essay writing for 5th standard

5th grade writing

by: Jessica Kelmon | Updated: August 4, 2022

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By now, your child knows that writing is a process that requires research, feedback, and revision. This year, kids are expected to respond to others’ prompts for improvement and learn how to evaluate their own work, too.

Super study skills

In fifth grade, taking notes becomes an essential academic skill. Fifth graders use books, periodicals, websites, and other sources to do short research projects. Kids learn to use several sources to investigate a topic from different angles — both on their own and as part of group work with peers. Your child should keep track of all the sources they use and note what they learn, the name of the source, and the page number or url so they can find it again to create a source list or bibliography later. A big step in your child’s research process this year: taking the time to review, categorize, and summarize or paraphrase the information they’ve learned. What did your child find out about the animal’s habitat from each source? Sorting evidence into categories and summarizing information will help your fifth grader with the planning, writing, and revising stages of their writing project.

Can your 5th grader get organized to write an essay?

Revise, rewrite

By now, your child should understand that writing is a process requiring several steps: planning, first draft, revisions, editing, and publishing or sharing work. Your child’s planning work should include reading and rereading, taking notes, finding additional sources, discussing how new knowledge fits into what your child knew before, visually organizing the information they plan to include, and determining the best way to clearly present their evidence as a cohesive set of points. After the first draft is written, the teacher and other students will offer feedback: asking questions to elicit new details, suggesting ways to clarify an argument, or pressing for new sources of information. Don’t be surprised if there are a few rounds of revisions this year: it’s how your child’s writing gets stronger. If revisions aren’t enough to improve your child’s writing, then this year your child may be required to rewrite the piece or try a new approach . Once the structure and contents are set, final edits are the time to perfect spelling and grammar. All this work on one writing assignment is meant to help your child think of writing as a multistep process so they can evaluate their work and see that — if it’s not up to snuff — they should keep trying until it is.

Fifth grade writing: opinion pieces

Your child’s opinion pieces should start by clearly stating an opinion about a topic. Then, kids should set up and follow a logically ordered structure to introduce each reason they’ll offer in support of their opinion. Their reasons should be supported by facts and details (a.k.a. evidence), and your child should use linking words, such as additionally, consequently , and specifically to connect evidence-backed reasons to their opinion. Finally, kids should close their argument with a well-articulated conclusion that supports their original opinion.

Fifth grade writing: informative writing

Logic reigns when evaluating your fifth grader’s informative writing. The purpose of this type of writing is to convey facts and ideas clearly. So a logically ordered presentation of supporting points is, well… quite logical. Your child should clearly introduce the topic and present related information in the form of a few clear, well-thought-out paragraphs. Kids should draw on facts, definitions, concrete details, quotes, and examples from their research to thoroughly develop their topic. To clearly connect their research, fifth graders should use advanced linking words (e.g. in contrast, especially ) to form compound and complex sentences that convey their points. Remember that your child’s presentation matters: making use of subject headings, illustrations, and even multimedia to illustrate points is encouraged whenever they make your child’s work more logical and clear. Then, to wrap it up, your child should have a well-reasoned conclusion.

Check out these three real examples of good 5th grade informational writing: •” How to save water ” •” Saving a Resource ” •” Water Saveing ”

Can your 5th grader write an informational essay?

5th grade writing: narrative writing

A narrative is a story. Whether inspired by a book, real events, or your child’s imagination, your child’s story should start by introducing a narrator, characters, or a situational conflict. Fifth graders will be asked to use classic narrative devices like dialogue, descriptive words, and character development. Your child should be able to show how characters feel and how they react to what’s happening. Finally, the events should unfold naturally, plausibly bringing the story to a close.

Grammatically correct

By now, your fifth grader should have a solid understanding of the parts of speech. This year, your child should learn to use and explain the function of conjunctions (e.g. because, yet ), prepositions (e.g. above, without ), and interjections (e.g. Hi, well, dear ). Kids should also start using correlative conjunctions (e.g. either/or, neither/nor ). What’s more, students learn to form and use the past, present, and future perfect tenses ( I had walked; I have walked; I will have walked. ). With this tense mastered, fifth graders will be expected to use various verb tenses to convey a sequence of events and to recognize and correct any inappropriate shifts in tense.

Check out this related worksheet: •  Active and passive sentences

More sophisticated language

This year your child will: • Regularly refer to print and online dictionaries, thesauruses, and glossaries to spell challenging words correctly. • Use academic vocabulary words in writing. • Use more nuanced descriptions (think advanced synonyms and antonyms). • Master homographs (e.g. understand that bear means the animal and to support or carry). • Employ common idioms, adages, and proverbs (e.g. “born yesterday”; “the early bird gets the worm”; “failure teaches success” ) • Interpret figurative language like similes (e.g. “light as a feather” ) and metaphors ( “it’s a dream come true” ).

This year, your child will learn to use commas after a sentence’s introductory segment (e.g. Earlier this morning, we ate breakfast .), to set off the words yes and no in writing (e.g. Y es, we will ; and no, thank you ), to set off a question from the rest of a sentence (e.g. It’s true, isn’t it? ), and to show direct address. (e.g. Is that you, Mike? ) Your child will also use commas to separate items in a series. (e.g. I want eggs, pancakes, and juice .)

Your child should also be taught how to consistently use quotation marks, italics, or underlining to indicate titles when citing sources in reports and papers.

Check out these related worksheets: •  Punctuating a paragraph • Simile or cliche? •  Homophones and homographs

And it’s live!

The final step in writing this year? Publishing! Once all the hard work (the research, planning, writing, revisions, edits, and rewrites) are finished, your fifth grader’s ready to publish. Many classes will experiment with printing work or publishing it on a blog, website, or app. While teachers should be there for support, your child should be doing the work. The point is to learn keyboarding skills (2 full pages is the goal for fifth graders) and to interact and collaborate with peers. This could mean, for example, that your child reads a classmate’s published work online and either comments on it or references it when answering a question in class.

Updated August 2022

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Essay for Class 5 in English | List of Essay Topics for Grade 5 Students

Essay Writing is a great piece of work to teach or Improve your Child’s Writing Skills. We are with you in this and compiled Essay for Class 5 in English covering frequently asked essay topics from different categories. Increase your vocabulary and develop a strong command over English by reading and practicing various Essay Writing Topics. The Content in the Sample Essays for 5th Std Students is written in a simple and easy to understand language. You can access both Short and Long Essays on the Most Common Topics and use them as a part of your competitions or speeches.

Essay Topics List for Class 5 Children

All the Essay Topics for Grade 5 Students are written in a simple language keeping in mind the student’s level of understanding. Access the Essay Writing Topics & Ideas for 5th Standard Children available through the quick links and tap on the respective topic you wish to see. By reading and writing using the Class 5 Essays you can improve your vocabulary as well as get uniqueness to write an essay on your own. By doing so you can learn how to put your thoughts into words.

• My School Essay for Class 5
• Essay on Earth for Class 5
• Rainy Season Essay in English for Class 5
• Essay on Holi for Class 5
• Essay on Christmas for Class 5
• Essay on My Mother for Class 5
• Essay on My Country for Class 5
• Essay on Television for Class 5
• Short Essay on Pollution for Class 5
• Essay on Discipline for Class 5
• Essay on New Year Resolution for Class 5
• Essay on Mahatma Gandhi for Class 5
• Essay on Republic Day for Class 5
• Happiest Day of My Life Essay for Class 5
• My Birthday Party Essay for Class 5
• Honesty is the Best Policy Essay for Class 5
• Essay on Earthquake for Class 5
• Essay on Flood for Class 5
• Essay on Water Pollution for Class 5
• Essay on Environment for Class 5

FAQs on Essay for Class 5

1. What is the best and simple way to write an essay?

The best way to write an essay is to jot down what you are going to write beforehand. Not just the Essay make sure you have a structure too in mind. This really helps and is the simplest thing to write an essay.

2. Where do I find Some Good Descriptive Essay Topics for Grade 5 Students?

You can find some Good Descriptive Essay Topics for Grade 5 Students on our page.

3. What Should a Good Essay Have?

A good essay should have a bang-on opening statement that draw’s the attention of the users followed by a thesis statement and then a conclusion or a closing statement supporting your ideas. The Idea of each paragraph should be well explained and try considering examples too in between.

Final Words

We believe the knowledge shared regarding the Essay Writing Topics for Class 5 has shed some light on you. If you have any other queries or want us to add more such topics do leave us your suggestions and we will look into them. Stay in touch with our site to avail latest updates on Essays for the Most Common Topics of Students belonging to Different Grades.

