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Essay for Class 5 in English | List of Essay Topics for Grade 5 Students

Essay Writing is a great piece of work to teach or Improve your Child’s Writing Skills. We are with you in this and compiled Essay for Class 5 in English covering frequently asked essay topics from different categories. Increase your vocabulary and develop a strong command over English by reading and practicing various Essay Writing Topics. The Content in the Sample Essays for 5th Std Students is written in a simple and easy to understand language. You can access both Short and Long Essays on the Most Common Topics and use them as a part of your competitions or speeches.

Essay Topics List for Class 5 Children

All the Essay Topics for Grade 5 Students are written in a simple language keeping in mind the student’s level of understanding. Access the Essay Writing Topics & Ideas for 5th Standard Children available through the quick links and tap on the respective topic you wish to see. By reading and writing using the Class 5 Essays you can improve your vocabulary as well as get uniqueness to write an essay on your own. By doing so you can learn how to put your thoughts into words.

• My School Essay for Class 5
• Essay on Earth for Class 5
• Rainy Season Essay in English for Class 5
• Essay on Holi for Class 5
• Essay on Christmas for Class 5
• Essay on My Mother for Class 5
• Essay on My Country for Class 5
• Essay on Television for Class 5
• Short Essay on Pollution for Class 5
• Essay on Discipline for Class 5
• Essay on New Year Resolution for Class 5
• Essay on Mahatma Gandhi for Class 5
• Essay on Republic Day for Class 5
• Happiest Day of My Life Essay for Class 5
• My Birthday Party Essay for Class 5
• Honesty is the Best Policy Essay for Class 5
• Essay on Earthquake for Class 5
• Essay on Flood for Class 5
• Essay on Water Pollution for Class 5
• Essay on Environment for Class 5

FAQs on Essay for Class 5

1. What is the best and simple way to write an essay?

The best way to write an essay is to jot down what you are going to write beforehand. Not just the Essay make sure you have a structure too in mind. This really helps and is the simplest thing to write an essay.

2. Where do I find Some Good Descriptive Essay Topics for Grade 5 Students?

You can find some Good Descriptive Essay Topics for Grade 5 Students on our page.

3. What Should a Good Essay Have?

A good essay should have a bang-on opening statement that draw’s the attention of the users followed by a thesis statement and then a conclusion or a closing statement supporting your ideas. The Idea of each paragraph should be well explained and try considering examples too in between.

Final Words

We believe the knowledge shared regarding the Essay Writing Topics for Class 5 has shed some light on you. If you have any other queries or want us to add more such topics do leave us your suggestions and we will look into them. Stay in touch with our site to avail latest updates on Essays for the Most Common Topics of Students belonging to Different Grades.

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Free Printable Essay Writing Worksheets for 5th Grade

Essay Writing made exciting! Discover a vast collection of free printable Reading & Writing worksheets for Grade 5 students, crafted by Quizizz to enhance their skills and spark creativity.

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Explore printable Essay Writing worksheets for 5th Grade

Essay Writing worksheets for Grade 5 are an essential tool for teachers looking to enhance their students' reading and writing skills. These worksheets provide a structured and engaging way for students to practice and develop their nonfiction writing abilities. By incorporating various topics and themes, these worksheets allow students to explore different genres and styles of writing, ultimately helping them become more confident and proficient writers. As a teacher, utilizing these worksheets in your lesson plans will not only help your students improve their writing skills, but also foster a love for reading and writing in your classroom.

Quizizz, a popular online platform for interactive quizzes and assessments, can be an excellent complement to Essay Writing worksheets for Grade 5. This platform offers a wide variety of quizzes and activities that can help reinforce the reading and writing skills your students are learning through the worksheets. By incorporating Quizizz into your lesson plans, you can create a more dynamic and engaging learning environment for your students. Furthermore, Quizizz offers a range of other educational resources, such as flashcards and interactive games, that can help support your students' growth in reading, writing, and other subject areas. Overall, combining the use of Essay Writing worksheets for Grade 5 with Quizizz's offerings can greatly enhance your students' learning experience and help them excel in their academic journey.

Writing Prompts for 5th Grade

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By fifth grade, students are developing basic fluency as writers. In order to hone their skills, fifth graders should practice supporting claims with factual information, conveying information clearly, and writing narratives in a logical order. The following fifth-grade writing prompts encourage students to develop their skills through topics that are meaningful to them.

Narrative Essay Writing Prompts

Narrative essays tell a story based on a student’s personal experience. They encourage students to use descriptive writing to reflect on their experiences, explain them in a logical manner, and draw conclusions from them.

• New Beginnings . This is your last year of elementary school. What are you most excited or most nervous about when you think of starting middle school ?
• Betwixt . Students in 5th grade are often referred to as “tweens,” meaning that they are between the young child and the teen years. What is the hardest thing about being a tween in today’s society?
• Besties . What is the best book you’ve ever read? What made it so special?
• Reflections . Do you remember your first-ever day of school ? Describe one vivid memory from that day.
• Bullies . Have you ever witnessed someone bullying another student? What happened and how did it make you feel?
• Man’s Best Friend . Do you share a bond with your dog or other pet? Describe your pet, and explain what makes your relationship unique.
• Families . A family isn’t always a mom, a dad, and their children. Write about the ways your family is the same as and different from other types of families and what makes your bonds so strong.
• Holiday Memories . Think about one of your favorite holiday-related memories. Write an essay describing it and tell why it is so unforgettable.
• Guilty . Think about a time you did something that made you feel guilty. Describe what happened.
• The Ultimate Field Trip . If you could choose anywhere in the world to go on a field trip , where would you choose and why?
• Family Game Night . Do you enjoy playing games with your family? Describe your favorite family game or activity.
• Tasty Treats . What is your favorite food? Describe it as if you were introducing it to someone who has never seen or tasted it.
• Someday . Have you thought about what you want to be when you grow up? Write an essay explaining why you think you’d like that career.

Persuasive Essay Writing Prompts

Persuasive essays are those written to convince another person to agree with the writer or take action. These persuasive essay prompts inspire 5th graders to share their passions with an audience.

• Pets Day . You’ve just gone to work with your parent for “bring your child to work day.” Write an essay convincing your school to have a “bring your pet to school” day.
• Yuck . What is your least-favorite cafeteria food? Give three compelling reasons why your school should quit serving it.
• Let’s Trade . Your friend’s lunches from home always look better than yours. Write an essay convincing your buddy that you should start swapping meals every day. Be sure to highlight the benefits of the food you bring!
• Home Alone . Write an essay convincing your parents that you are old enough and responsible enough to stay at home alone.
• Sunny Day . The weather outside is beautiful for the first time in weeks. Persuade your teacher not to assign any homework so that you’ll have time to go out to play.
• The Sequel . The long-awaited sequel to your favorite book or video game is now available. Convince your brother or sister to do your chores this week so that you have plenty of time for reading or gaming.
• Seating Chart . Because of your teacher’s seating chart, you’re not going to be able to sit next to your friend all year! Persuade your teacher to let students choose their seats.
• Birth Order . Are you an only child, the oldest sibling, the youngest, or the middle? What makes your birth order the best?
• The Ultimate Game . What is the best video game on the planet? Explain why it’s better than similar games.
• Life Lessons . What are the three most important lessons parents should teach their children and why?
• Test Time . Do you think standardized tests  are helpful or harmful? Explain your answer.
• Tunes . Some studies have shown that listening to music can help students concentrate. Should students be allowed to listen to music using headphones during independent work times at school? Persuade the reader of your answer.
• Catch-22 . You’re not a big fan of writing. Write an essay  convincing your teacher that you shouldn’t have to write any more essays this year.

