic]” or “[audience]” and thoughtfully replace them with specific, relevant details. Through this process, learners practice word choice, audience awareness, and precision-key skills for both strong writing and effective communication with AI tools.

Learning Goals

• Word Choice & Specificity (Grades 5-7) – Select precise language to replace vague placeholders.
• Revising & Editing for Clarity – Improve prompts so they are complete, focused, and ready for use.
• Audience & Purpose Awareness – Adjust details to match who the prompt is for and what it should achieve.
• Critical Thinking & Refinement – Analyze what information is missing and how to strengthen it.

Instructional Benefits

• Teacher-Created Resource – Designed by educators to align with middle-grade ELA and technology standards.
• Hands-On Revision Practice – Turns incomplete ideas into polished, usable prompts.
• Creative Yet Structured – Encourages creativity while reinforcing clear communication rules.
• Flexible Use – Ideal for writing workshops, digital literacy lessons, independent practice, or homework.

This printable worksheet helps students understand how small details make a big difference in communication. By replacing placeholders with strong, concrete information, learners build confidence in revising, clarifying ideas, and crafting purposeful prompts. Suitable for classroom or homeschool use, this no-prep activity supports stronger writing, thoughtful editing, and effective communication in both academic and AI-supported tasks.

This worksheet is part of our Fixing Bad AI Prompts collection.