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• Kids Learning

Essay for Class 5

Essays in english for class 5.

English can be a challenging language; however, with practice, children can improve their writing skills, and one important tool to help them improve their English is reading and English essay writing for class 5. 

An essay is a short piece of writing about a specific topic, which includes information about the topic along with the writer’s opinions, sometimes. Often, an essay is used in academics to test a student’s knowledge on a specific subject, apart from being served as a way of encouraging students to develop their writing skills.

Writing essays also helps children communicate their thoughts and ideas effectively. To write good essays in English for class 5, students must know the correct structure, use proper grammar and vocabulary, and ensure the writing is well-organized, which they will learn in this article.

Here are a few types of essays, each serving its purpose and function.

Narrative Essays - They detail a story from a particular point of view and include a set of characters, a location, a good plot, and a climax to the story. This type of essay includes the use of fine details. 

Descriptive Essay - A descriptive essay describes a topic in great detail. Use of imagery is widely used in this style of essay. 

Expository Essay - This essay explains an idea by giving information and an explanation, along with a variety of viewpoints on the subject being discussed.

Argumentative Essay - In this essay, the writer is trying to convince the reader about an opinion or point of view. There is a use of facts and data to back up any claims made within the essay.

English Essay Format for Class 5

1. introduction.

Overview of the topic

Attention-grabbing headline and introduction

Maximum 100 words

Present your arguments in a chronological order

Systematic flow

Two or more short paragraphs; not more than 100 words each

3. Conclusion

Summarising the main topic and subtopics

Lesson learnt or moral, if applicable

List of Essay Topics For Class 5

Given below is a list of some popular essay topics for class 5. Reading these essays on Vedantu will help the students develop their essay-writing skills. They can also practice these topics to become proficient in essay writing for class 5.

My Mother Essay

Education Essay

Social Media Essay

Science Essay for Students in English

Newspaper and It’s Current Value

Children’s Day

Republic Day

Writing Tips for Essay for Class 5

Here are some common tips that class 5 students should remember before they begin writing essays in English for class 5.

Always first outline your thoughts in rough and then start essay writing for class 5. 

Before beginning, ensure that you have understood the essay topic for class 5.

There should always be an interesting and appropriate title to the essay to draw attention and pique the curiosity of the reader.

An ideal essay should be between 300-500 words. 

An essay with concise information in simple-to-understand language, is the best, as complicated and difficult words break the reading flow of the reader.

Ensure that your essay doesn’t contain any grammatical mistakes, as it distracts the reader from the main content.

We hope this informative article on essays for class 5 must have helped you know the importance of essay writing in English and that you will start writing essays now. Download the PDFs by clicking on the links provided to start practising essay writing for class 5.

FAQs on Essay for Class 5

1. Where can I find free essay topics for class 5 to practice?

Students can head to Vedantu’s website to avail a plethora of free essay-writing topics for all classes. Students can click on the respective topics to download the free PDFs of essay topics and can practice whenever they want. 

2. Write the names of some popular essayists for kids.

Some famous essayists are: Mark Twain, Maya Angelou, Charles Lamb, Leo Tolstoy, Roald Dahl, J.K. Rowling, Gene Luen Yang, Beatrix Potter, C.S. Lewis, Madeleine L'Engle, etc.

3. What is the purpose of writing an essay?

The purpose of writing an essay is for kids to express their ideas, thoughts, and opinions on a specific topic and improve their writing skills.

4. How to start writing an essay for beginners?

To start writing an essay, students must first choose a topic of their choice and can ask a teacher to provide them with one. Start with penning down your thoughts in the form of points. Then write a short and interesting introduction, followed by the body content. End the essay with a summarising conclusion. Remember to check your essay for spelling and grammar mistakes.

5. What are the characteristics of an essay in English?

An essay is short in length, like a short story. 

An essay can cover a wide range of subjects, no matter how short.

It is used as a tool for the expression of a writer's personality, as an essay is the representation of the writer's view on a subject.

Reading Worksheets, Spelling, Grammar, Comprehension, Lesson Plans

5th Grade CCSS: Writing

For fifth graders, this Common Core area helps students gain mastery of writing skills by working collaboratively and producing written texts, understanding syntax and vocabulary, and organizing their ideas. Among the complete standards for this grade, fifth graders will be asked to: write opinion pieces, explanatory texts, narratives, be able to effectively write introductions, supporting details, developed ideas, reasons, and conclusions to fully realize a piece of writing, properly use illustrations, formatting, and multimedia to enhance a text, use dialogue, and descriptions, and pacing to develop experiences and to show the response of characters to situations, use appropriate technology to publish writing, demonstrate keyboarding skill, understand writing for specific audiences, summarize or paraphrase information in notes and finished work, and provide sources, draw evidence from literary or informational texts to support writing, go through the process of writing, editing and revision for their written work.

Autumn: The Scarecrow’s Surprise Writing Prompt

Students will further develop their creative writing skills with this Autumn writing prompt activity. This is a great worksheet to keep your students’ creativity flowing!

Classroom Reporter: Interview with a Classmate

“Classroom Reporter: Interview with a Classmate” is the perfect way to introduce students to their classmates and learn more about one another.

Father’s Day Writing Prompt: He’s the Best

Your students will have fun writing about their father in this “He’s the Best” writing activity.

Fourth of July Writing Prompt: What Freedom Means to Me

Teach your students about freedom in America with this fun Fourth of July Writing Prompt printable worksheet.

Haiku: Write Your Own!

This worksheet features the Japanese poetry style haiku.

Kwanzaa Candles: Who Lights First? Writing Prompt

It’s the first night of Kwanzaa and the entire Thompson family has gathered for the celebration. It’s almost time to light the candles, and the question comes up: who should light the candles tonight? Write a story about how the Thompson family decides who will light the candles. This printable holiday writing prompt is ideal for 3rd – 5th grade, but can be used where appropriate.

Main Idea Tree

Use this image of a large tree to help your students understand the components of a paragraph. With this worksheet, students will be asked to write a main idea and follow it with three supporting details. What a great way for students to visualize the importance of the main idea in a paragraph!

My Goals for the New Year

This writing prompt about New Year’s goals is a wonderful way to help your students practice their writing skills.

Native American Heritage: Create Your Totem Pole

In the box on the worksheet, design your own totem pole. Make sure it represents you and your interests. Then in the writing space, describe your totem pole and explain how it illustrates you. This printable Native American Heritage Month activity is ideal for 3rd – 5th grade, but can be used where appropriate.

New Year’s Reflections

Encourage your students to look back on the events of the past year and look forward to the ones ahead with this New Years reflection worksheet.

The Lost Dreidel Writing Prompt

The Goldberg family has lost their Hanukkah dreidel! Write a story and tell how you think the Goldberg family should solve their problem. This printable Hanukkah writing prompt activity is perfect for keeping students engaged in class while learning about the holiday.

Using Story Elements: Plan a Story

Planning a story can be tough. This activity helps students break things down so that it’s easier to envision and write the story. A great beginning writing activity for 3rd – 5th graders.

What Happens Next? Halloween Surprise Activity

Keep learning fun during the holidays with this Halloween Reading Comprehension Activity. Students will be asked to read a passage and then answer the given questions about the story. This worksheet is great for use both at home and in the classroom.

Write a Description: Melting Snowman

With this unique winter activity, help your students further develop their writing skills.

Write Rhyming Couplets

Time for some poetic rhyming couplets!

Writing Limericks

This activity lists opening lines for two limericks. Students write the other lines to complete the limerick, remembering which lines that need to rhyme.

Writing Prompt: A New Plant in Spring

Students choose from the letters on a Spring flower and write words that start with a vowel. A fun way to practice vocabulary and anticipate the warm days to come!

Writing Prompt: She’s the Best

Students write about a special sister, grandmother, mother, or friend!

Abraham Lincoln Bio Poem

Your students will write a bio poem about Abraham Lincoln.

Back to School Diamante Poem

Teach your students a fun way to write diamante poems using our new back to school worksheet.

• Virtual Learning

Help your 5th Grader Write a Great Essay

Writing essays can be a daunting task for students. 5th-grade students have a strong foundation of writing skills to help them construct body paragraphs and express their ideas using complex sentences. Still, they may need an extra push to write confidently and expressively.

The most challenging task when writing an essay is starting the writing process and learning to be confident.

Helping students tackle the task and build their confidence in writing multiple types of essays such as a persuasive essay, an informational essay, or even a narrative essay such as short stories takes a lot of practice, focus, and support from instructors and parents.

Learning to Express Ideas

Pre-writing is a crucial step in the writing process. Fifth graders should be in a place in their writing journey where they can perfect all the pre-writing strategies before they even write a word of an essay.