Expository Essay Writing Prompts

Expository essays are often called how-to essays. They usually teach the reader something or provide facts about a particular topic.

• Let’s Play . Your family frequently attends community theater productions, but your friend has never seen one. Write an essay describing what he or she can expect during the evening.
• Band . You're graduating elementary school, and a younger student is taking your spot in the school band. Explain to him or her how to clean and care for your  musical instrument .
• Lessons Learned . Write an essay to a younger sibling explaining two or three key strategies for having a positive 5th-grade experience.
• Class Pet . You’ve cared for your class pet this week, but now it’s another classmate’s turn. Explain how to feed and care for the pet properly.
• Upgrade Ahead . You have an idea to improve your school. Explain it.
• Safety Zone . Explain three of the best steps kids can take to be safe online.
• Family Traditions . Does your family have any customs or traditions that might be unfamiliar to a classmate? Describe them.
• Pen Pal . Describe for your pen pal who lives in another state an animal native to your area, including its physical characteristics, behaviors, and any sounds that it makes.
• Creepy Crawlies . Compare and contrast two insects or animals that are similar, but have different characteristics such as a bumblebee and a yellow jacket or a horse and a mule. How are they alike and how are they different?
• Clean Up . Your class is going to spend a day cleaning up at a local park. You’ve done this with another group before, but some of your classmates haven’t. Explain the process.
• Action . Your favorite book was made into a movie. Compare and contrast the film and book versions.
• Team Players . Explain how contributing responsibly helps or how it hurts a group when someone doesn’t do his part.
• Tell and Show . Your class is having a “tell and show” day. You have to describe your item in as much detail as possible without naming it. Only when the class guesses or gives up can you show your item. Write out the description of your item.

Creative Writing Essay Prompts

Creative writing allows students to engage their imaginations and story-telling skills while also practicing vital writing skills such as sequence and description.

• Magic Lamp . You’ve just found a magic lamp. What happens when you rub it?
• Say Cheese . You are given an exceptional camera. Everything you take a picture of becomes yours, but you can only take three pictures. Tell a story about the photos you take.
• Invisible Man . One morning, you glance in the mirror and realize that you don’t have a reflection. You’ve become invisible! Write a story about your day.
• Gone to the Dogs . Write a story from your pet’s point of view.
• All Hail the King . Imagine that you discover an uncharted land that you claim as a new country. And, you’re the ruler! Describe your country, its people, and your newfound position of power.
• Part of the Story . One night, you doze off after reading the latest book in your favorite series. When you wake, you discover that you’re in the story! Write about your adventures.
• Before or After . Imagine that you live either 100 years in the past or 100 years in the future. What is your life like?
• Dr. Doolittle . You’re walking through a pet store when you discover that you can talk to the animals. What happens next?
• Meet and Greet . Imagine that you can meet anyone you’re studying in school right now from famous scientists to historical figures to the characters in the class read-aloud . Write a story about your meeting with that person.
• Switcheroo . If you could switch lives with anyone in your school, who would it be? Write about your day in the life of that person.
• Holiday Loop . Imagine you get to relive your favorite holiday every day. What’s that like?
• Tall Tales . Tall tales are possibly true stories that contain highly exaggerated actions or events. Create a tall tale about something that happened in your family.
• Teacher's Pet . Imagine that your teacher is actually your parent. Describe a day in class.
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5th grade writing

by: Jessica Kelmon | Updated: August 4, 2022

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By now, your child knows that writing is a process that requires research, feedback, and revision. This year, kids are expected to respond to others’ prompts for improvement and learn how to evaluate their own work, too.

Super study skills

In fifth grade, taking notes becomes an essential academic skill. Fifth graders use books, periodicals, websites, and other sources to do short research projects. Kids learn to use several sources to investigate a topic from different angles — both on their own and as part of group work with peers. Your child should keep track of all the sources they use and note what they learn, the name of the source, and the page number or url so they can find it again to create a source list or bibliography later. A big step in your child’s research process this year: taking the time to review, categorize, and summarize or paraphrase the information they’ve learned. What did your child find out about the animal’s habitat from each source? Sorting evidence into categories and summarizing information will help your fifth grader with the planning, writing, and revising stages of their writing project.

Can your 5th grader get organized to write an essay?

Revise, rewrite

By now, your child should understand that writing is a process requiring several steps: planning, first draft, revisions, editing, and publishing or sharing work. Your child’s planning work should include reading and rereading, taking notes, finding additional sources, discussing how new knowledge fits into what your child knew before, visually organizing the information they plan to include, and determining the best way to clearly present their evidence as a cohesive set of points. After the first draft is written, the teacher and other students will offer feedback: asking questions to elicit new details, suggesting ways to clarify an argument, or pressing for new sources of information. Don’t be surprised if there are a few rounds of revisions this year: it’s how your child’s writing gets stronger. If revisions aren’t enough to improve your child’s writing, then this year your child may be required to rewrite the piece or try a new approach . Once the structure and contents are set, final edits are the time to perfect spelling and grammar. All this work on one writing assignment is meant to help your child think of writing as a multistep process so they can evaluate their work and see that — if it’s not up to snuff — they should keep trying until it is.

Fifth grade writing: opinion pieces

Your child’s opinion pieces should start by clearly stating an opinion about a topic. Then, kids should set up and follow a logically ordered structure to introduce each reason they’ll offer in support of their opinion. Their reasons should be supported by facts and details (a.k.a. evidence), and your child should use linking words, such as additionally, consequently , and specifically to connect evidence-backed reasons to their opinion. Finally, kids should close their argument with a well-articulated conclusion that supports their original opinion.

Fifth grade writing: informative writing

Logic reigns when evaluating your fifth grader’s informative writing. The purpose of this type of writing is to convey facts and ideas clearly. So a logically ordered presentation of supporting points is, well… quite logical. Your child should clearly introduce the topic and present related information in the form of a few clear, well-thought-out paragraphs. Kids should draw on facts, definitions, concrete details, quotes, and examples from their research to thoroughly develop their topic. To clearly connect their research, fifth graders should use advanced linking words (e.g. in contrast, especially ) to form compound and complex sentences that convey their points. Remember that your child’s presentation matters: making use of subject headings, illustrations, and even multimedia to illustrate points is encouraged whenever they make your child’s work more logical and clear. Then, to wrap it up, your child should have a well-reasoned conclusion.

