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The Paragraph
Now that they've mastered the word and the sentence, it's time to tackle the paragraph. This strong presentation provides all the basic information needed to help learners construct well-organized paragraphs. The topic sentence,...
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Foreshadowing and Making Predictions
"What happens next?" Using real-life scenarios, movies, images, and other prompts, pupils practice making predictions based on inferences from clues. A SMART board activity takes them from making predictions to writing a prediction...
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Picturing America: Images and Words of Hope from Romare Bearden and Langston Hughes
A carefully crafted three-day lesson integrates poetry and visual art. By analyzing and comparing Langston Hughes' poem "Mother and Son" and Romare Bearden's collage "The Dove," readers explore the theme of hope. The lesson activates...
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BBC Learning English, Writing (Culture)
Include this writing worksheet in your lesson about essay organization. After anwering five questions regarding their culture, middle schoolers use their responses to form the basis of a five paragraph guide to their culture. Each...
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Compare and Contrast
Practice comparing and contrasting with this straightforward worksheet. Young writers compose several different compare and contrast paragraphs about several topics (transportation, sports, relatives, subject areas, a dog and cat). The...
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Elaborated Paragraphs
Bright, bold, and engaging, this presentation on elaborated paragraphs is a good way to reinforce your expectations for your class's writing. Each slide presents a simple, straightforward tip to writing complete paragraphs, including...
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Mr. Indent: A Write On Activity
Using a cute premise, a bodybuilder named Mr. Indent, this resource explores the correct use of indentation. As a review of this concept, this presentation would be a great tool to use in the classroom. There are examples and exercises...
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Recognizing the Main Idea
Understanding that paragraphs have a main idea expressed in a topic sentence, followed by supporting details in the subsequent sentences is the focus of this presentation. Students practice by reading short paragraphs in 10 slides, and...
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Paragraph Development Exercise: Cause to Effect
Focus on logical paragraph writing and ask your class to write cause and effect paragraphs. To get started, learners read information about the format as well as an example. While there is some basic information about how to structure...
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Paragraph Development Exercise: Contrast
After reading an example, writers compose a paragraph that focuses on contrasting ideas. The resource starts out with some information about topic ideas and functional ideas, but there could be more explanation. Use this as a warm-up...
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Paragraph Development Exercise: Problem to Answer
Paragraphs need structure, and here is one possibility! Ask writers to begin their paragraph with a problem, explore several possibilities in the middle of the paragraph, and end the paragraph with the solution. A sample paragraph is...
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Paragraph Development Exercise: Chronological Order
People use time to organize their days and structure their lives. Why not use it to structure a paragraph? Chronological order is logical and fairly straightforward. Ask class members to first read the provided example and then write...
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Paragraph Development Exercise: Comparison
Teach class members how to use comparison in their writing to clarify and enrich ideas. Referring back to the brief description and the sample paragraph, writers develop a paragraph that uses comparison effectively. More scaffolding and...
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Paragraph Development Exercise: Specific to General
Details, details, details. That's what comes first in this style of paragraph. Writers think of supporting details, list them, and then compose a general statement that encompasses all of the details. A fairly basic resource, use this to...
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Paragraph Development Exercise: Familiar to Unfamiliar
Demonstrate how to draw in readers by starting a paragraph with a familiar topic, and then moving into the more complex ideas after they are already engaged. Writers can read over the example, which is a bit abstract and might need...
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Paragraph Development Exercise: Climactic or Emphatic Order
Exercise paragraph writing by focusing on the impact of each statement or idea. For this organizational pattern, writers compose their paragraphs by increasing the force of each idea so that the most important idea is the concluding...
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Paragraph Development Exercise: Simple to Complex
Looking for an organizational writing pattern to teach your class? Consider showing them how to structure a paragraph using the complexity of ideas as a guide. Provide the example included here to give them an idea of what is expected.
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Paragraph Development Exercise: Illustrating the Idea
How can young writers make their writing engaging? They might paint a picture for the reader through specific examples or illustrations. A sample paragraph is provided here. Class members can use this as a model as they compose a...
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Paragraph Development Exercise: Analogy
Apply analogy to paragraph writing. After reviewing what an analogy is and how it can be used, show your class the example. Writers can use the sample as a model as they compose their own paragraph that explains an idea through an analogy.
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Paragraph Construction
What is a paragraph? This question drives the PowerPoint. Viewers discuss important elements of a solid paragraph, transitions between paragraphs, and strategies for editing. Show this presentation and then look at an example paragraph...
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Spelling, Capitalization, and Punctuation
Elementary schoolers explore writing conventions. First they play a ball toss game to practice spelling high frequency words. (A link to a 2nd grade list is attached.) The class works together to correct spelling, punctuation, and...
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Arizona Statehood
In this Arizona learning exercise, students draw a picture representing Arizona and write a paragraph about the picture. Students complete 1 picture and 1 paragraph.
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Develop a Paragraph
Need a recipe for a paragraph? Young writers cook up the opening paragraph for a speech on food preparation. They prepare by reading the directions and cutting out the provided sentence strips. Then, they mix up the strips and paste the...
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Car For Sale!
Car For sale! In this GED prep instructional activity, writers develop a classified advertisement to sell a car. After a discussion of precise words and phrases, telling details, and sensory language, sellers draft their ad for review,...