Paragraph Writing Mini Unit

This paragraph writing mini unit will teach your students how to write a paragraph by taking them through the whole writing process from generating ideas all the way to publishing final drafts. Paragraph writing lessons and organizers focus on the traits of writing. Paragraphs can be completed as part of a writer’s workshop, writing center, guided writing in small groups, or whole class activity.

Each day (lesson) takes students through one trait of writing:

- Lesson 1 – Ideas – Students brainstorm ideas for their paragraph – main ideas and supporting details.

- Lesson 2 – Organization – Students start planning their paragraphs – adding more details for introduction, supporting sentences, and conclusion.

- Lesson 3 – Voice – Students plan their beginning, thinking about how they will hook the reader and connect to the audience, while making the writing sound like them.

- Lesson 4 – Writing the Rough Draft (this may be extended into two classes if the extra time is needed) – this is not a trait of writing, but necessary before the next traits can be examined. I have included optional printables for students to use for the writing of their rough drafts. You may wish to have them double-space their written rough draft to give them more room during the revising and editing stage.

- Lesson 5 – Word Choice – Students revise their writing to include better examples of word choice – they must justify their choices in the reflection, and make actual changes on their rough draft.

- Lesson 6 – Sentence Fluency – Students continue to revise their writing for sentence fluency – including sentences that flow and a variety of shorter and longer sentences to add impact to their writing.

- Lesson 7 – Conventions – Students will use CUPS to go through and edit their rough drafts. We usually spend about 2 days on this stage, with the students working in pairs.

- Lesson 8 – Publishing – Students will publish their final drafts using the success criteria for editing on the page. I have included optional pages for this if students are hand-writing their final copies, but you can have them publish their work using any method that fits your class.

I am including a completed paragraph that you can use with students to get their creative juices flowing, or to provide a little extra guided help for students who require more scaffolding or differentiation. You may wish to include a lesson that has students evaluating this completed example with the rubric to help them fully grasp what is expected of them with the assessment.

A rubric is also included for assessment.

Please see the complete preview for this resource to see if it fits the needs of you and your students.

Other Traits of Writing resources you may be interested in:

Writing Reflection Fans - Traits of Writing

Persuasive Letter Writing Bundle

Personal Narrative Writing

Fictional Narrative Writing

Writing a Structured Paragraph