Check out these three real examples of good 5th grade informational writing: •” How to save water ” •” Saving a Resource ” •” Water Saveing ”

Can your 5th grader write an informational essay?

5th grade writing: narrative writing

A narrative is a story. Whether inspired by a book, real events, or your child’s imagination, your child’s story should start by introducing a narrator, characters, or a situational conflict. Fifth graders will be asked to use classic narrative devices like dialogue, descriptive words, and character development. Your child should be able to show how characters feel and how they react to what’s happening. Finally, the events should unfold naturally, plausibly bringing the story to a close.

Grammatically correct

By now, your fifth grader should have a solid understanding of the parts of speech. This year, your child should learn to use and explain the function of conjunctions (e.g. because, yet ), prepositions (e.g. above, without ), and interjections (e.g. Hi, well, dear ). Kids should also start using correlative conjunctions (e.g. either/or, neither/nor ). What’s more, students learn to form and use the past, present, and future perfect tenses ( I had walked; I have walked; I will have walked. ). With this tense mastered, fifth graders will be expected to use various verb tenses to convey a sequence of events and to recognize and correct any inappropriate shifts in tense.

Check out this related worksheet: •  Active and passive sentences

More sophisticated language

This year your child will: • Regularly refer to print and online dictionaries, thesauruses, and glossaries to spell challenging words correctly. • Use academic vocabulary words in writing. • Use more nuanced descriptions (think advanced synonyms and antonyms). • Master homographs (e.g. understand that bear means the animal and to support or carry). • Employ common idioms, adages, and proverbs (e.g. “born yesterday”; “the early bird gets the worm”; “failure teaches success” ) • Interpret figurative language like similes (e.g. “light as a feather” ) and metaphors ( “it’s a dream come true” ).

This year, your child will learn to use commas after a sentence’s introductory segment (e.g. Earlier this morning, we ate breakfast .), to set off the words yes and no in writing (e.g. Y es, we will ; and no, thank you ), to set off a question from the rest of a sentence (e.g. It’s true, isn’t it? ), and to show direct address. (e.g. Is that you, Mike? ) Your child will also use commas to separate items in a series. (e.g. I want eggs, pancakes, and juice .)

Your child should also be taught how to consistently use quotation marks, italics, or underlining to indicate titles when citing sources in reports and papers.

Check out these related worksheets: •  Punctuating a paragraph • Simile or cliche? •  Homophones and homographs

And it’s live!

The final step in writing this year? Publishing! Once all the hard work (the research, planning, writing, revisions, edits, and rewrites) are finished, your fifth grader’s ready to publish. Many classes will experiment with printing work or publishing it on a blog, website, or app. While teachers should be there for support, your child should be doing the work. The point is to learn keyboarding skills (2 full pages is the goal for fifth graders) and to interact and collaborate with peers. This could mean, for example, that your child reads a classmate’s published work online and either comments on it or references it when answering a question in class.

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• Virtual Learning

Help your 5th Grader Write a Great Essay

Writing essays can be a daunting task for students. 5th-grade students have a strong foundation of writing skills to help them construct body paragraphs and express their ideas using complex sentences. Still, they may need an extra push to write confidently and expressively.

The most challenging task when writing an essay is starting the writing process and learning to be confident.

Helping students tackle the task and build their confidence in writing multiple types of essays such as a persuasive essay, an informational essay, or even a narrative essay such as short stories takes a lot of practice, focus, and support from instructors and parents.

Learning to Express Ideas

Pre-writing is a crucial step in the writing process. Fifth graders should be in a place in their writing journey where they can perfect all the pre-writing strategies before they even write a word of an essay.

This will set them up to successfully construct excellent five-paragraph essays consistently.

When your child sits down to write a five body paragraph essay, the very first thing they should do is read the prompt. Understanding what the prompt is asking for is the first step in being proactive about writing an excellent essay.

You want them to ponder these questions: am I writing a persuasive essay? Am I writing an essay on a topic requiring me to do my research? Will I need to list evidence? Am I writing a narrative story that requires figurative language?

How to Successfully Brainstorm An Essay

One excellent way to get the brainstorm rolling is to have your fifth-grade student utilize a graphic organizer such as a cluster map as a way to write down all the related words or small phrases they can think of about the prompt.

The organizer will help get their creative minds rolling until they write something they are interested in or perhaps even excited about exploring further.

Brainstorming is a crucial component of teaching writing. This first step should be the most relaxed, no-pressure section for the student.

As a fifth-grader, your child will have a good idea of how to brainstorm different ideas on paper, but an essential part will be to organize these ideas into something of an outline.

Through brainstorming, students learn to think creatively to answer the prompt. Sometimes logical thinking is also required. For example, with a persuasive essay, students must brainstorm their arguments and develop reasons or evidence to back up their claims.

Supporting this step will allow students to perfect the details of the content they’re writing about and give them the main idea for their entire essay.

How to Turn a Brainstorm into an Outline

Encouraging your fifth grader to write a quick outline in a way that’s organized according to the five-paragraph essay format will give them a solid foundation to write their first rough draft.

These pre-writing skills are crucial in turning students from simple sentence writers into detailed five-paragraph essay writers.

Five-paragraph essays are the standard way to construct an essay, including writing an introduction, three body paragraphs, and a conclusion.

Using this format, your fifth grader should write a short and straightforward outline that showcases every paragraph’s main ideas and contents in logical order.

Instead of freewriting the essay off the top of their head, an outline in the five-paragraph essay format will help your fifth grader have a guide to help them construct the first draft of their essay and flesh out ideas when they write body paragraphs.

Constructing a 5 Paragraph Essay

Read below for a brief five-paragraph essay instructional unit to help you guide your child in writing an exceptional essay.

1) How To Write An Introduction

In the five-paragraph essay format, the introduction is vital in grabbing the reader’s attention and holding it throughout the essay.

When teaching writing, the introduction is explained as the initial place to set up the topic of the essay. It usually requires a direct address of the contents to follow in the form of a thesis.

A thesis statement is a sentence in the introduction that directly answers the prompt and has reasons and evidence for the writer’s claim. It’s like a short preview of what the students will write about in their body paragraphs.

Furthermore, students write the thesis at the end of the introduction paragraph and ensure it follows a specific sentence structure to make it stand out as the most critical part of the intro.

2) How To Write Body Paragraphs

An excellent way to help students be confident in their work is to help them build clear strategies or steps to tackle daunting parts of an essay, such as a body paragraph.

Acronyms are one good way to remember all the steps of constructing a remarkable body paragraph. For example, TEEA is a wonderful acronym to get your fifth grader started on the task.

TEEA stands for:

T: Topic Sentence

The topic sentence is the very first sentence of a body paragraph. It explains what your section is about and its main idea. Ideally, this should be one sentence long and directly explain the topic at hand.

For the second section, you will want your fifth grader to answer the following question: WHY are you talking about this topic or idea? Why is this important? This should be about 2 or 3 sentences long because you will want your child to use lots of details to support the idea in the topic sentence.

