Defines and provides examples of the main idea of a paragraph and also explores the meaning of key details.

This instructional activity is a final step towards supporting students to practice writing an informative/explanatory paragraph conveying complex ideas and presenting information clearly and accurately. Second-grade students can usually...

A lesson plan in which students read a text and complete a graphic organizer to identify the main idea and supporting details. Materials are included.

This site from the University of Ottawa provides a wonderfully designed website that not only gives you exhaustive information on paragraph writing. Students will engage in starting with outlines, writing topic sentences, dividing their...

This lesson uses the book Explorers of North America - A True Book by Brendan January to teach students how to identify the main topic of a multi-paragraph informational text and specific paragraphs within the text. Students are guided...

This lesson goes over common issues in body paragraphs.

The Power Essay, like the power paragraph, focuses on helping students understand the structure of a piece of expository writing. The "power" concept teaches students to organize their ideas according to levels of specificity and to...