This will set them up to successfully construct excellent five-paragraph essays consistently.

When your child sits down to write a five body paragraph essay, the very first thing they should do is read the prompt. Understanding what the prompt is asking for is the first step in being proactive about writing an excellent essay.

You want them to ponder these questions: am I writing a persuasive essay? Am I writing an essay on a topic requiring me to do my research? Will I need to list evidence? Am I writing a narrative story that requires figurative language?

How to Successfully Brainstorm An Essay

One excellent way to get the brainstorm rolling is to have your fifth-grade student utilize a graphic organizer such as a cluster map as a way to write down all the related words or small phrases they can think of about the prompt.

The organizer will help get their creative minds rolling until they write something they are interested in or perhaps even excited about exploring further.

Brainstorming is a crucial component of teaching writing. This first step should be the most relaxed, no-pressure section for the student.

As a fifth-grader, your child will have a good idea of how to brainstorm different ideas on paper, but an essential part will be to organize these ideas into something of an outline.

Through brainstorming, students learn to think creatively to answer the prompt. Sometimes logical thinking is also required. For example, with a persuasive essay, students must brainstorm their arguments and develop reasons or evidence to back up their claims.

Supporting this step will allow students to perfect the details of the content they’re writing about and give them the main idea for their entire essay.

How to Turn a Brainstorm into an Outline

Encouraging your fifth grader to write a quick outline in a way that’s organized according to the five-paragraph essay format will give them a solid foundation to write their first rough draft.

These pre-writing skills are crucial in turning students from simple sentence writers into detailed five-paragraph essay writers.

Five-paragraph essays are the standard way to construct an essay, including writing an introduction, three body paragraphs, and a conclusion.

Using this format, your fifth grader should write a short and straightforward outline that showcases every paragraph’s main ideas and contents in logical order.

Instead of freewriting the essay off the top of their head, an outline in the five-paragraph essay format will help your fifth grader have a guide to help them construct the first draft of their essay and flesh out ideas when they write body paragraphs.

Constructing a 5 Paragraph Essay

Read below for a brief five-paragraph essay instructional unit to help you guide your child in writing an exceptional essay.

1) How To Write An Introduction

In the five-paragraph essay format, the introduction is vital in grabbing the reader’s attention and holding it throughout the essay.

When teaching writing, the introduction is explained as the initial place to set up the topic of the essay. It usually requires a direct address of the contents to follow in the form of a thesis.

A thesis statement is a sentence in the introduction that directly answers the prompt and has reasons and evidence for the writer’s claim. It’s like a short preview of what the students will write about in their body paragraphs.

Furthermore, students write the thesis at the end of the introduction paragraph and ensure it follows a specific sentence structure to make it stand out as the most critical part of the intro.

2) How To Write Body Paragraphs

An excellent way to help students be confident in their work is to help them build clear strategies or steps to tackle daunting parts of an essay, such as a body paragraph.

Acronyms are one good way to remember all the steps of constructing a remarkable body paragraph. For example, TEEA is a wonderful acronym to get your fifth grader started on the task.

TEEA stands for:

T: Topic Sentence

The topic sentence is the very first sentence of a body paragraph. It explains what your section is about and its main idea. Ideally, this should be one sentence long and directly explain the topic at hand.

For the second section, you will want your fifth grader to answer the following question: WHY are you talking about this topic or idea? Why is this important? This should be about 2 or 3 sentences long because you will want your child to use lots of details to support the idea in the topic sentence.

  E: Example

In the third section, the student should prove what they explained about their topic by giving a solid, real-life example. This can be 2-3 sentences. The key here is to make the example applicable to the topic and explanation.

A: Analysis

Lastly, the analysis explains how the example supports your topic. This will probably be 1 or 2 sentences.

The analysis is the most tricky part of a body paragraph. The best way to get your child to think about this is to emphasize the how question. How does your example prove you are right? How does the example relate to the topic?

Using TEEA, your child will be able to construct a clear and strong body paragraph for almost any prompt or topic.

3) How to Write A Conclusion

Lastly, to conclude an essay, students must think about what idea they want the reader to leave with after reading their essay.

To start, students can use their introductory paragraph as a guide. They should restate their essay topic or thesis differently.

Next, students should summarize the main points made in the body paragraphs.

After this step, students can play the “so what?” game. Have your fifth grader think about what they’ve written in the conclusion, then answer the question, “so what?” Why is this important? Why should anybody care?

The very last sentence of the conclusion is a fantastic place to answer the “so what” question and leave the readers with a good impression or the desire for more information.

Using this instructional guide, with practice, your 5th grader will be able to construct logically sound and impeccably organized essays in no time.

The Reading Ranch Method

Struggling writers can experience various difficulties in any step of the writing process. The Reading Ranch Intervention Program is a research-based program to help students strengthen their writing skills in an interactive and dynamic environment. Our curriculum prides itself on being an interactive writing curriculum proven through various studies to immensely help struggling writers. Contact us today if you’re looking for help with your child who struggles in school and at home because they are stuck when they write and unable to keep up with their peers. We offer either online or in-person programs we feel confident we have something just right for every family.

Kiran Gokal   is a freelance writer, teacher, and lover of the written word specializing in content articles, blog posts, and marketing copywriting. For the past three years, she’s been teaching bright young students all about reading and writing at The Reading Ranch®,  while also lending her writing skills to different businesses and non-profits in the education sector.

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How to write a perfect 5 Paragraph Essay

  How to Write a 5 Paragraph Essay : A Complete Guide

Essay writing can be the bane of many a student’s life.

Gone are the days when many students tried writing in big letters to fill the allotted number of pages with minimal effort quickly.

Now, it’s all constant word count checks and taking a dozen words to say what could be said in three.

Of course, it doesn’t have to be like this. When students have a clear, set structure to follow, essay writing can be a much less painful experience. Indeed, it can even be enjoyable!

In this article, we’ll outline a clear template our students can follow to produce a well-organised essay on practically any topic effectively.

Let’s get started!

THE HAMBURGER ESSAY – THE STUDENT’S FRIEND

The common 5 paragraph essay structure is often referred to as the hamburger essay . And this is a memorable way to communicate the concept to your students.

The hamburger essay structure consists of five paragraphs or layers as follows:

Layer 1 – The Top Bun: The Introduction

The uppermost layer is the introductory paragraph which communicates to the reader the purpose of the essay.

Layers 2,3, & 4 – The Meat Patties: The Body Paragraphs

These are the meat patties of the essay and each paragraph makes an argument in support of the essay’s central contention as expressed in the introduction.

Layer 5 – The Conclusion: The Bottom Bun

The bottommost layer is the conclusion, where the arguments are summed up and the central contention of the essay is restated forcefully one last time. We have a complete guide to writing a conclusion here .

Soon, we’ll take a closer look at each of these parts in turn. But, there is more to an essay than just the writing of it. There are also the prewriting and post writing stages to consider. We will look at all these aspects in this article, but first, let’s examine what our students need to be doing before they even begin to write their essays.

A COMPLETE UNIT ON TEACHING PARAGRAPH WRITING

This complete PARAGRAPH WRITING UNIT takes students from zero to hero over FIVE STRATEGIC LESSONS to improve PARAGRAPH WRITING SKILLS through PROVEN TEACHING STRATEGIES.

THE PREWRITING STAGE – DEFINING THE THESIS STATEMENT, RESEARCH & PLANNING

The thesis statement.

Every essay needs a clear focus. This focus is usually defined in a thesis statement that presents the topic of the essay in a sentence or two. The thesis statement should also include the writer’s stance on that topic.

As this will help guide the direction of the essay, it is essential that our students define their thesis statement before they begin the writing process.

Sometimes during the process of writing, we find out what we think about a given topic. The writing process can act as a kind of reflection on the merits of the various arguments, before finally revealing to us our own opinion. This is writing as a method of discovery.

Usually, though, it is more efficient for students to decide on their opinions prior to beginning to write.

Defining their thesis statement early on not only helps guide the students writing, but helps ensure their research is focused and efficient at the crucial prewriting stage.

Research & Planning

As students begin their research and gather their evidence to support their thesis statement, they should also be encouraged to pay particular attention to the counterarguments they come across.

A well-written essay does not ignore opposing viewpoints, students should be taught to preempt counterarguments where possible so as to strengthen the power of their own arguments. Good research is essential for this.

Not so long ago, research meant hours in dusty libraries being constantly shushed, but with the advent of the internet, there is now a wealth of knowledge right at our fingertips (and the end of a good Wifi connection).

