Hamburger Paragraphs

After teaching fourth grade last year, I know exactly what my third graders need to know to be successful next year. This is especially true in writing.

Last year, many of my fourth graders came to school unable to consistently write in a complete sentence. Their pages were full of run-on sentences. This is a common problem for kids because the emphasize on writing right now is ideas and volume (at least in our district).

I feel pretty old school in my belief in the emphasis of grammar in writing. I spend a lot of time teaching the parts of speech and types of sentences because I belief that students need to really know and understand the way we put sentences together in order to do it themselves independently and consistently.

After practicing writing sentences all year (yes, over six months on sentences!), we have been able to start writing paragraphs! I find that literal little third graders need to have explicit instructions to do anything, writing paragraphs included. To that end, I made my own version of the hamburger paragraph model. It is a classic (this is how my third grade teacher taught me to write paragraphs), but the perfect representation for our needs.

After looking at the anchor chart/poster, we sorted paragraphs that were already written to get the feeling for what the model looks like. I had six different paragraphs, so kids could get as much practice as they needed. I also had students copy the paragraphs once they were sorted correctly for even more practice.

I was especially excited when some of my students realized that adding details to their paragraphs was just like adding more condiments - they both make the hamburger (or paragraph) more delicious. I have some smarties this year!

Also included in my Hamburger Paragraphs product is a paragraph organizer which allows students to create a paragraph one sentence at a time. This has been especially helpful for my students who struggled to write their paragraphs independently after the lesson. It just provides an extra layer of support to get students working independently.

I have to say that this was one of the most successful lessons we have done in third grade. We did this about three weeks ago, and we have been writing paragraphs every day since then. I am always so excited when I see that they have used the model all by themselves!


You can get this set for just $3! That is such a bargain for creating stronger writers!

   

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