  E: Example

In the third section, the student should prove what they explained about their topic by giving a solid, real-life example. This can be 2-3 sentences. The key here is to make the example applicable to the topic and explanation.

A: Analysis

Lastly, the analysis explains how the example supports your topic. This will probably be 1 or 2 sentences.

The analysis is the most tricky part of a body paragraph. The best way to get your child to think about this is to emphasize the how question. How does your example prove you are right? How does the example relate to the topic?

Using TEEA, your child will be able to construct a clear and strong body paragraph for almost any prompt or topic.

3) How to Write A Conclusion

Lastly, to conclude an essay, students must think about what idea they want the reader to leave with after reading their essay.

To start, students can use their introductory paragraph as a guide. They should restate their essay topic or thesis differently.

Next, students should summarize the main points made in the body paragraphs.

After this step, students can play the “so what?” game. Have your fifth grader think about what they’ve written in the conclusion, then answer the question, “so what?” Why is this important? Why should anybody care?

The very last sentence of the conclusion is a fantastic place to answer the “so what” question and leave the readers with a good impression or the desire for more information.

Using this instructional guide, with practice, your 5th grader will be able to construct logically sound and impeccably organized essays in no time.

The Reading Ranch Method

Struggling writers can experience various difficulties in any step of the writing process. The Reading Ranch Intervention Program is a research-based program to help students strengthen their writing skills in an interactive and dynamic environment. Our curriculum prides itself on being an interactive writing curriculum proven through various studies to immensely help struggling writers. Contact us today if you’re looking for help with your child who struggles in school and at home because they are stuck when they write and unable to keep up with their peers. We offer either online or in-person programs we feel confident we have something just right for every family.

Kiran Gokal   is a freelance writer, teacher, and lover of the written word specializing in content articles, blog posts, and marketing copywriting. For the past three years, she’s been teaching bright young students all about reading and writing at The Reading Ranch®,  while also lending her writing skills to different businesses and non-profits in the education sector.

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When I look back to my first experience teaching five paragraph essays to fifth graders, I can remember how terribly unprepared I felt.

I knew that the five paragraph essay format was what my students needed to help them pass our state’s writing assessment but I had no idea where to start.

I researched the few grade-appropriate essays I could find online (these were the days before Pinterest and Teachers Pay Teachers) and determined that there was a structure to follow.

Every essay followed the same basic structure. I taught the structure to my students and they did well.

I have been teaching five paragraph essay structure and everything that goes with it for several years now. I hope that after you read this blog post, you will have a good understanding of how to teach and grade five paragraph essays.

Once you’ve learned all about teaching basic essay structure, you’ll be ready to grow your writers from “blah” to brilliant! 

Teaching five paragraph essays is just one part of teaching 5th grade writing. Click here to find out exactly how I teach writing to my 5th graders! 

Start with Simple Paragraphs

We always start with simple paragraphs.

Yes, this is basic, but if your students cannot write excellent paragraphs, their five paragraph essays will be train wrecks. Trust me!

We spend a while cementing paragraph structure:

Topic Sentence

Closing Sentence

I give students topics, they come up with their own topics, we write together, they write with a partner or independently, the more variety, the better.

We have fun with simple paragraphs. Then, it’s time to move on to body paragraphs.

Organize and Write Body Paragraphs

Please refer to my five paragraph essay organizer below.

The three body paragraphs are absolutely crucial to the success of the five paragraph essay.

Some teachers have trouble teaching the structure of five paragraph essays because they start with the introduction paragraph.

Always teach the body paragraphs first!

I had a teacher say to me once, “What’s the point of just writing parts of the essay? They need to write the entire five paragraphs to get all of the practice they need.”

I understand that point. However, think of it as building a house. Should you test out the foundation and make sure it’s sound and sturdy before building on top of it? Absolutely! That’s what we’re doing here.

The three body paragraphs are the foundation of the essay.

Ask students to write out their three body paragraphs just like they have practiced…Topic sentence…Detail 1…Detail 2…Detail 3…Closing Sentence.

I “ooooh and aaaah” over their three paragraphs. Students are on their way to five paragraph essays, so be sure to build their confidence.

Teach the Introduction Paragraph

I have to say, this is my favorite paragraph to teach. The introduction paragraph is what draws readers into the essay and makes them want to read more.

We start with what I call a “hook.” The hook captures the readers’ attention and can come in many forms: asking a question, making a bold statement, sharing a memory, etc.

After the hook, I ask students to add a sentence or two of applicable commentary about the hook or about the prompt in general.

Finally, we add the thesis sentence. The thesis sentence always follows the same formula: Restate the prompt, topic 1, topic 2, and topic 3.

That’s all you need to write an excellent introduction paragraph!

I do suggest having students write the introduction paragraph plus body paragraphs a couple of times before teaching the closing paragraph.

Teach the Closing Paragraph

In the conclusion paragraph, we mainly focus on restating the thesis and including an engaging closing thought.

With my students, I use the analogy of a gift.

The introduction paragraph and body paragraphs are the gift and the conclusion paragraph is the ribbon that ties everything together and finishes the package.

When you talk about restating the thesis sentence, tell students that they need to make it sound different enough from their original thesis sentence to save their readers from boredom.

Who wants to read the same thing twice? No one!

Students can change up the format and wording a bit to make it fresh.

I enjoy teaching the closing thought because it’s so open to however students want to create it.

Ways to write the closing thought: ask a question, personal statement, call to action, or even a quote. 

I especially like reading the essays in which a quote is used as a closing thought or a powerful statement is used.

Example of a full five paragraph essay

Let’s Talk About Color-Coding!

Who doesn’t like to color? This is coloring with a purpose!

Training your students to color-code their paragraphs and essays will make grading so much easier and will provide reminders and reinforcements for students.

When students color-code their writing, they must think about the parts of their paragraphs, like topic sentences, details, and the closing sentence.

They will be able to see if they are missing something or if they’ve written something out of order.

Color-coding is a wonderful help for the teacher because you can skim to ensure that all parts of your students’ paragraphs and essays are present.

Also, when you are grading, you can quickly scan the paragraphs and essays. Trust me, you will develop a quick essay-grading ability.

I start color-coding with my students at the very beginning when they are working on simple paragraphs. I add the additional elements of the color-code as we progress through our five paragraph essays.

This is the code that I use:

Let’s Talk About Grading Five Paragraph Essays!

Imagine a lonely, stressed teacher grading five paragraph essays on the couch while her husband is working the night shift.

That was me!

Seriously, guys, I would spend about ten minutes per essay. I marked every little error, I made notes for improvement and notes of encouragement. I reworked their incorrect structure.

Those papers were full of marks.

On Monday, I proudly brought back the essays and asked students to look over them and learn what they needed to fix for next time.

You can guess what happened… there were lots of graded essays in the trashcan at the end of the day.

I decided that my grading practices had to change. I needed my weekends back and my students needed to find their own errors!