While this has made research a much more convenient process, students need to be reminded of the importance of seeking out reliable sources to support their opinions. In an era of ‘fake news’, this is more important now than ever.

As students gather the information and supporting evidence for their essay, they’ll need to organize it carefully. Graphic organizers are an effective way of doing this, either on a paper printout or by using a premade template on the computer.

It can also be helpful for students to sort their collected information according to where they intend to use it in the five-paragraph outline or layers mentioned above.

Finally, while good research, organization, and planning are essential for producing a well-written essay, it’s important that students are reminded that essay writing is also a creative act.

Students should maintain an open mind when it comes to the writing process. They should allow their thoughts and opinions the room to develop over the course of writing their essay. They should leave the door open for including new thoughts and ideas as the writing progresses.

The Writing Stage: Introduction, Body Paragraphs, & Conclusion 

The introduction.

A good introduction paragraph serves a number of important functions. It:

• Grabs the reader’s attention and interest, known as the hook
• Orientates the reader to the essays central argument, the thesis statement
• Outlines briefly the arguments that will be explored in support of the thesis statement.

To become an effective writer, it is important that our students learn the importance of grabbing the reader’s attention, as well as keeping it. Opening with a ‘hook’ or a ‘grabber’ is a great way to achieve this.

There are a number of techniques students can use here. Let’s take a look at some of the more common ones.

• The Surprising Fact – this can intrigue the reader to want to find out more, especially if it challenges some of their existing assumptions on a topic.
• The Quotation – a carefully selected quotation can be a great way to secure the reader’s attention and there are many curated quotation collections freely available online to help get students started.
• The Joke – this opening should be used judiciously as for some topics it may not be an appropriate way to open. In the right context however, humor can be a great way to engage the reader from the outset.
• The Anecdote – anecdotes are a great way to personally connect with the essay’s topic. They are a helpful way of climbing down the ladder of abstraction when exploring more theoretical arguments. They assist the reader in relating universal themes to their own lives.

Practice Activity 1:

To encourage students to develop strong opening paragraphs in their essays, it can be helpful to isolate writing opening paragraphs.

In this activity, provide your students with a list of essay topics and challenge them to write four different opening paragraphs for their essay, one each for The Surprising Fact , The Quotation , The Joke , and The Anecdote as listed above.

When students have completed their four paragraphs, they can then share with each other in groups and discuss which worked best and why.

This activity will help students to remember the different types of opening and how they work. It will also give them a feel for which openings work best for different types of essays.

We’ve already discussed what a thesis statement is and what it is intended to achieve, but where does it fit into the overall shape of the introductory paragraph exactly?

While there are no hard and fast rules here, thesis statements work well towards the end of the introductory paragraph – especially as the paragraph’s final sentence.

Readers are often hardwired to look for the thesis statement there. It connects the arguments that follow in the body paragraphs to the preceding sentences and contextualizes the essay for the reader.

THE BODY PARAGRAPHS

Now we get to the ‘meat’ of our essay. Each of the body paragraphs will explore one of the arguments supporting the thesis statement as laid out in the introduction.

While we are focused on the 5 paragraph essay here, longer essays will usually be constructed in exactly the same manner, they’ll just include more body paragraphs to cover the extra level of detail.

Generally, each body paragraph will open by stating the argument, with subsequent sentences supporting that argument by providing evidence along with some further explanation. Finally, a statement or phrase will help transition to the next paragraph.

The PEEL Paragraph Writing Process

The acronym PEEL can be a very useful tool to help students to understand how to organize each of their body paragraphs.

P oint : start the paragraph by expressing the central argument

E vidence : support the central argument of the paragraph by providing evidence or reasons. Evidence may come in many forms including facts and statistics, quotations from a text or other authority, reference to historical events etc.

E xplanation : explain how the evidence provided supports the paragraph’s central argument.

L ink : provide a transition into the next paragraph by linking this argument and the central thesis to the next point to be made.

Practice Activity 2:

Just as students isolated the opening to their introductory paragraph for practice purposes, in this activity they’ll isolate a single argument on a chosen essay topic.

When they have chosen a topic and selected a single argument related to that topic, they can begin to write one body paragraph using the PEEL structure outlined above.

This activity works well when several students write on the same argument. When each has completed their paragraphs, they can then compare the results with each other.

It can be a fascinating experiment that allows the students to see just how diverse different treatments of the same argument using the same PEEL formula can be – there is freedom within the discipline of the structure!

THE CONCLUSION

The purpose of the conclusion is to close the circle of the essay. It is a chance for the writer to restate the thesis statement, summarize the main arguments, and tie up any loose ends as the writer drives home their point one last time.

At this stage of the game, no new arguments should be introduced. However, students should revisit the previous arguments made in the body paragraphs and it is acceptable to offer up a new insight or two on these.

The student should take care here to make sure they leave no doubt in the reader’s mind that the essay question is fully answered. One useful way of doing this is by incorporating words and phrases from the essay question into the conclusion itself.

To help students grasp the underlying structure of a concluding paragraph, the following sequential structure is useful to keep in mind:

• Starts with a closing phrase such as In conclusion , There is no doubt , Finally etc
• Restates the main thesis statement
• Summarizes the main point of each of the body paragraphs
• Leaves the reader with something to think about.

Practice Activity 3:

Again, here we will isolate the concluding paragraph for focused practice.

Students select a topic they know well, decide what they think about that topic, write down a few key arguments, and then begin writing a concluding paragraph to an essay on that topic.

Students should use the template above to structure that material.

You could also include an element of peer assessment here by having students swap their paragraphs with each other, before offering each other feedback.

The Post Writing Stage: Editing & Proofreading YOUR 5 paragraph ESSAY

The final stage of writing a five-paragraph essay is perhaps the least glamorous of an unglamorous process, but no less essential for it – the editing and proofreading.

Often, our students overlook this stage. After completing the process of research, planning, and writing their five-paragraph essay, they let themselves down at this final, crucial stage.

Frequently, students fail to adequately edit and proofread their work not just because of laziness, but because they are unsure of exactly what this process entails.

To avoid this, ensure students understand that editing and proofreading involve reading through and correcting mistakes in the following areas one after the other:

• Text Organisation: title, headings, layout etc
• Sentence Structure: coherence, grammar , sentence variety etc
• Word Choice: suitable word choices, avoid repetition etc
• Spelling and Punctuation: accuracy in both areas.

Practice Activity 4:

Once students have completed their essays, appoint each a partner to work with and each then edits and proofreads the other person’s work.

Sometimes students struggle to gain the necessary distance from their own work to adequately edit and proofread it, this exercise overcomes that issue while giving them an opportunity to gain some valuable editing and proofreading experience that will benefit them in future.

CLOSING THE CIRCLE

So, there you have it – how to write a five-paragraph essay from start to finish. As with anything, the more practice students get, the quicker they will improve.

But, bear in mind too that writing essays is hard work and you don’t want to put students off.

The best way to provide opportunities for students to develop the various skills related to essay writing is to isolate them in the manner apparent in the activities described above.

This way, students can soon sharpen up their skills, without learning to dread the word ‘essay’ itself!

Teaching Resources

Use our resources and tools to improve your student’s writing skills through proven teaching strategies.

Five Paragraph Essay exampleS (Student Writing Samples)

Below are a collection of student writing samples of 5 paragraph essays.  Click on the image to enlarge and explore them in greater detail.  Please take a moment to both read the 5 paragraph essay in detail but also the teacher and student guides which highlight some of the key elements of this structured model of essay writing here.

Please understand these student writing samples are not intended to be perfect examples for each age or grade level but a piece of writing for students and teachers to explore together to critically analyze to improve student writing skills and deepen their understanding of 5 paragraph essay writing.

We would recommend reading the example either a year above and below, as well as the grade you are currently working with to gain a broader appreciation of this text type.

5 PARAGRAPH ESSAY VIDEO TUTORIALS

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5th grade writing doesn’t have to be a struggle! This blog post will provide all of my best tips and ideas for teaching your fifth graders to succeed as writers.

I’ve had classes where writing was a struggle allll yearrrr longggg. I’ve also had classes where I’d swear my students were one step away from writing professionally.

Your groups will never be the same and that’s ok. Just roll with it!

Take heart in the fact that when students leave your class at the end of the year, they will be MUCH better writers than when they entered in the fall.

No matter how good (or bad) my students are at writing when 5th grade begins, we always start at the very beginning and work on writing strong sentences.

This post will give you a step-by-step breakdown of how I help my students move from dull to dazzling sentences: How to Help Your Students Write Better Sentences

Once they’ve got the hang of writing an excellent sentence, then we move on. Your class may move slowly or quickly but be sure to watch their writing closely for clues that you may need to slow down.

