Marvelous Paragraph Starters to Transform Your Class Into a Haven for Young Authors— Contrary to popular belief, writers are not born — they are made. This means that anyone, regardless of their academic prowess or their individual strengths, can be transformed into a writer.
As a teacher, you have the power to instill this belief in your classroom.
You see…
When you provide your students with writing activities that give them a space to explore new ideas, they will quickly come to love the practice of writing. Naturally, their writing skills will develop and improve, and they will begin to see that they, too, can be a writer.
In order to transform your classroom into a haven for budding authors, you will want to consider using paragraph starters as part of your writing activities. Paragraph starters might begin with a starter sentence or a hook, yet they leave students with the freedom and flexibility to take the paragraph where they choose.
Yes!
What are Paragraph Starters?
Paragraph starters are brief prompts that serve as an introduction to the paragraph topic. They may be as long as a full sentence, or as short as one or two words.
Paragraph starters can be used in the classroom in order to provide students with the inspiration and motivation needed to keep on writing. Paragraph starters highlight the importance of transition, and should be used as a key component in the overall paragraph structure.
Types of Paragraph Starters
The most common types of paragraph starters are:
- Starter Sentence — A starter sentence is a full sentence that begins a paragraph. Sentence starters are more commonly used in fiction writing than academic writing.
- Transition Words — Transition words are commonly used in essay writing, such as with an informational essay or narrative essays. Transitional phrases and words can help writers maneuver through their ideas in a way that is clear, concise and understandable. Transition words improve the overall flow of the piece of writing.
- Conclusion Sentence Starters — Conclusion sentence starters are often used at the end of an essay and they serve an important purpose. They will tie all the categories of the essay together in a way that supports the central theme and offers a firm and succinct conclusion.
When to Use Paragraph Starters
Paragraph starters are useful in a wide variety of writing pieces. In academic writing, sentence starters can be used in order to move from one topic to the next while still staying on point.
In essay writing, paragraph starters naturally lead the writer through the entire work in a clean and cohesive way.
When it comes to fiction, paragraph starters might allow for greater elaboration, or they give the writer more freedom to be creative. You are more likely to find an adjective in a fiction paragraph starter than you will in those meant for informational essays.
You may want to offer some paragraph starters to the students in your class if:
- Students are beginning to learn how to structure their paragraphs.
- Students are learning how to peer review work.
- Students are struggling to connect their ideas in their writing.
35 Marvelous Paragraph Starters to Use in Your Classroom
A good sentence starter will provide a foundation for what’s to come, without leading young writers in a specific or narrow direction. Use these examples of sentence starters to help improve essay writing and creative writing inside your classroom.
5 Paragraph Starters for Topic Sentences
- In this piece of writing…
- The central theme of this work is…
- The key aspect discussed…
- The issue that is explored…
- The main point that is demonstrated…
5 Paragraph Starters for Transitions
- Moving on to the next topic…
- In spite of the evidence…
- In addition to…
- While this may be the case…
- Another pivotal point…
5 Paragraph Starters for Lists
- The following series of events defined the text…
- In the following sections, I will outline…
- This list exemplifies…
- The following will illustrate…
- Below, you will see a list of…
5 Paragraph Starters for Comparisons
- By comparison…
- Similarly…
- One similarity between…
- Comparatively…
- Just like…
5 Paragraph Starters for Contrasts
- On the other hand…
- Conversely…
- While this may be the case…
- Despite the evidence stated above…
- In direct contrast to…
5 Paragraph Starters to Provide Examples
- Recent studies show…
- The following examples outline…
- One particular point that stood out…
- As an example…
- For instance, if you were to…
5 Paragraph Starters for Concluding a Piece of Writing
- One logical conclusion is…
- As a final thought…
- In a nutshell…
- Wrapping up…
- In summary…
Hopefully, you and your writers find these paragraph starters helpful. Now check out this list of…
86 More Free Writing Prompts
- 30 Examples of Topic Sentences (by grade level)
- 20 Paragraph Writing Topics
- 36 Easy to Write About Topics for Essays
- 40 Incredible Introduction Sentence Starters for Students
And before I close out this blog post…
A Few Final Thoughts
Within your classroom, you may have aspiring nonfiction writers who simply need a few topic sentences to help them get started.
Or, you may have kids who will only realize their full potential as an author once they find out how easy and fun it is to grab the reader’s attention. Inspiration is key to unlocking the important skill of writing within your students, and these paragraph starters provide structure and support.
From classroom journals to writing worksheets, these paragraph starters can easily be incorporated into your lesson plans. Just encourage your kids to keep on writing, and soon, you will see budding authors emerge!
Okie dokie. That’s all for today.
Until next time, write on…
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I appreciate it!
Sincerely,
Jill
journalbuddies.com
creator and curator
PS Check out this helpful resource —> Paragraph Structure Worksheets
