Language Arts, Writing, Writing Process

Grade 1- 3

Objective

Students practice writing clear, well-organized paragraphs.

Directions

1. Tell students that a paragraph is a short piece of writing that has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Every story, essay, article, or book is like a patchwork quilt made of little paragraphs stitched together. Every paragraph, like every story or book, has a beginning, a middle, and an end.
2. Give students some of the basics of paragraphs: The beginning of a paragraphbegins with a topic sentence. The topic sentence tells the reader what the paragraph will be about. I have a dog is a topic sentence, but it is not as interesting as I have a talking dog. The second sentence gives readers more information about what the paragraph will be about and will make them want to read it.
3. In the middle of the paragraph, each sentence will be about the topic. If the topic is your talking dog, you won't have a sentence telling about your math test. Instead you might write My dog knows how to say I love you and ice cream. You might also want to tell how the dog learned the words. The last sentence of your paragraph is the concluding sentence, or closing sentence. This sentence will remind your reader of what you are talking about and what the topic means to you. You might end your paragraph about your talking dog by saying It may not seem like he is talking like humans do, but if you listen closely and have some cheese, you will hear the words, and you will be amazed!
4. Practice writing paragraphs with students before they begin working on their activity sheets. You will need to cover the For Younger Students section before duplicating the activity sheet.

Resources

• My Favorite Thing to Do activity sheet (one per student)
• pencils