You need to know where you’re going to know how you should plan the journey. So, the next section lays out my end-of-the-year goals for my 5th grade writers. Everything I do all year leads to the completion of these goals.

My end-of-the-year goals for my 5th grade writers….

By the time my students walk out of my classroom for the last time…

1. I want them to be able to efficiently organize their ideas and plan/write a five paragraph essay.

2. I want my students to be able to construct narrative, informative, and opinion essays.

3. I want my students to be able to choose appropriate sources and write a simple research report. 

4. I want my students to be able to closely read two paired passages and write an essay in response to a prompt. 

If you’re looking for a hyperlinked pdf version of my pacing and sequence for 5th grade writing, click the link below to have it sent to your email address. As a bonus, you’ll become a member of my weekly VIP email club just for upper elementary teachers. 🙂

Obtain a Writing Sample!  

Give students a simple prompt and ask for a response in a paragraph or two. Emphasize to students that you are not grading writing samples for grammar, spelling, or structure. You are interested in the quality of their ideas. 

This writing sample will be valuable as the year goes on. Your students will improve so much that their first samples will (hopefully) be pathetic compared to their new, improved writing pieces.

I usually whip out their first samples after we’ve written a few five paragraph essays. Students feel inspired to keep growing their writing skills when they see how far they’ve come in just a few months. 

Example Writing Sample Prompts: 

• Describe a talent or characteristic that makes you unique and different.
• Tell about a time when you set a goal for yourself and reached that goal.
• Pretend you live in a society where children are required to choose their future career paths in the 5th grade. What path would you choose? Explain.

Create Writing Reference Notebooks with students! 

I’ll admit it – I’m a little obsessed with writing reference notebooks. We use composition notebooks to create these amazing sources of knowledge and we use them all year long. 

So, where do we start with creating writing reference notebooks?

The beginning section of students’ notebooks hold reference materials. I want students to have plenty of resources at their fingertips to improve their sentence writing, including alternatives for overused words and my specialty, sparkle words. Sparkle words are words that are just a little bit special and make my students’ writing shine, like scandalous, embrace, and intriguing.

Other ways that my students use their writing reference notebooks:

• Writing journal entries
• Creating a personal thesaurus
• Writing topics & ideas list
• Taking notes on writing skills lessons
• Writing first drafts of longer assignments

This resource will give you an idea of the printable pages that I use for students’ notebooks: Writing Interactive Notebook – Reference Pages

Do I take grades on students’ writing reference notebooks? Not really. I want these notebooks to be a safe space for students to jot ideas and take risks with their first drafts. I do sometimes take a participation grade on their notebooks. This encourages students to keep their notebooks organized and up to date.

Start with sentences!  

When teaching 5th grade, you can expect students to start the year writing complete sentences, right?! No, sorry. Whether it’s the long break or maybe your students’ 4th grade teachers never required a lick of writing, your 5th graders will often begin the year with less-than-stellar sentences. 

So, I just plan to start with sentences first every year. We work on building and expanding sentences for about two weeks. Yes, two weeks probably seems like a really long time, but spectacular sentences are the foundation for creating great writers.

To improve my students’ sentences, I take the basic, simple sentences that students write and we work on adding more specific details and interest. First, I give students a list of five nouns and ask them to write one sentence using each noun.

I usually get sentences similar to these:

• Pie is my favorite dessert.
• My dad’s car is red.
• I wear my jacket when it is cold.
• This school is a nice place to learn.
• The tree is tall.

This is where I want students to get in their sentence-writing before moving on:

• Pecan, cherry, apple, or pumpkin… any type of pie is delicious!
• My dad spends his Saturdays washing and shining up his candy apple red Jeep.
• A puffy, hooded jacket is the first thing I reach for on chilly mornings.
• My school, North Hills Elementary, has the best teachers and students.
• The tall Redwood tree in my front yard is a welcome sight to visitors and makes my house look spectacular.

My students write every single day!  

I vividly remember being in 5th grade myself and writing long papers on the most boring topics ever, like “The Science of Light” and “The History of Mapmaking.” Snooze fest! I vowed to never do that to my students. Instead, I took a different route.

Students absolutely need to learn to write full reports and five paragraph essays, but they don’t need to do this every week. They do, however, need to continually practice writing. I find that if I make writing assignments engaging, my students don’t complain and actually seem to enjoy writing.

I assign Weekly Writing Choice Boards . This writing has made all the difference in my classroom! Students are now excited about writing class. They see writing as a treat and a fun way to express their thoughts and opinions.

I hand out a new choice board every week and students must complete three assignments from the board. I don’t grade these on perfect grammar, spelling, or punctuation, instead I look for ideas and effort. Even imperfect writing practice will improve your students’ writing skills tremendously!

Enter your first name and email address below for a free set of 6 Weekly Writing Choice Boards! The pdf file will be sent directly to your inbox. As a bonus, you’ll become a member of my weekly VIP email club just for upper elementary teachers. 🙂

If you teach social studies in addition to writing, this blog post will give you a bunch of engaging social studies journal entries that will help you tie social studies into your writing instruction.

Train students in proofreading and editing!  

Student need to practice proofreading and editing their writing (and the writing of other students) near the beginning of the school year.

Repeatedly practicing the steps of the proofreading/editing process will help your students to internalize this procedure. You’ll find that they will start to catch their mistakes earlier and more independently.

I find it valuable to establish and consistently use a common “proofreading language” in my classroom. It takes a little time up front to teach students the markings and their meanings but having a common system for proofreading will save loads of time throughout the school year.

This resource will give you an idea of the proofreading marks and practice that I use in my classroom: Proofreading and Editing Activity Pack

Asking your students to proofread and edit their own writing is a must but it’s also a good thing to have students pair up and look over a partner’s writing also. Your students will receive valuable feedback on their writing, editing ideas, and they’ll get to see some writing styles that are a little different from their own.

Teach five paragraph essays one piece at a time! 

Simple Paragraphs

Once my students are stellar sentence writers, we move to simple paragraphs. The simple paragraphs that I use with students consist of a topic sentence, three detail sentences, and a closing sentence.

Starting with simple paragraphs is much less threatening than jumping straight into five paragraph essays, so I find that spending some time helping students write excellent simple paragraphs is the perfect bridge into essays.

Additionally, we color-code our simple paragraphs. This allows students to think critically about what sentence types they have written and provides a visual for students (and for me) to see that all required parts of the paragraph are included.

The color-code I use with students:

• Topic sentence – green
• 3 detail sentences – yellow
• Closing sentence – red

Planning and Writing Body Paragraphs

Once students are able to write great simple paragraphs, we dive into the planning and writing of body paragraphs.

This isn’t too much of a jump for students because the body paragraphs are structured similarly to the simple paragraphs that we have practiced over and over. The only difference is that they are using one prompt to write three body paragraphs.

Many teachers think they have to start with the first paragraph of the essay, the introduction paragraph. This isn’t what I recommend. Starting by teaching students to write the three body paragraphs helps to steer the rest of the essay.

Adding an Introduction Paragraph

Now that students are able to write their three body paragraphs, it’s time to add the introduction paragraph.

The introduction paragraph contains a hook, commentary, and a thesis sentence.

The hook is a sentence (or two) that “hooks” readers and builds interest in the upcoming essay. I teach my students several types of hooks, including quotes, questions, bold statements, or sharing a memory.

After the hook, I ask students to write a sentence or two of commentary on the hook or on the prompt in general. This helps to “bulk up” their introduction paragraph a bit and make it more interesting.

The final part of the introduction paragraph is the thesis sentence. Because students already learned to write the body paragraphs, crafting a thesis sentence is so much easier.

The formula for writing a thesis sentence: Restate the prompt briefly + detail 1 + detail 2 + detail 3.

Additionally, I teach transition teams at this point. Students need to use a transition word or phrase at the beginning of each body paragraph, so that’s where transition teams come in. Transition teams are sets of three transition words or phrases that work well together.

Examples of transition teams:

• First, Second, Finally
• To begin, To continue, To end
• One reason, Another reason, A final reason

Adding a Conclusion Paragraph

When conclusion paragraph day finally arrives, my students are so excited because they can finally write an entire five paragraph essay.

In my opinion, conclusion paragraphs are super easy to teach because they only have two parts. Here’s the conclusion paragraph formula: Write the thesis sentence in a different way + add a closing thought.

I allow students to be creative with their closing thoughts. I tell them that this is the final thought that your readers will take with them, so it needs to relate well to your entire essay while being engaging and thought-provoking for readers. Some examples of closing thoughts are calls to action, quotes, personal opinions, and brief personal experiences.

