Paragraph Writing Worksheets (Structure, Outline & Rubrics)

Is anything as intimidating as teaching children how to write? That’s why you need some helpful paragraph writing worksheets to help you get started!

Writing Paragraphs Worksheets

The trick to teaching your children how to write is to teach them to write clear and concise paragraphs. The paragraphs need a main idea. This is an easy idea for adults, but it’s challenging for young writers. So, these paragraph writing worksheets will walk your children through the elements of a good paragraph. 

How to Write Paragraphs

Once kids are able to write words and sentences, the next step is to teach your children how to write paragraphs. A paragraph is a group of sentences organized around one idea. They often begin with a topic sentence and end with a concluding sentence. 

How to Write a Paragraph – Learn the different steps that go into teaching your children the best way to write a paragraph. The instructions begin with brainstorming and then move on to writing the topic sentence. 

The Four Parts of a Paragraph Printable

There are four parts to a paragraph. The first part is the topic sentence which states what the paragraph is about. The next section includes a supporting idea or two. The supporting ideas help to explain the main topic of the paragraph.

The final two parts include the supporting details section. This section fills out the paragraph and may provide an example. The final part is the concluding sentence which finishes the paragraph. 

Paragraph Writing Activities – You’ll find an excellent group of writing activities on this page that explain the organization of the paragraph. Your kids will also get practice working with compound and complex sentences.

Planning Out Your Paragraph Templates

One of the best ways to begin a writing exercise is to brainstorm and then plan the paragraph. These planning templates are great resources to teach kids how to organize a paragraph into a logical order that actually makes sense.

Essay Planning Worksheet – This printable pdf is a great way to have your kids organize their writing and ensure they’re discussing a single idea. Once the template is organized, it’s a breeze actually to write the paragraph.

Paragraph Writing Activities – You’ll find a fun graphic organizer to help your kids organize their paragraphs into a logical order. There’s a spot to plan the topic sentences, the details, and the conclusion.

Body Paragraph Planning Worksheet

Body Paragraph Planning Sheet – Do you have a child who gets a little tense at the thought of writing a personal statement? This body paragraph planning sheet walks kids through the process of creating body paragraphs for college applications or personal statements.

5 Paragraph Essay Planning PDF Download

Once kids understand the structure of a paragraph and can write them well, it’s time for essay writing. Essay writing is similar in format to the paragraph, just longer. Your students will now learn the organization of the essay and how to use transitional phrases as they write.

Paragraph Essay Format – Teach your kids how to plan and write a five-paragraph essay. The best part about essay writing is that you can use writing prompts from any subject, like social studies.

Paragraph Checklists PDFs

Learning how to edit your writing is critical when you are learning how to write. No one writes perfectly the first time through. Instead, your kids will need to add new words, include extra support sentences, or remove excess wordage. This will ensure they write clean and concise paragraphs. 

These paragraph checklists will take the guesswork out of editing and teach them how to write a good paragraph. 

Paragraph Writing Checklist – This free literary analysis paragraph writing checklist meets common core standards. It will also guide your kids on how to improve their paragraph structure so they can improve their writing.

Editing and Writing Checklist – Your kids will love this Hamburger writing and editing bookmark. It reminds them to check for simple mistakes they may have made while writing.

Writing Checklist – This primary school checklist makes sure that kids use a good paragraph structure, use a topic sentence, etc. 

Rubrics for Writing Assignments – You’ll find a wonderful selection of different rubrics and checklists to use when grading your children’s writing assignments. You can also hand these rubrics to your kids to use as a checklist when writing. You’ll find checklists for persuasive writing, book reports, and more.

Paragraph Worksheets

Teach your kids all about the structure of a paragraph as well as the different types of paragraph they will be writing over the years. These paragraph worksheets make a fantastic addition to any lesson plan!

You might also want to print some free capitalization worksheets. 

Main Idea of a Paragraph Worksheet

One important skill a child needs is the ability to identify the main idea of a paragraph. This teaches kids to understand why they need one idea for each paragraph and how to write a topic sentence to state this idea. After all, the first sentence isn’t always the topic sentence.

Identifying Main Ideas – This printable pdf is aimed at 7th through 9th graders. It walks students through figuring out what the main idea of a paragraph or article is.

Main Idea Worksheets – These worksheets teach kids how to find the main idea of various passages using paragraphs on a wide variety of topics. 

Outline a Paragraph

The ability to outline a paragraph is a critical skill. Not only does it help kids figure out what a paragraph is saying, but it also helps them to organize their thoughts. You can use a graphic organizer, but an outline also creates a logical structure for the paragraph.

Paragraph Outlining Worksheet – This simple worksheet will help your kids write a logical paragraph. It guides them through the topic sentence, the supporting details, and the conclusion.

Outline a Paragraph – This printable gives kids a sample paragraph to practice outlining. First, they need to find the topic sentences. Then, they discover the supporting sentences. The final step is to locate the concluding sentence.

Informative Paragraph

An informative paragraph is a paragraph that gives information about a topic. Kids might write about a historical event, kinds of sports, or even what they ate for breakfast.

Outline an Informative Paragraph – Have your kids use this worksheet to outline and write an informative paragraph about an animal of the child’s choosing. 

Narrative Paragraphs Worksheet

A narrative paragraph is essentially a short story. There are different types of narrative writing. Kids can include details such as curly dark hair, brown eyes, or an oval shiny face. They will also need to ensure that they come up with a plot or a problem for their character to solve.

Narrative Paragraph Worksheet – This interactive worksheet will make story writing fun for your children as they work through a narrative paragraph.

New Paragraph Narrative – This worksheet gives your kids an example paragraph to teach young children how to write a narrative and when to start the next paragraph. 

Persuasive Paragraphs

Persuasive paragraphs is another term for argumentative writing. Kids learn how to write persuasively using a short format. 

Hamburger Persuasive Writing Template – What could be better than using a hamburger to learn how to write a persuasive paragraph? This fun pdf walks kids through the steps of writing an argument in a logical order.

Persuasive Planning Template – This fabulous template teaches kids how to organize a persuasive writing assignment. It begins with their opinion and has the kids include reasons and examples before ending with their opinion again.

Descriptive Paragraph Worksheet

Another useful writing skill to develop is of writing a descriptive paragraph. In this type of writing, children will use their skills to describe something or someone. They may choose to describe the positive characteristics of a young man or their best friend Lara. Another option is to describe what a polar bear looks like.

Writing a Descriptive Paragraph – This lesson plan includes everything you need to help your kids learn how to write a descriptive paragraph.

Organizing Paragraphs Template

Paragraph Organizer Meal Plan – This is a one-page template to teach students how to logically organize their paragraphs. It’s perfect if you are learning how to improve kid’s writing.

Free Graphic Organizers Templates – These graphic organizers are a great way to help kids get over writer’s block. Instead of sitting down to a blank page, they work on filling in the blanks. Once their thoughts are organized, kids can easily complete their writing assignments.

Paragraph Writing Downloads

You’ll also want to check out these paragraph writing downloads. These printables will help your children learn how to write paragraphs. They’ll also learn how to take their new writing skills to write letters to distant family and friends.

Paragraph Writing Unit Freebie – This freebie is a two-week lesson plan that walks young children through the basic steps of writing a paragraph.

Learning How to Write Letters – Teach your kids how to write letters to the important people in their lives. This critical skill is needed to help your children stay connected to people who live far away.

In Conclusion

Writing paragraphs is a critical skill to teach young writers. They can learn how to add attention getters to their paragraphs, supporting ideas, topic sentences, and transition words for kids. Ultimately, the paragraph is the foundation that kids need to master before moving on to writing essays.