Teaching Students When to Start a New Paragraph

Teach your students when to start a new paragraph using an easy to remember rhyme.

I don't know about you, but my students had no idea about paragraphing. They just wrote a story or essay that was one long paragraph. That is, they did until I taught them this little rhyme.

There are four things you need to explain in the rhyme:

Topic

the topic or subject changes

Territory

there is a change in setting or location

Talker

the speaker changes, usually in dialog

Time

a period of time passes, i.e., the next day, later that afternoon

I like to have students glue a copy of the rhyme into their writer's notebooks. I've provided this download for you. Just click on the link to get the document.

After introducing the rhyme, practice noticing paragraph changes with your students. You can use your current read-aloud, the books students are currently reading, or you can select a specific piece of text. I projected it and asked students which of the four conditions the paragraph change met.

The rhyme provides language for you to use when you hold writing conferences with your students. For example, you might say, "There's a change in setting here. What do you need to do when that happens?"