Teach, Discuss, & Practice with Rubrics

I inform my students that from this point on in their school journey, they will be graded with rubrics fairly often, so this is a good time to learn about rubrics and become familiar with them.

I create or find five paragraph essay samples that are good, bad, and in-between. We read and examine the samples as a class and circle the applicable parts of the rubric. If students are able to grade a few assignments using a rubric, it’s not this unknown, scary thing anymore. 

Are you grading every single word and making a million corrections on students’ essays? I give you permission to stop doing that! 🙂

You are going to burn yourself out and get to where you hate grading and teaching writing. To be honest, your students will not become better writers when their papers are marked all over with suggestions in the margins.

Help! I need more support…

Please visit the following blog post for in-depth explanations and examples of my five paragraph essay teaching and grading process: 

Tips for Teaching and Grading Five Paragraph Essays

This resource will provide you with a full, scaffolded unit that will help you to teach the five paragraph essay process to students! Five Paragraph Essay Instructional Unit

Narrative, Informative, and Opinion Essays

As much as we’d like to just have our students write simple, straightforward five paragraph essays all year, that’s just not feasible.

But I promise, once your students can crank out those five paragraph essays on simple topics, moving to other modes of writing is no sweat! 

In my classroom, we spend time learning to write opinion essays, narrative essays, and informative essays. 

I start with opinion writing because my students have a lot of opinions, haha! We channel those opinions into five paragraph essay format. 🙂

Research Reports

The skills involved in writing a research report are valuable for 5th graders. They need to be able to judge the reliability of a source and cite their sources properly. 

Research reports also teach students to organize their ideas, take notes, make an outline, write a draft, and create a final report. 

I’d like to point you to the following blog post where I detailed my entire process for teaching research reports.

The Step-By-Step Guide to Teaching Research Reports

Paired Passages

5th graders are too young to compare two passages and write a response. Right?! 

No, this is not true at all. I think that reading paired passages and using them to craft a written response is a valuable skill for 5th graders. 

Steps to analyzing paired passages and writing an essay to answer a prompt:

First, dissect the prompt.

Second, closely read the paired texts.

Third, organize thoughts using the prompt.

The following blog post explains my paired passage writing steps in detail. Take a moment to check it out. You’ll be glad you did! 

How to Teach Writing Using Paired Passages

My Sequence & Pacing for Teaching 5th Grade Writing

Don’t stress! This sequence and pacing guide is hyperlinked and ready to be sent to your email address. Go to the bottom of this blog post to request the guide.

1st Month of School

We start school in the middle of the month, so I only have two weeks to teach during the first month of school.

This is the rundown for the remainder of the month:

Month 1, Week 3

The first week of the school year is all about teaching and practicing procedures. Teach it right or teach it all year! 🙂

Classroom Procedures – I recommend you check out this blog post:  5 Tips for Establishing Procedures in the Upper Elementary Classroom

Welcome Activities –  Welcome to 5th Grade: First Week of School Activities

Blog Post – Back to School Writing Prompts for 5th Graders

Month 1, Week 4

During this week, I review and continue practicing procedures with students but we do go ahead and start working on writing.

I establish my expectations and procedures for my students’ Weekly Writing Choice Boards.

We set up writing notebooks together, including the table of contents, cover page, and an  About the Author  page. 

Obtain a writing sample

We start working on improving sentences.

2nd Month of School

Month 2, Week 1

We continue working on improving sentences.

Start proofreading/editing instruction and practice.

Month 2 , Week 2

Review the process for writing excellent sentences.

Finish proofreading/editing instruction and practice.

Month 2, Weeks 3-4

Writing simple paragraphs (include color-code)

3rd Month of School

Month 3, Weeks 1-2

Planning & writing body paragraphs (include color-code)

Month 3, Weeks 3-4

Teach introduction paragraphs

Writing introduction plus body paragraphs (include color code)

Transition teams

4th Month of School

Month 4, Weeks 1-2

Teach students how to write conclusion paragraphs.

Students will write their first full five paragraph essays this week.

Month 4, Weeks 3-4

Write 5 paragraph essays with a variety of basic prompts.

Have students proofread/edit other students’ essays.

Provide mini-lessons on grammar structure or other issues you are noticing in students’ writing.

5th Month of School

This is where our winter break falls, so I only have two weeks to teach this month.

This is a great time to review what we’ve been working on all year and assign some fun journal prompts.

Also, writing mini-lessons are good fillers for this time.

This Winter Writing Project is a student favorite right before winter break!

6th Month of School

Month 6, Week 1

When we come back from winter break, I like to teach the research report process. I spend a week teaching the process and giving students time to research while I’m there to help.

Month 6, Week 2

Student complete their research reports, including outlines, citing sources, and etc.

I ask my students to do super quick presentations on their research topics. It’s 1-2 minutes max. I don’t want them to read their reports aloud because that’s boring. Instead, I want them to quickly highlight what they learned about their topics and what was fascinating to them.

Month 6, Week 3

We review the five paragraph essay process and write/proofread/edit an essay with a simple prompt.

Month 6, Week 4

I start opinion writing this week. You’ll find that students will slide into opinion writing easily because they already know five paragraph essay structure.

7th Month of School

Month 7, Week 1

Continue working on opinion writing. By the end of this week, students should be able to write an opinion essay using a prompt.

Month 7, Weeks 2-3

We spend two weeks on narrative writing. By the end of the second week, students should be able to write a narrative essay using a prompt.

Month 7, Week 4

This week, I teach the process of writing an informative essay.

8th Month of School

Month 8, Week 1

Continue working on informative essays. Students should be able to write an informative essay using a prompt by the end of this week.

Month 8, Weeks 2-3

Teach students how to write an essay using paired passages.

For more information on how I teach the steps above, visit this blog post: How to Teach Writing Using Paired Passages

Month 8, Week 4

Now that students know the process of using paired passages, I provide a set of paired passages and ask students to answer prompts in a variety of genres, like opinion, narrative, informative, poetry, and etc.

This resource makes it easy:

Paired Passages with Writing Prompts and Activities Bundle

9th Month of School

Month 9, Week 1

Continue working on using paired passages to write in a variety of genres.

Talk about last minute standardized testing tips to help students with their writing tests.

The rest of the month is taken up with standardized testing, so I do a lot of review activities, free writing, and etc.

I do have a set of suspense stories that my students love to write during this month. Check them out here: Suspense Stories Bundle

10th Month of School

During this month, we are wrapping up the year. Students participate in multiple activities and field trips, so there’s not much teaching time.

If you are still feeling overwhelmed, don’t dismay. Instructing young, inexperienced writers is a challenge. Just work on one step at a time to avoid overwhelming yourself and your students. Once you’ve taught writing for a year or two, you’ll feel like an old pro. Promise! 

If you’d like to keep this blog post for later, simply save this pin to your teacher Pinterest board!

Are you that teacher saying, “oh my goodness, please just give me the print ‘n go pages so that i can start teaching writing tomorrow” it’s all here for you:.

I’m not a teacher, perhaps in my heart I am. I am an older Mom who adopted late in life as God gave us our newborn in our 50’s! By His grace, we are healthy, fit, youngish 50’s LOL! I love your stuff and have always supplemented Fi’s education., for I find the California standards quite low. Now that I have her in a college-prep school (5th Grade) I find she is much more prepared because of your wisdom! Thank you. Sophia Joy is someone who has always had to work hard at school, but it is paying off! Thank you and God bless you richly for being so generous with your wisdom,it will all come back to you 100-fold! Sincerely, Susan, Sophia Joy’s Mom

Thank you so much, Susan! You certainly have a heartwarming story with your precious girl 🙂

Hello When you do the back to school journal prompts, where do you have students complete these? On single paper, google classroom?

Hi Sarah! Usually, I have students complete the prompts in their social studies interactive notebooks. This year, however, we were virtual at the beginning of the year, so I had students type their entries onto Google Docs.

Hi! I am a new 5th grade teacher, and I’m wondering if your school uses a particular writing curriculum? Your website has been so helpful – thank you!!

Hi Jenny! We don’t use a particular writing curriculum at my school. I use my own resources to teach writing. Please reach out to me at [email protected] if I can help or answer any questions for you 🙂

Do you have any resources in Spanish?

Hi Danielle! The only resources I have in Spanish are my Parent’s Guide to Reading resources, grades K-5.

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The Ultimate Guide to the 5-Paragraph Essay

PeopleImages / Getty Images

• M.Ed., Education Administration, University of Georgia
• B.A., History, Armstrong State University

A five-paragraph essay is a prose composition that follows a prescribed format of an introductory paragraph, three body paragraphs, and a concluding paragraph, and is typically taught during primary English education and applied on standardized testing throughout schooling.