This is my best advice:

STOP correcting every error!

Your students are not benefiting from marks all over their writing. They need to find those errors themselves so that they will remember their mistakes and change their writing habits.

Do a quick scan of each student’s writing as soon as it’s turned in to you.

If there are major problems with a student’s writing, call him/her over individually and show him/her what needs to be fixed or put the student with a competent peer editor who will help them fix mistakes.

If you have several students who are struggling with a skill, like closing sentences, do a mini-lesson on this topic.

You can do a mini-lesson with a small group. However, I prefer doing mini-lessons with the entire class. The kids who need help will get it and the rest of your class will receive a refresher.

It’s OK if there are some small spelling/grammar mistakes!

If the errors are few and they don’t take away from the meaning/flow of the essay, I don’t worry about them.

Our students are still learning.

Even your brightest star writer will have a few spelling/grammar mistakes from time to time.

Don’t discourage students from writing because of small errors.

Students who receive papers back with markings all over them don’t think, “Oh boy, my teacher has made it so easy for me to make all of these corrections.” They are thinking, “What’s the point in writing? I must be a terrible writer. Look at all of these mistakes.”

If your students are taking a standardized writing assessment, the structure and flow of their essays will be worth much more than perfect spelling.

Need more help?

I created this five paragraph essay instructional unit for teachers who are new to teaching five paragraph essays OR just need all of the materials in one place.

“Teacher Talk” pages will guide you through the unit and this unit contains all materials needed to help students plan, organize, and write amazing five paragraph essays! Click here to check it out:

I have a freebie for you! Enter your first name and email address below. You’ll receive three original prompts with five paragraph essay organizers AND two lined final draft pages!

Once your students are good essay writers…

These task cards will help your students stay sharp on their five paragraph essay knowledge. Students will review hooks (attention-getters), thesis sentences, body paragraphs, topic sentences, closings, and more. Each card contains a unique writing example!

I suggest using these task cards as a quiz/test, scoot game, individual review, or cooperative group activity.

Click on the image to view these task cards:

To save this post for later, simply pin this image to your teacher Pinterest board!

21 comments.

Wow! I really enjoyed reading this. I’ve always stressed over the thought of teaching writing, but your blog makes me think I can do it successfully. Putting your writing packet on my TPT wish list!

Thank you, Shannon! I appreciate you taking the time to leave a comment. I am so glad that my blog post was helpful to you!

Thanks for the tips! When I taught 6th grade I taught this same subject matter, but struggled to get started. I wish I had this then!

I appreciate your comment! Teaching was much different before Pinterest, wasn’t it?!?

This helped me so much!🙂 thanks a lot, I imagined being one student of yours. I’d be so smart and good at essays! Would’ve been so much easier in person❤️❤️❤️

Thank you so much, Aizlyn!

Thank you so much for this! May I ask where I can see the rubric for scoring the compositions?

You are so welcome! Click on the resource link. Then, you will see the rubric in the preview!

Thank you so much,I am a parent and this really helped me be clear how to guide my son. God bless you always.,

Thanks for taking the time to leave a comment!

you are welcome!!!

This looks great! Looking forward to using your tips and freebies with my 6th graders. 🙂 THANK YOU.

You are so welcome! Thank you for taking the time to leave a comment!

Can’t wait to use this with my class tomorrow! Thanks a bunch for sharing!!

You are so welcome, Amy!

Thank you for making it easy to teach an essay with clarity.

You are very welcome, Yamuna! Thanks for taking the time to leave feedback 🙂

I am so happy I discovered your blog. I just started teaching grade 5 in September I have been searching for a simple method to hel me in guiding them in writing. I will be putting your method into practice in the coming week.

That’s wonderful, Cherry! Thank you for sharing your thoughts! Welcome to fifth grade 🙂

Beautiful lesson well explained! Thank you so very much .

Thank you so much, Cheryl!

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Teaching with Jennifer Findley

Upper Elementary Teaching Blog

How to Teach Writing in 5th Grade

Let’s be real for a moment. During my first year teaching I did a terrible, horrible, rotten job at teaching writing. My students (3rd graders at the time) were not assessed on writing, and I really didn’t know how to teach writing at that point in my career (especially since my students seriously struggled with all things literacy when they came to me).

I remember teaching it and having some fun lessons that I am sure helped the students a little. But mostly, we just aimlessly read read alouds, wrote to prompts, and shared our writing. I “did” all the right things but I didn’t do them very purposefully or effectively. I honestly feel like I should write a formal apology to my first group of students.

Fast forward a few years and a grade level change, and I finally feel like I have a handle on teaching writing. I am super purposeful and everything I do now has a reason behind it. Though my instruction is still not perfect (is anything in teaching ever perfect?), I feel much more confident that I am growing my students as writers and helping them to love writing.

In this post, I want to share how I teach writing in 5th grade (very applicable to 3rd and 4th grade as well).

I spend approximately 9 weeks on each main genre of writing (narrative, persuasive, and informational/expository).  I teach the writing genres in this order: personal narrative, fictional narrative, persuasive, how-to informational, compare and contrast, descriptive/explanatory informational.

Closer Look at Each 9 Weeks

Now, let’s take a closer look at what each of those 9 weeks would look like:

Two Weeks Explicitly Teaching Genre

I spend the first two weeks of my pacing explicitly teaching the aspects of the genre we are studying and writer’s craft as it relates to the genre we are studying. We do this by reading mentor texts and making charts about what we notice the author does well. These noticings then turn into mini-lessons. You can read more about how I come up with writing mini-lessons (and the three types of mini-lessons) by clicking here .

During these two weeks, the students are writing their first essays in this genre, but it is very guided. For example, we would read mentor texts to look for good beginnings, then we create a chart of good beginnings, then we choose a writing topic from our lists (read more about that here ), and practice writing good beginnings. I may have the students write 2-3 beginnings, then chose their favorite. We also spend a lot of time sharing during this time so the students can apply what they are learning and hear lots of examples from their peers.

Three W eeks of Writing Based on Lists and Specific Lessons Based on Students’ Writing  

After we have learned and applied all the strategies for a genre to one piece of writing, we are ready to try out some more. In this three week period, the students choose more topics from their lists to write about.

As the students are writing, they are referring to charts and examples from our previous mini-lessons to help them apply what they have learned. I also do a lot of conferences during this time, but mostly lean-in conferences because I want the students writing and trying out the new strategies.

The mini-lessons during this time frame are very specific to the students’ writing. While I am completing my lean-conferences, I jot down notes of struggles and strengths. At this point in the instruction, I am writing notes about conventions and mechanics for future mini-lessons, but my main focus is on the writer’s craft and getting the students to write and try out the genre.

At this point, it is also clear which students need extensive re-teaching. About 2-3 times a week, I pull small groups for re-teaching. However, I typically only pull the students who are seriously struggling at this point in instruction.

Three Weeks of Writing to On-Demand Prompts

At this point in our pacing, I have taught a lot of writing craft skills, and the students have several essays, applying what they have learned (usually 3-5 essays by this point). Now, it is time to get into perfecting their conventions and practicing on demand prompts .

