Fifth Grade: Teach students that a paragraph is a unit of thought.
It is often in third, fourth, or fifth grade that students are expected to write more than one paragraph in a report, essay, or story. This is the point at which students start writing—and have no idea where to divide paragraphs (and sometimes where/when to end the paper!).
To combat this, from the beginning of multi-paragraph writing, when your student is outlining (and I hope he is outlining every time he writes!), have him outline paragraph-by-paragraph. It is much easier to determine where to put paragraph breaks as a student is outlining than it is when a student is writing.
Regardless of the type of outline you use for your fifth grade student, when you create an outlining space/lines, put a line at the top of each “paragraph” area that says
Paragraph # __________ Topic of Paragraph: ____________________________.
I do this in all of my books for every paper, whether I give the source (and they take a Sentence-by-Sentence Outline Over Given Material) or whether they find sources (for research report writing) or whether they are writing a story or essay with original thoughts. I tell them that this line means that they are “committing” to the contents of each paragraph. They can change their minds (and change the Topic of Paragraph line), but this gets them started.
This helps the student when he is outlining to know that when he changes “topics” or “aspects” of his paper, he should also change paragraphs. I have been using this approach in my books and with my students forever, and it really works. A student taught with this method will become especially adept at creating paragraph breaks in all of his writing.
Bonus: A student who learns to plan his paragraph breaks with this method will also become a stronger reader. Remember those questions on standardized tests that say things like “What would be a good title for this paragraph?” or “What is the main idea of this paragraph?” You guessed it! That is exactly what they are doing with their own material/information when they declare their “topic of paragraph” for each paragraph.
Note: Go here to see (and print/use) two week samples of my Meaningful Composition series. These samples have, for the most part, complete writing projects. Thus, you can try out many of the outlining methods that I have been describing in this series. Also, keep your eyes on my stores (Character Ink Store, Teachers Pay Teachers, CurrClick, and Teacher’s Notebook) as I put up various writing project downloads that are in my longer books.