Learning to write a high-quality five-paragraph essay is an essential skill for students in early English classes as it allows them to express certain ideas, claims, or concepts in an organized manner, complete with evidence that supports each of these notions. Later, though, students may decide to stray from the standard five-paragraph format and venture into writing an  exploratory essay  instead.

Still, teaching students to organize essays into the five-paragraph format is an easy way to introduce them to writing literary criticism, which will be tested time and again throughout their primary, secondary, and further education.

Writing a Good Introduction

The introduction is the first paragraph in your essay, and it should accomplish a few specific goals: capture the reader's interest, introduce the topic, and make a claim or express an opinion in a thesis statement.

It's a good idea to start your essay with a hook (fascinating statement) to pique the reader's interest, though this can also be accomplished by using descriptive words, an anecdote, an intriguing question, or an interesting fact. Students can practice with creative writing prompts to get some ideas for interesting ways to start an essay.

The next few sentences should explain your first statement, and prepare the reader for your thesis statement, which is typically the last sentence in the introduction. Your  thesis sentence  should provide your specific assertion and convey a clear point of view, which is typically divided into three distinct arguments that support this assertation, which will each serve as central themes for the body paragraphs.

Writing Body Paragraphs

The body of the essay will include three body paragraphs in a five-paragraph essay format, each limited to one main idea that supports your thesis.

To correctly write each of these three body paragraphs, you should state your supporting idea, your topic sentence, then back it up with two or three sentences of evidence. Use examples that validate the claim before concluding the paragraph and using transition words to lead to the paragraph that follows — meaning that all of your body paragraphs should follow the pattern of "statement, supporting ideas, transition statement."

Words to use as you transition from one paragraph to another include: moreover, in fact, on the whole, furthermore, as a result, simply put, for this reason, similarly, likewise, it follows that, naturally, by comparison, surely, and yet.

Writing a Conclusion

The final paragraph will summarize your main points and re-assert your main claim (from your thesis sentence). It should point out your main points, but should not repeat specific examples, and should, as always, leave a lasting impression on the reader.

The first sentence of the conclusion, therefore, should be used to restate the supporting claims argued in the body paragraphs as they relate to the thesis statement, then the next few sentences should be used to explain how the essay's main points can lead outward, perhaps to further thought on the topic. Ending the conclusion with a question, anecdote, or final pondering is a great way to leave a lasting impact.

Once you complete the first draft of your essay, it's a good idea to re-visit the thesis statement in your first paragraph. Read your essay to see if it flows well, and you might find that the supporting paragraphs are strong, but they don't address the exact focus of your thesis. Simply re-write your thesis sentence to fit your body and summary more exactly, and adjust the conclusion to wrap it all up nicely.

Practice Writing a Five-Paragraph Essay

Students can use the following steps to write a standard essay on any given topic. First, choose a topic, or ask your students to choose their topic, then allow them to form a basic five-paragraph by following these steps:

• Decide on your  basic thesis , your idea of a topic to discuss.
• Decide on three pieces of supporting evidence you will use to prove your thesis.
• Write an introductory paragraph, including your thesis and evidence (in order of strength).
• Write your first body paragraph, starting with restating your thesis and focusing on your first piece of supporting evidence.
• End your first paragraph with a transitional sentence that leads to the next body paragraph.
• Write paragraph two of the body focussing on your second piece of evidence. Once again make the connection between your thesis and this piece of evidence.
• End your second paragraph with a transitional sentence that leads to paragraph number three.
• Repeat step 6 using your third piece of evidence.
• Begin your concluding paragraph by restating your thesis. Include the three points you've used to prove your thesis.
• End with a punch, a question, an anecdote, or an entertaining thought that will stay with the reader.

Once a student can master these 10 simple steps, writing a basic five-paragraph essay will be a piece of cake, so long as the student does so correctly and includes enough supporting information in each paragraph that all relate to the same centralized main idea, the thesis of the essay.

Limitations of the Five-Paragraph Essay

The five-paragraph essay is merely a starting point for students hoping to express their ideas in academic writing; there are some other forms and styles of writing that students should use to express their vocabulary in the written form.

According to Tory Young's "Studying English Literature: A Practical Guide":

"Although school students in the U.S. are examined on their ability to write a  five-paragraph essay , its  raison d'être  is purportedly to give practice in basic writing skills that will lead to future success in more varied forms. Detractors feel, however, that writing to rule in this way is more likely to discourage imaginative writing and thinking than enable it. . . . The five-paragraph essay is less aware of its  audience  and sets out only to present information, an account or a kind of story rather than explicitly to persuade the reader."

Students should instead be asked to write other forms, such as journal entries, blog posts, reviews of goods or services, multi-paragraph research papers, and freeform expository writing around a central theme. Although five-paragraph essays are the golden rule when writing for standardized tests, experimentation with expression should be encouraged throughout primary schooling to bolster students' abilities to utilize the English language fully.

• How To Write an Essay
• How to Write a Great Essay for the TOEFL or TOEIC
• Write an Attention-Grabbing Opening Sentence for an Essay
• How to Write and Format an MBA Essay
• How to Structure an Essay
• How to Help Your 4th Grader Write a Biography
• Definition and Examples of Body Paragraphs in Composition
• What Is Expository Writing?
• What an Essay Is and How to Write One
• Paragraph Writing
• 3 Changes That Will Take Your Essay From Good To Great
• An Introduction to Academic Writing
• Tips on How to Write an Argumentative Essay
• The Five Steps of Writing an Essay
• How to Write a Solid Thesis Statement
• The Introductory Paragraph: Start Your Paper Off Right

EL Education Curriculum

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• ELA G5:M3:U2:L10

Writing an Opinion Essay: Planning

In this lesson, daily learning targets, ongoing assessment.

• Technology and Multimedia

Supporting English Language Learners

Universal design for learning, closing & assessments, you are here:.

• ELA Grade 5
• ELA G5:M3:U2

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These are the CCS Standards addressed in this lesson:

• W.5.1: Write opinion pieces on topics or texts, supporting a point of view with reasons and information.
• W.5.1a: Introduce a topic or text clearly, state an opinion, and create an organizational structure in which ideas are logically grouped to support the writer's purpose.
• W.5.1b: Provide logically ordered reasons that are supported by facts and details.
• W.5.4: Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development and organization are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.
• W.5.5: With guidance and support from peers and adults, develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, editing, rewriting, or trying a new approach.
• W.5.9: Draw evidence from literary or informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research.
• W.5.9b: Apply grade 5 Reading standards to informational texts (e.g., "Explain how an author uses reasons and evidence to support particular points in a text, identifying which reasons and evidence support which point[s]"").
• SL.5.1: Engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grade 5 topics and texts, building on others' ideas and expressing their own clearly.
• I can plan an essay that states an opinion and has reasons that are supported by facts and details. ( W.5.1, W.5.4, W.5.9b )
• I can give kind, helpful, and specific feedback to my partner. ( W.5.5, SL.5.1 )
• Opinion Writing Planning graphic organizer ( W.5.1, W.5.4, W.5.5, W.5.9b )
• Strategically pair students for the peer critique in the Closing with at least one strong reader per pair.
• Review the Opinion Writing Checklist ( see the Tools page ).
• Post: Learning targets and applicable anchor charts (see Materials list).

Tech and Multimedia

• Continue to use the technology tools recommended throughout Modules 1-2 to create anchor charts to share with families; to record students as they participate in discussions and protocols to review with students later and to share with families; and for students to listen to and annotate text, record ideas on note-catchers, and word-process writing.

Supports guided in part by CA ELD Standards 5.I.A.1, 5.I.A.3, 5.I.A.4, 5.I.A.5, 5.I.C.10, 5.I.C.11, 5.I.C.12, 5.II.A.1, 5.II.A.2, 5.II.C.6 , and 5.II.C.7

Important points in the lesson itself

• The basic design of this lesson supports ELLs by referring to the Factors for Success anchor chart from Unit 1 to plan their essays, inviting students to draw on conclusions from the text-based discussion to form their focus statements, allowing time for discussion throughout the lesson, and explicitly reviewing the characteristics of opinion writing as a class.
• ELLs may find it challenging to go from annotating the Model Essay: Branch Rickey in Work Time A to planning their own opinion essays with the graphic organizer in Work Time B without having seen this process modeled. Consider filling in the graphic organizer with components of the model essay in Work Time A, providing students with concrete examples to refer to during their planning (see Meeting Students' Needs).