The lessons during this three week period are very mini and focus mostly on conventions and mechanics. These lessons come from what I see as a need during my lean-in conferences and what I know will help move my students beyond their current writing (varying sentence lengths, using complex sentences, using introductory phrases, etc).

Also during this time, we typically have a longer share time, so the students can hear each other’s writing, give and get feedback, and learn even more writing strategies to use in their own writing.

As I mentioned above, this time is also spent primarily writing to on-demand prompts. These can be a simple prompt, a prompt that also uses a text stimulus (or paired text stimulus), or a prompt in response to a mentor text. This three week period is important because the students learn to write about topics that are not their choosing and they learn to stay on topic and follow the expectations of a prompt (which I explicitly teach them). However, I don’t recommend writing to prompts all the time because it doesn’t promote a love of writing with most students.

Remember how I said I did mostly lean-in conferences in the above section? Well, at this point, I have enough data to group my students into small groups for re-teaching or extension lessons. During independent writing time, I regularly pull small groups (about 1-2 a day) for reteaching. I also mix in independent conferences as well, as needed.

One Week of Publishing

For our final week in a genre, my students choose their favorite piece, meet with me for an independent conference and a final revise and edit, and then type it. We only publish (by typing) one story in each genre. However, we revise and edit every piece that we write. Ultimately, the students decide which of their essays are worth publishing. This essay is also taken as a final grade.

…………..

By the end of the 9-week period, my students have usually written around 6-8 essays in that genre. My expectation is an essay per week, and I do have them turn them in. I use these essays (along with my conferences) to guide my mini-lessons and reteaching groups.

Here is a recap of each 9-Week Period:

Note : I do modify this a bit for informational writing since I explicitly teach how-to writing, compare and contrast writing, and then explanatory/descriptive informational writing separately and then together.

What Does a Typical Writing Lesson Look Like?

The total time I have for writing is 60 minutes (I will share a modified schedule for 30 and 45 minutes, too). Here is how I typically segment my writing time. However, from reading the above section, you will notice that sometimes mini-lessons or share times are shorter or longer, depending on where we are in our pacing.

• 15-20 minute mini lesson
• 30-40 minutes for independent writing and conferences/ small groups
• 5 minutes for closing, sharing, and reflecting

Modified Schedule for 45 Minutes

• 15 minute mini-lesson
• 25 minutes for independent writing and conferences/small groups

Modified Schedule for 30 Minutes

For 30 minutes, I recommend more of an A/B type schedule. Something like this:

A Schedule: – 15 mini-lesson and 15 minutes of independent writing where the students are directly applying the strategy to their writing

B Schedule: 20 minutes independent writing (continued from Monday) and conferences and 10 minutes for closing and sharing

Monday : A Schedule Tuesday : B Schedule Wednesday : A Schedule Thursday : B Schedule

Friday : Whichever schedule you need to meet the needs of your students. I have found that it is better to end the week with more independent writing to apply all they have learned. Likewise, I prefer to begin the week with the mini-lesson.

Materials I Use to Teach Writing

• Mentor texts- For mentor texts, I use tradebooks (picture books and excerpts from longer works), released exemplars from state assessment, student stories (shared with permission), and teacher-written stories. You can read how I used one mentor text during my persuasive writing unit by clicking here .
• Anchor charts – As a class, we create anchor charts for almost every writing mini-lesson I teach. Those anchor charts then provide an anchor for the students while they are writing. Want to see charts that I used to guide some my persuasive writing mini lessons? Click here to go straight to the post .
• Student reference charts – My students use their writing notebooks to keep their writing lists and to keep reference charts for almost every lesson that I teach. We create an anchor chart together and then I give the students a printable copy of the chart that is already made or that I make after the fact. These charts are glued into their writing notebook and they refer to them regularly as they write.
• Sentence stems -Most of my students are nowhere near proficient writers when they come to me. One way that I support my students is through sentence stems. Based on the needs of my students, I may provide sentence stems for beginnings, adding more details, using transitional phrases, or conclusions. The best part is that the stems give the students much needed confidence in their writing. As they become more confident, they will move away from using the sentence stems and create more original and unique sentences.

What About Early Finishers?

Since I use a workshop model and the students work through the writing process primarily at their own pace, I do need to have expectations and procedures in place for early finishers. Here are the three different procedures I have put in place over the years for my students who finish a writing piece early:

1. The easiest one is already embedded in my instruction: the students choose another writing topic from the list of topics we generate at the beginning of a new genre.

2. The other option is to request a peer conference with another student who is already finished. If you choose this, you need to have a clear procedure in my place for finding or requesting a student, what to do if no one is ready to hold a peer conference with you, and you need to explicitly teach the students how to hold peer conferences.

3. For some students, they need a bit more structure when it comes to choosing an “early finisher” activity.  This is where my writing choice boards come in. I have one choice board per genre that I teach. As we learn about a genre, I print the choice board and place it on a ring. Over time, the ring will have several choice boards. Early finishers may grab a ring of boards (I make about 5-6) and choose any prompt from any of the choice boards.

These writing choice boards are available in my TeachersPayTeachers store. The resource includes 7 writing choice boards in all! Click here to see them now.

Preparing for Writing Assessments

The question I always get is: How do you use a workshop model and still prepare your students for very “unworkshop” like writing assessments? The answer is that I embed it throughout in an authentic way.  Let’s take a look at an example:

My students are expected to write essays in response to two texts. So, when my students are learning how to write compare and contrast essays, we pull up information, articles, and read alouds for them to integrate their information from. This is authentically preparing them for the writing assessment in a way that still engages them in the writing.

Here is another example:

While we are writing persuasive essays, we may read two articles from two different perspectives on the topic we are writing. Then we will use those articles (and our own reasons and experiences) to craft a persuasive argument. But I never do it in a this is “test prep” way. I always try to authentically and naturally introduce the text as a way to support and strengthen our writing-this makes a HUGE difference with the students’ mindset.

Another way that I prepare my students is by taking the last nine weeks of my pacing (or 6 weeks if the writing test falls sooner) to review and practice all three genres of writing together. I think it is very important that the students are exposed to writing in all three genres together and not just in isolation. This helps solidify the differences among the three types. A resource I use to jump-start my review of all three main types of writing is my Writing Test Prep Resource.

This resource has sorts, prompts, practice printables, teaching posters, and more. It is a great way to review all three genres of writing and teach students how to analyze and respond to writing prompts. I use this resource at the beginning of my  last nine weeks of instruction. It lasts about a week to go through the resources and review all the genres.

After using that resource , we move into more rigorous text stimulus writing (as required by my state assessment). However, because I have embedded this type of writing in my instruction all year, this is nothing the students haven’t already seen or done.  The activities from the Writing Test Prep Resource then go into a test prep writing centers to continue reviewing before the day of the test.

I plan to write another blog post about preparing your students for writing assessments all year (and in authentic, engaging ways). Stay tuned for that!

