If the students have a hard time thinking of issues to write about, have a list of current events ready to write on the board to help them choose. These should be issues that the students would most likely be aware of and would be of interest to them. In addition, the teacher may need to suggest topics (groups) for students to join to ensure that they will be able to brainstorm ideas with other students (though if a student has a strong desire to write about a certain topic, this may be done alone).
Self Evaluation:
After explaining my lesson plan to other students in class and asking them for feedback, I learned some important things. The most prevalent was the importance of application in this lesson. Perhaps requiring rather than encouraging the students to submit their letters to the newspaper would be best. This would increase their motivation to make needed revisions and to write about something they care about. One student even suggested to require the students to keep revising and submitting their articles until they were published! I think that would be unnecessary, but it definitely shows the importance of application. In addition, it was suggested to bring a newspaper for each student, if possible. This would be nice, because I could have them read a letter to the editor on their own before looking at the general example with the rest of the class.
Overall, I like the way this lesson plan turned out. One worry I have is that it is too much to do in one class period. If I emphasized that the letters should be brief and clear, I think they could write them in the time allotted. But I really have no experience teaching or observing writing ESL classes, so I think I might just have to try it out once to see how well it works.