Levels of support

For lighter support:

• Encourage students to use the focus structure from the Language Dive in Lesson 9, but it was _____, to write their focus statement, supporting students in using linking words and phrases to connect ideas. Challenge students to think of more than one way they could use this linking language to write their focus statement.

For heavier support:

• Consider color-coding the text in the displayed Opinion Writing Planning graphic organizer to match the corresponding information in the Painted Essay(r) template, signaling the information that goes in each section. For example, in the introduction paragraph box, the text "What context do you need to give to your reader?" would be color-coded red; "State your opinion:" would be green; all text in "Proof Paragraph 1" would be yellow; etc.
• Multiple Means of Representation (MMR): Students provide kind, helpful, and specific feedback during a peer critique of their opinion writing planning. As this familiar learning target is displayed, consider inviting students to share examples of this type of feedback from previous lessons and note their responses for visual display.
• Multiple Means of Action and Expression (MMAE): Continue to support a range of fine motor abilities and writing needs by offering students options for writing utensils. Also, consider supporting students' expressive skills by offering partial dictation of student responses.
• Multiple Means of Engagement (MME): Since peer review can be threatening to some students, continue to emphasize the benefits of peer review and feedback for all students. Make this activity relevant by reminding students that writers have editors who provide feedback for their writing through each step in the writing process, which improves their writing.

Key:  Lesson-Specific Vocabulary  (L);  Text-Specific Vocabulary  (T);  Vocabulary Used in Writing  (W)

• states, support, specific, reason, evidence, use my strengths (L)
• Close Readers Do These Things anchor chart (begun in Module 1)
• Academic Word Wall (begun in Module 1)
• Vocabulary logs (from Module 1; one per student)
• Opinion Writing Planning graphic organizer (one per student and one to display)
• Model Essay: Branch Rickey (from Lesson 9; one per student and one to display)
• Working to Become Effective Learners anchor chart (begun in Module 1)
• Directions for Opinion Essay (from Lesson 9; one per student and one to display)
• Opinion Writing Checklist (from Lesson 9; one per student and one to display)
• Colored pencils (green, yellow, blue; one of each color per student)
• Preparing for a Text-Based Discussion: Jackie Robinson note-catcher (from Lesson 7; one per student)
• Discussion Notes Form: Jackie Robinson (from Lesson 8; one per student)
• Promises to Keep (from Unit 1, Lesson 1; one per student)
• "This I Believe: Free Minds and Hearts at Work" (text; from Lesson 2; one per student)
• Listening Closely: "Jackie Robinson: Royals to Obamas" note-catcher (from Lesson 4; one per student)
• Factor for Success anchor charts (begun in Unit 1)
• Domain-Specific Word Wall (begun in Unit 1, Lesson 1)
• Opinion Writing Planning graphic organizer (example, for teacher reference)
• Sticky notes (two per student)
• Working to Contribute to a Better World anchor chart (begun in Module 1)
• Directions for Peer Critique (from Module 1; one to display)
• Peer Critique Protocol anchor chart (begun in Module 1)
• Language Dive I Practice: Model Essay: Branch Rickey homework (from Lesson 9; one per student)
• Language Dive I Practice: Model Essay: Branch Rickey homework (example, for teacher reference)

Each unit in the 3-5 Language Arts Curriculum has two standards-based assessments built in, one mid-unit assessment and one end of unit assessment. The module concludes with a performance task at the end of Unit 3 to synthesize their understanding of what they accomplished through supported, standards-based writing.

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New York 5th Grade Writing Standards

LiteracyTA provides writing skills that New York educators use to teach New York 5th Grade Writing Standards.

The New York literacy standards are the what. The skills below and the related eCoach discussions are the how. In the table below, you will find next to each New York writing standard practical skills, classroom resources, rich conversations and teaching ideas that move all students toward achieving New York standards!

New York Literacy Standards

Text types and purposes.

Analyzing Prompts

Building a Reading and Writing Plan

Debate a Side

Integrating Sources

Opinion Writing Plan

Taking Research Notes

Timed Writing Process

A Writing Process for All

Understanding Argument Writing Standards

Engage in Structured Debates

5 Steps to Teaching Argumentative Writing

6 Steps for Teaching Types of Writing

Cause and Effect Organizer

Compare and Contrast Organizer

Expanding Summary

Explaining Textual Details

Informative Text Writing Plan

Online Portfolio

Source Summary

Summary: The Pathway to College Success

8 Research Lessons for African-American History Month

Understanding the Writing Standards: A Narrative (or is it Informative?)

3 Ways to Prepare Students for the New State Tests

Narrative Story Writing Plan

Let's Start Collaborating: Short Writing Tasks

CCR-Aligned Reading and Writing Processes

Production and Distribution of Writing

Peer review groups.

Problem and Solution Organizer

Three Step Writing Process

Getting Started with Pair Peer Review

Editing Marks

New and Exciting Writing Resources on TA

Supporting Your Tech Initiatives: Technology in Your Standards

Bringing the Socrative Seminar to the 21st Century

Digitally Mark Texts and Take Notes Using Mobile Devices, Laptops, and PCs

Add LiteracyTA to Your Mobile Device

Facilitating On-line Collaboration and Argument Analysis with Google+ Hangout

Research to Build and Present Knowledge

Evaluating sources.

Six Organizers at a Glance

Top 10 topics to write about/research in 2015-2016

Examining Common Core Anchor Standard W7

Team Teaching with Your Librarian

Four Square Organizer

Introducing Sources

Sequence/Process Organizer

Finally, A Way to Understand Text Complexity

Fictional Character Web

Socratic Seminar

Story Summary Poster

Three Group Socratic Seminar

Fun and Free Reading Program

Range of Writing

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• Prompt Builder
• Literacy Standards
• Teacher Talk
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• LTA Toolkit Pro
• The EL Teacher's Guidebook
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• Free Reading Program
• Free Reading Program for Elementary
• Free Reading Program for Middle School
• Free Reading Program for High School
• Free EL Reading Program
• Free Intervention Reading Program
• Free Online Reading Program
• Reading Assessments
• Reading Standards
• Writing Standards
• Speaking Standards
• Language Standards
• Common Core Standards

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Common Core State Standards Initiative

English Language Arts Standards

The Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts & Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects (“the standards”) represent the next generation of K–12 standards designed to prepare all students for success in college, career, and life by the time they graduate from high school.

The Common Core asks students to read stories and literature, as well as more complex texts that provide facts and background knowledge in areas such as science and social studies. Students will be challenged and asked questions that push them to refer back to what they’ve read. This stresses critical-thinking, problem-solving, and analytical skills that are required for success in college, career, and life.

The standards establish guidelines for English language arts (ELA) as well as for literacy in history/social studies, science, and technical subjects. Because students must learn to read, write, speak, listen, and use language effectively in a variety of content areas, the standards promote the literacy skills and concepts required for college and career readiness in multiple disciplines.

The College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards form the backbone of the ELA/literacy standards by articulating core knowledge and skills, while grade-specific standards provide additional specificity. Beginning in grade 6, the literacy standards allow teachers of ELA, history/social studies, science, and technical subjects to use their content area expertise to help students meet the particular challenges of reading, writing, speaking, listening, and language in their respective fields.

It is important to note that the grade 6–12 literacy standards in history/social studies, science, and technical subjects are meant to supplement content standards in those areas, not replace them. States determine how to incorporate these standards into their existing standards for those subjects or adopt them as content area literacy standards.

The skills and knowledge captured in the ELA/literacy standards are designed to prepare students for life outside the classroom. They include critical-thinking skills and the ability to closely and attentively read texts in a way that will help them understand and enjoy complex works of literature. Students will learn to use cogent reasoning and evidence collection skills that are essential for success in college, career, and life. The standards also lay out a vision of what it means to be a literate person who is prepared for success in the 21 st century.

• Key Design Consideration
• Students Who are College and Career Ready in Reading, Writing, Speaking, Listening, & Language
• How to Read the Standards
• College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Reading
• College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Writing
• College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Speaking and Listening
• College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Language
• Introduction for K-5
• Kindergarten
• Introduction for 6-12
• Grade 11-12
• Introduction
• Language Progressive Skills
• Measuring Text Complexity: Three Factors
• Range of Text Types for K-5
• Texts Illustrating the Complexity, Quality, & Range of Student Reading K-5
• Staying on Topic Within a Grade & Across Grades
• Range of Text Types for 6-12
• Texts Illustrating the Complexity, Quality, & Range of Student Reading 6-12
• English Language Arts Appendix A
• English Language Arts Appendix B
• English Language Arts Appendix C