Is how you teach writing similar or very different from how I teach? I would love to hear your thoughts on writing instruction. Let me know in the comments.

P.S. Do you want to see how I teach reading? Click here to read a detailed post that breaks down how I teach reading in 5th grade.

Share the Knowledge!

Reader interactions, 37 comments.

February 9, 2017 at 10:42 am

Thanks for this post! It is great to get a look behind the curtain into the way other teachers teach writing. Lots of schools are rolling out blanket approaches now and I really think it is best to leave it to the person that knows the class best – the teacher!

That said it helps no end to learn about other people’s practice.

Love your blog 🙂

February 13, 2017 at 8:52 pm

Thank you for your kind words! Yes, it is great to have choice and to see how other teachers teach. I am always saddened when I hear that so many teachers don’t have the choice to do what they know is best for their students.

February 16, 2017 at 5:05 pm

Thanks for sharing! It’s great to see what strategies and procedures other teachers are using in order to enhance what I’m doing with my students.

February 18, 2017 at 3:58 pm

Hey I love this idea, what’s the best way or resource you have to get started!

February 19, 2017 at 12:36 pm

Hi Michelle, I am working on a resource for launching writers workshop, but it won’t be ready until next school year. Until then, I recommend Fountas and Pinnell Guiding Readers and Writers, which is where my philosophy and instruction is grounded.

August 2, 2023 at 11:11 pm

Hi! Is a resource available?

March 25, 2017 at 10:50 pm

I feel as if you are an answer to prayers, as a first year teacher of 5th grade, my writing instruction has not been successful as far as I can tell. I am nervous to the writing assessment, but I now have hope that I can make some changes and improve my teaching. Thank you for sharing your craft.

March 30, 2017 at 10:42 pm

I definitely agree with your writing pacing. I like that you spend nine weeks on one genre. That makes total sense to me! My district requires us to teach all three genres, narrative, opinion, and informational, all in one trimester. There is just not enough time to really focus on one genre. I also agree that it is so important to use students’ own writing to guide instruction through mini-lessons. I’ve found this to be very valuable in my classroom.

April 1, 2017 at 11:09 am

So glad you found this helpful, Meghan!

July 10, 2017 at 3:52 pm

Just a quick question- I loooove this format for teaching writing but just have a couple questions. How do you start the year? Do you just jump right in with narrative the first week, or do you teach any of the 6 traits? Or anything similar? Just curious how you map out the first few weeks with writing. Thanks!

July 22, 2017 at 11:34 pm

This is wonderful! Thank you for sharing your craft. Do you implement 6 + 1 writing traits at all? Or do you just do it without calling them that?

August 20, 2017 at 7:52 pm

I have been teaching Lower Elementary for 17 years and am in my first year as a 5th grade teacher. The team I have joined has not been teaching writing and my background is writer’s workshop. This is a big help in figuring out how to implement Writer’s Workshop into my day since I’m going it alone.

August 21, 2017 at 12:24 pm

I just want to take a moment to say THANK YOU for this. I have been struggling with writing instruction (last year was not good) and I have been searching for a post like this to help breakdown the workshop model. Thank you again for posting it! You are amazing.

July 22, 2018 at 7:53 pm

My sentiments exactly!!!!

August 25, 2017 at 12:31 pm

Hi!! First year 5th grade teacher but 13th year teacher. I can’ wait to really dive into this and read what great ideas you have!! My district uses a series and it lacks in some areas. I had a question about where you find inspiration for your mentor texts? Thanks

September 15, 2017 at 2:13 pm

Thank you so much for sharing a modified schedule for 30 minutes!!!

September 27, 2017 at 5:12 pm

Thank you for this post. I will take away much to break it in to smaller pieces for better organized conferences. I am curious though, what is a reasonable essay length to expect from a student? I would like to set a standard for a minimum on paper writing/typing page or word count for beginning year and end of year expectations. Maybe you have some reasonable amount you have expected for their age/grade level in each session and assessment? Some are gifted and can explain in detail their story, but putting into written form tends to stop up the creativity in my experience for a few.

October 19, 2017 at 2:14 pm

Hi Jennifer,

Where do you get ideas for the on demand prompts that you use the last 3 weeks of the units? Thanks!

November 14, 2017 at 10:15 pm

Thank you for this post! I just found your website, and have really enjoyed reading how you teach all your classes! I am new to 5th grade this year, and struggling to fit everything in. I work at a bilingual school, and I get one hour of English Literacy every day. In that time I am suppose to cover reading, writing, grammar, and spelling. Do you have any suggestions on how to divide the time?

September 15, 2021 at 7:59 pm

I have that same questions. We are on a 9 period – 6 day rotation schedule with 2 groups we see ( AM and PM). Some days I see the kiddos for 80 mins and other days it could 120. Within that time frame some of those 80 min days its split. For example I have them for period 6 for 40 mins but don’t get them back until period 8 for another 40 mins. Any ideas on how to fit grammar, reading workshop, and writing workshop in would be HUGE! Thank you for your help.

May 22, 2018 at 12:21 pm

Sister thanks for this sincere post you helped show me how to take responsibility for my teaching. I teach writing under some difficult situations 40 mins weekly. It started out as a special storytime/ shared reading/ read Aloud but and now creative writing. I have struggled for 4yrs and recently the Lord helped me to approach writing using Persuasive, narrative and expository. What about poetry? It gets confusing but reading your post helped out with some perspectives. God bless you dear.

July 16, 2018 at 8:32 pm

Thank you so much for these tips and guides. I have been struggling to teach writing for five years now, especially with the way they expect students to cite text, use it appropriately and almost perfectly during their testing. Unfortunately at my school and most schools in my county writing is not taught until students get to fourth grade, where it is tested. In addition, the state does not release any mentor texts, only from the sampling year, which district personnel tell you to ignore as they are not good examples. I wanted to know where do you gather your mentor texts from? I love the idea of students learning from the other writers, but I don’t know where to find these resources. I would greatly appreciate any of your assistance. Thank you!

November 11, 2018 at 7:53 pm

How would you differentiate for Learning Support Students in a 3rd Grade that can’t write a sentence independently?

January 6, 2019 at 1:06 pm

I found this so helpful! Although I’ve taught for a number of years this is my first year teaching grade 5 writing. It was reassuring seeing your outline of the different genres of writing. We’ve done narrative and fictional writing so far. This gives me direction for the new year – persuasive writing. The links for anchor charts and mini lessons are so helpful – thank-you so much! I’m feeling inspired and excited to start up again after the break!

January 6, 2019 at 9:52 pm

Hi Jen, I am so glad you found this helpful! Thank you for your kind message!

May 11, 2019 at 10:21 am

Thank you! This is very helpful! I teach 5th grade writing (and only writing-our students rotate and another teacher teaches reading) and started halfway through the school year. We just got a new writing “program” called SRSD for informational writing, and I really like it, but it’s more of a method of writing than a paced program, so this is really helpful for determining how much time to spend on each part. I have very limited resources currently for mentor texts, but use a lot of articles from Newsela- they have lots of articles on various topics and you can change the lexile level, which is really helpful! Since I don’t teach reading but all of our informational writing is based on texts, this has been a great resource!

