Paragraph writing is a complex skill that can sometimes take years of practice. Writing is an academic skill that is an important topic to teach our students! There are so many types of writing styles, and until students find one they love they may resist completing their work. Writing narratives helps students put themselves into their writing, therefore helping their paragraph writing skills. Take a look at how using narratives can boost students’ confidence with writing!
What Are Narratives?
A narrative is a piece of writing that includes the person writing it as one of the characters. A narrative can be non-fictional or fictional. Have you ever told your students to write about their past experience with something before? That’s an example of a narrative piece! Narratives can also be written in fictional form. This is one of my favorite forms of narrative because it allows students to make up their own scenarios instead of just recalling past events in their life. Don’t get me wrong, I love that type of writing too, but letting kids get creative with their stories is so much more exciting!
Using Weekly Writing Prompts to Boost Paragraph Writing
Writing is a delicate subject that all students go about a little differently. Some students can finish an entire writing assignment in one day, while others may take a few weeks. I’ve found that if you give students a timeline it can assist them so that the writing task isn’t too drawn out and isn’t too demanding of students who need more time.
Students enjoy these Weekly Writing Prompts because they map out everything that needs to be written! The prompts are broken down into smaller questions to get students thinking more easily. The prompts can be assigned any way you’d like, but I like to give them 4 or 5 days to complete the whole paragraph writing task.
The boxes on the printables are labeled Monday through Friday and students know exactly which questions and prompts to write about each day. Monday usually includes brainstorming and mapping out their ideas. Tuesday involves writing the meat of their paragraph. Wednesday students add their hook and a conclusion. Thursday they edit and revise their paragraphs. Friday they make their final drafts.
If you don’t want to use a Monday to Friday schedule, a numbered option is also available.
Making Use of Writing Centers
Many classrooms use writing centers so students can get different tasks done throughout the week. While using the printables is a great idea for some classrooms, you may find that Digital Writing Prompts are very helpful to some!
Some of your students who don’t prefer writing with pencil and paper, may appreciate a digital variation of paragraph writing and brainstorming. Assign the writing prompts using Google Classroom or Google Drive. The best thing about these is that everything is included from brainstorming to final draft!
Hoping to use these weekly prompts for writing paragraphs other than narratives? Use this Paragraph Writing Bundle complete with narrative writing, opinion writing, and informative writing! Both digital and print versions are available. The kids will get used to the writing style and schedule week to week. The best part of all is that it will help them complete their writing tasks more efficiently and confidently!