OPINION WRITING Five Paragraph Essay Scaffolded Template Lucy Calkins Compatible

The idea of paragraph writing can be abstract and confusing to young writers; let alone tackling the infamous Five Paragraph Essay format students will need later for high school and college essays! While some teachers use "Oreo," or "Hamburger" models to help students visualize their writing, I found that those just don't effectively (or correctly) teach students to write a true five paragraph essay.

This template is the perfect way to scaffold your students' writing during their Lucy Calkins OPINION WRITING unit.


This product uses the "Watermelon" method. Each piece of the watermelon helps students to understand quickly how each sentence comes together to make up a paragraph, while also showing them clearly how each individual paragraph comes together to make up a true 5 paragraph essay. Each separate page in the template is its own paragraph. Put them together and...Ta-Da!...you have a 5-paragraph essay!

The "Watermelon Writing Rough Draft" template will need to be paired with each of the three posters--INTRODUCTION, SUPPORT PAGES, & CONCLUSION. Kids as young as second grade have been able to write incredible, above standard essays with this product!