Teaching writing to middle and high schoolers using the 5 paragraph paper as your foundation answers all the questions parents have about teaching their older children how to start writing essays.
This is a scary question to most homeschool parents and can be quite intimidating. It is a challenge to know where to begin and how to present these skills to your child and get them from idea to paper.
Also, what do you teach and when? And what kinds of papers should I have them write so if they go to college they will be prepared.
And how am I going to take the time to prepare to teach them and sit down with them to teach this while I have other children I need to be homeschooling?
And how am I supposed to grade their papers and make sure I’m looking for the right things and have the time to read and mark these papers?
All of these are important questions.
I hope to answer at least some of these questions and share valuable information you can use.
To watch a video about this process –
It all starts with the 5 Paragraph Essay Format
Starting in middle school and if your high schooler hasn’t mastered it yet, I highly recommend learning to write papers using the 5 paragraph essay format. Once you know how to write this kind of paper, you are ready to move onto the more complex papers high schoolers learn to write in preparation for college.
Even if your child does not have plans to go to college, being able to write the first few kinds of papers most high schoolers learn is a valuable experience because of the thinking skills involved and practiced in writing these papers.
Writing expository papers (different from creative writing) helps your child think about ideas, organize those ideas, brainstorm details that are related to and support those ideas, weed out the unimportant or unrelated details, summarize, and use vocabulary and word choice in context. These are all valuable communication and thinking skills for any situation in life.
If your child is a natural writer and finds that it comes easy and they can fabricate stories and write them down naturally, that’s great. But ordinarily, I would recommend not to stress the creative writing until later if your child is struggling to get words down on paper.
This way your child can focus on just the writing process without worrying about what they are going to write at the same time.
This is why I suggest the first paper to teach is the 5 Paragraph Essay format and make it an informative paper. Have them choose a topic they could sit and talk with you about for 15 minutes without taking a breath, something they know so well they really don’t have to think about what they are going to tell you about it.
This is the easiest way to begin writing.
Teach Writing to Middle and High Schoolers using this Outline for a 5 Paragraph Paper
With the 5 Paragraph Essay format, after picking the topic, you want to brainstorm all the information they may want to include in the paper. This is a very important step to get all the ideas written down on paper, so they can refer to it for ideas when they are in the middle of writing and don’t have to stop to think of information.
Then you want to follow the structure of a 5 Paragraph paper.
I have a download you can print out to use to follow when teaching this format – Outline for a 5 Paragraph Paper.
Your paper needs to include the following:
- Hook – to capture the reader’s attention
- Topic Sentence or “Thesis” statement (in later papers) in an Introductory Paragraph
- Supporting Ideas and details in 3 Supporting Paragraphs
- Concluding Paragraph with a Closing Statement (could take different forms)
Refining the 5 Paragraph Paper with Sentence Variation
Once the paper is written, it’s time to read it over and chances are you will see that most of the sentences begin with a subject of the sentence and the verb where the subject is doing something. This will sound very redundant where each sentence will mostly begin with “The horse is a very strong animal. It can pull up to several hundred pounds. This animal is used on farms to help with the farm work.”
Rereading the paper and changing the start of a number of the sentences where they begin with something other than the subject (a noun or pronoun) and the verb will add variety, interest, and maturity to the writing. Developing this habit will eventually appear in their writing more naturally the more they practice this exercise and are aware they need to include more variety at the beginnings of their sentences.
Self-Editing Your 5 Paragraph Paper
One of the most common habits I saw as an English teacher and with my own children is not going back and looking at their paper for mistakes. Even if they do read it over once looking for errors, chances are they are missing most of the errors because they are looking for random mistakes all at one time while they are reading.
The self-editing process needs to follow a process. Rereading an essya for comprehension and clarity and if it makes sense to a reader is completely different than scanning the lines for technical errors in spelling, capitalization, and punctuation. So following a checklist and reading the paper over several times looking for specific mistakes will greatly enhance the editing process and allow your learner to find more mistakes and become aware of the kinds of mistakes they are making and trying to avoid them in the future.
One year I was teaching a homeschool class who got in the habit of handing in their rough drafts to me without editing them. I told them if I saw them continue to do that I would start charging an editing fee.
I was only kidding but I did start handing back some papers without even looking at them when I noticed it was obvious they hadn’t even looked at themselves. That helped get them into the habit of at least trying to catch obvious errors.
What types of essays do I need to teach to a high schooler?
Whether your child plans to attend college or not, there are certain types of essays they should learn to write. Not because, they need to memorize the format of the paper, but because of the thinking skills involved, practiced and attained during the writing of these essays.
The same kinds of skills mentioned above during the prewriting or brainstorming process are also practiced with these essays, but also analytical thinking, persuasive and argumentative skills, attention detail and research practices, and experience with using and recognizing words and methods (bias and unbiased) used to persuade people and have an effect on their thinking and decision making.
I would recommend the following types of essays after mastering the 5 Paragraph Paper (in this order – according to common use, complexity, and how they build on top of one another):
- Persuasive
- Analytical
- Research (MLA, APA, Chicago)
- Persuasive/Argumentative with citations
- College Application essay (usually in narrative or descriptive)
- Compare/Contrast essay
- Literary Criticism
And if your child is a natural writer and wishes to pursue creative writing or Journalism, I would include that in your lesson plans for their scope and sequence of study.
Announcing – a new online self-paced course for How to write a 5 Paragraph Paper Naturally
I am very excited to announce I have an online academy and have a new class for How to Write a 5 Paragraph Paper Naturally.
I have had a large number of inquiries for tutoring this topic but the number of hours for private tutoring to help a child learn and practice this type of writing can be cost prohibitive for a number of people.
So, I have developed a course that is more affordable than private one on one tutoring sessions.
It includes all the information and handouts I would include during tutor. And there is a bonus essay evaluation if you wish to receive feedback on your child’s completed essay with the course.
If teaching writing stresses you out and you’re not sure how or what to teach, this course is the solution and will give your child all the skills they need to write this type of essay easily.
It is broken down into small digestible easy to understand steps that they will be able to follow in other papers after taking this course.
And if you don’t have time to teach your child how to write these types of papers, I am doing all the teaching for you.
Click below to see our
Free Brainstorming for a 5 Paragraph Essay Course (Sample of the full course)
