How to Add Differentiation into Elementary School Writing — Teaching Students How to Write a GOOD 5 Sentence Paragraph!

Do you find it hard to teach students writing? ✔️

Do you expect students to know how to write a paragraph when they enter your classroom? ✔️

Have you been told to differentiate for students, but you’re not sure how to do it? ✔️

LOOK NO FURTHER! 😊

For years I taught 3rd grade. Each year the students came to us knowing less and less about how to write proper sentences. When I’d started my first year in 3rd grade, we were able to work with the students on writing multiple paragraphs. After several years, we had to work on teaching them how to write a complete sentence.

I knew I had to change the way I taught writing, so I decided to focus on teaching students how to write a GOOD 5 sentence paragraph and about paragraph structure using the following guide:

Sentence 1 — Topic Sentence
Sentence 2 — Detail 1
Sentence 3 — Detail 2
Sentence 4 — Detail 3
Sentence 5 — Closing Sentence

But what do you do if some students can write a paragraph and others can’t? You differentiate❗

At first, all students will write on the same topic, but you can differentiate how they get to the final draft. Some students will need sentence frames to help organize their five sentences. Others will get to the point where they can organize their sentences themselves. They also get to practice how to vary the beginning of their sentences. Using graphic organizers can help with all of this.

Once your good writers have mastered the GOOD 5 sentence paragraph, then you could have them add a second paragraph. Everyone still has the same topic, but some students can now take one of their details and expand on it in a second paragraph.

If you’d like to see my EIGHT steps to helping students write a good paragraph, check out my resource HERE! ✏️

What’s Included?

8 Steps – details about each
11 Topic Ideas
Graphic Organizers
Sentence Frames Options – Perfect for DIFFERENTIATION!
Rough Draft Pages
Final Draft Pages
Proofreading Marks Reference Sheet
Rubrics
Extension Ideas
Google Slides™ for each topic!
Examples – Making your life easier!

Practicing paragraph writing can be fun throughout the whole school year. Keep students engaged in the writing process all year with several topics. Introducing holiday-themed writing assignments is one way to help with this. Click HERE to get it!

This paragraph writing bundle includes 13 different resources, including the one above!

What Products Do You Get in the Paragraph Writing BUNDLE?

You will get five writing products that focus on the five sentence paragraph structure outlined above. These products come with ideas for extensions leading to more than one paragraph.

Holiday Related Paragraph Writing: These fun themes are perfect during the holiday season that the product goes along with.

This descriptive paragraph writing activity is perfect for autumn/fall and Halloween. Students will describe how to pick the perfect pumpkin.

Students write their paragraph based on a pumpkin’s:

size
shape
color
stem

This is a descriptive and narrative paragraph writing activity to complete in October. Students will end up writing 2 paragraphs. The information includes:

setting
characters
problem
attempts to solve the problem
introduce a frightening character
how the problem is resolved

There are so many options available, so I don’t have this set for one specific grade level.

If you teach 1st or 2nd grade, you could just do the graphic organizers.
If you teach 3rd or 4th grade, you could complete all the graphic organizers and paragraph 1, and possibly paragraph 2.
5th grade and above should be able to complete all 5 paragraphs, depending on their writing ability.
The pennant/banner pages work for any grade level.

This holiday traditions paragraph writing and craft activity are fun to complete during December since it’s shaped/designed to look like an ornament. They look great on a bulletin board!

The options for students’ levels or differentiation:

Students write one sentence stating what their favorite holiday tradition is.
Students write one five sentence paragraph where they list their 3 favorite traditions.
Students add to the first paragraph with one, two, or three more paragraphs. Each paragraph would expand on one tradition at a time.

This fun St. Patrick’s Day writing activity has students practice writing a five sentence paragraph! There are 3 different prompts:

finding a four-leaf clover
a pot of gold
a leprechaun hat.

Research Report: Later in the school year would be a perfect time to introduce students to a research report. Students learn to write a research report on an animal. The outlines provided will help students create 3 paragraphs!

What’s Included?

Teacher notes for how to approach this research report on an animal of their choice
Outline for students to complete a 4 paragraph report
Google Slides™ project!
Extension activities of a poster, speech, and pennant/banner
RUBRIC!
Final draft example and poster examples

**I’ve done this with 3rd graders, although it could be used for higher grade levels as well.

Lastly, what’s the hardest part of writing for a lot of teachers? Grading all the writing activities!

Do you want to create rubrics for your writing assignments but aren’t sure where to start?

In this product I explain how I use different rubrics for different assignments. I’ve included example rubrics from my products:

Everything I’ve mentioned above is about writing paragraphs. What if your students are still struggling with the basics of grammar and sentence structure? I’ve put together some resources that will help students get this practice all year.

This bundle comes with 17 resources! But, don’t get overwhelmed. Several of them are just 2-3 pages that work well for a quick review or assessment. However, one of these resources is my favorite. It’s a 36 week spiral review that’s perfect for consistent practice. There are even some challenge activities that work for… you guessed it – DIFFERENTIATION! If you’d like to know more, click below.

Have you ever thought about using a color by code activity for grammar? 🖍️

Get students practicing their parts of speech ALL YEAR with these fun activities. Oh, did I mention they’re holiday/seasonal-themed?! These can help you fill in those crazy days leading up to a holiday or break. Put them out at centers, or have them available for early finishers!

Are you looking for some creative writing activities for your students? Sometimes, students need to just write, without focusing on so much structure. These writing prompt activities are perfect for those times!

Teaching writing consistently during the whole year is what will help students improve on their writing skills. And with the resources/activities above, it can be done for you. All you have to do is print, copy, and put aside some writing time in your lesson plans.

I always love having students put together a WRITING PORTFOLIO at the end of the year. I keep all of their writing assignments, and in the last weeks of school the students organize all of their pieces, in order. This allows them, and their parents, to see just how far they’ve come with their writing!

🌟 If you’ve made it this far…. let me THANK YOU by sending some free resources your way! Just click on any of the images below. They’re all FREE!