How Do You Teach Writing Five Paragraph Essays?
The five-paragraph essay is the most basic form of essay writing. This method of writing essays is typically taught in high school and first-year college writing classes. The five-paragraph essay consists of one introduction paragraph, three body paragraphs and one conclusion paragraph. Each part of the essay has its own specific guidelines, and it is vital that students understand these parts before they start writing. Focus on explaining to students that the job of the introduction is to hook the reader and make her want to read more. Discuss types of “hooks” with your students, including quotes, important statistics or facts, or anecdotes, among others. Tell students to provide basic background information about the subject in the introduction. Discuss thesis statements. The thesis should be one sentence of the introduction – most often the last sentence. Make sure that students understand that they need to have a strong thesis before writing the essay and that all essays need a cle