August 30, 2019 at 12:49 pm

Hi! I am absolutely in love with your resources. They have helped me tremendously! I was curious if you had resources similar to the reading/grammar resources for writing?

September 8, 2019 at 4:41 pm

Hi Brooke, I don’t for writing. For 5th grade language, I do have some resources which you can see here:

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Jennifer-Findley/Category/ELAR-Language-Resources-88773

Thanks for asking!

March 3, 2020 at 12:20 pm

HI there. I have been using a lot of your resources for ELA during this school year and decided to research how you teach writing. I have never been a very strong writing teacher and realize that I am doing my students a disservice in this area.

I need some ideas on how to do an effective writing review in 5 weeks time to prepare the students for the state assessment, which is at the end of April. Mind you, I have not been teaching writing as effectively as you have during the year. I currently have a 90 minute ELA block which includes reading, writing, grammar, etc. I think I may only be able to do 30, maybe 45 minutes per day.

What do you recommend? Feel free to email me your response if you would like.

Thanks so much!

September 30, 2020 at 6:11 am

This article is EVERYTHING right know! I am currently teaching 4th Grade ELAR as a first year teacher, I am struggling to teach writing well! My student are all very low, and struggling to provide good writing- do you have any tips? Thanks for all writing this?

March 10, 2021 at 10:49 am

I love every one of your resources and they have been a huge hit in my classroom. We have totally adopted your math centers and resources while I was departmentalized so I am eager to add in ELA when we go back to self-contained with our fifth graders. I would love to hear about how you organize the ELA instruction for students – how many notebooks, folders, what they are called, what gets turned in daily, weekly, how many and which ELA grades are weekly and which ones are final project grades. Love how real you are. Any attempt to add structure to this crazy ride of education is so greatly appreciated

April 25, 2021 at 2:54 am

Hi Jennifer, I was happy to come across your Anchor Charts for persuasive essay on your website when searching on how to teach my son to write a persuasive essay. I would love to have your anchor charts for narrative and informative writings. Do you have a digital package I can purchase where you have the anchor charts information all together to help out homeschooling moms by any chance? Thank you.

June 5, 2021 at 7:52 am

Love your resources and posts. Thank you! How do you balance reading and writing lessons? Through a week or another time period, what’s your schedule for when you teach writing and when you teach reading? Hoe do you successfully plan for both?

August 4, 2021 at 8:36 am

Excellent information!- I am a tutor and was trying to gauge my pace with what typically happens in schools- I do not think you are typical- you are a 99%ile teacher I can tell- but still extremely helpful. Thank you so much!!!

November 7, 2023 at 9:09 am

Not sure how much you read this post these days, but I wanted to put a question out there anyway. I am a fifth-grade teacher at a hybrid school. We plan lessons for 5 days but teach in our classrooms on M-W-F only. Parents teach at home T-TH. This has its own unique challenges. But teaching writing is the bane of my existence. We are forced to use a program called IEW. I hate it! Kids who have been on the program are some of our worst writers. But I have to use it. Have you ever heard of it? What we have is really not a curriculum either. So it leaves me pulling my hair out most days. Any advice on teaching writing when you are getting to teach 5 days?

November 7, 2023 at 10:33 am

I haven’t heard of that program, but that does sound so difficult! How are your students assessed in writing? Are they writing just to prompts or in response to texts? Feel free to send me an email to jennifer @ jenniferfindley.com (no spaces)!

November 9, 2023 at 7:16 am

Thank you so much!!

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Welcome Friends!

I’m Jennifer Findley: a teacher, mother, and avid reader. I believe that with the right resources, mindset, and strategies, all students can achieve at high levels and learn to love learning. My goal is to provide resources and strategies to inspire you and help make this belief a reality for your students.

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75 Creative Fifth Grade Writing Prompts (Free Slides!)

Get them excited to write every day!

Fifth grade is such an exciting time! For many kids, it’s the last year of elementary school, and so many exciting things lie ahead. Fifth graders have accumulated some interesting stories to tell by now, and they’re building stronger writing skills. These fifth grade writing prompts encourage kids to imagine, explain, persuade, and reveal—improving their writing abilities day by day.

If you’d like even more upper elementary writing prompts, check out the Would You Rather questions we post regularly on the Daily Classroom Hub . Kids will get a kick out of these, for writing or discussion!

(Want this entire set of fifth grade writing prompts in one easy document? Get your free PDF or Google Slide bundle by submitting your email here .)

1. How important is it to finish what you start?

2. What does it mean to be honest? Give one solid example of what honesty looks like.

3. What three qualities do you think are most important in a friend? Why?

4. Since fifth grade is the top grade in elementary school, should fifth graders get special privileges? If so, write in detail about one privilege you think they should get. If not, why not?

5. Vincent van Gogh said, “If you truly love nature, you will find beauty everywhere.” Describe one of your favorite places in nature in detail.

6. Are fifth graders old enough to babysit little kids? Why or why not?

7. Write about three qualities that make a good leader.

8. Should teachers assign homework? Why or why not?

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100 Best Fun Writing Prompts for 5th Grade: Journal Prompts

• Prompts for Narrative Essays
• Prompts for Informative Essay Writing
• Prompts for Research Writing
• Funny Fifth Grade Writing Prompts
• 5th Grade Poetry Writing Prompts
• Prompts for 5th Grade Fiction Writing
• 5th Grade Animal Writing Prompts
• 5th Grade Emotion Writing Prompts
• Journal Writing Prompts for Fifth Graders
• 5th Grade Descriptive Writing Prompts

As parents and teachers, we recognize the significance of writing as a fundamental skill that enables children to express their thoughts, emotions, and ideas. However, generating ideas and inspiration for writing can be challenging for many 5th-grade students. To aid students in this process, 5th grade writing prompts prove to be a valuable resource. Furthermore, Science Daily published an article that highlights the crucial connection between handwriting and brain activity. Writing can increase brain activity, leading to better memory retention and cognitive development. This is particularly important for students as it can positively impact their academic performance.

“Writing is the painting of the voice.” – Voltaire

By using writing prompts, children can explore various topics, develop their imagination, and hone their writing skills. In this collection, we have compiled various writing prompts that are engaging, entertaining, and sure to inspire creativity in 5th grade students. This collection has something for everyone: Persuasive writing, descriptive essays, narrative stories, and imaginative writing. Fifth grade journal prompts can help inspire creativity and reflection in their writing. So, let’s get started and explore these exciting 5th Grade writing prompts.

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10 Prompts for Narrative Essays

Writing Narrative Essays? Here Are Ten 5th grade narrative writing prompts:

“A great story can lead us to new worlds, new ideas, and new ways of thinking.” – Neil Gaiman

• Write about a time when you faced a difficult decision.
• Imagine you are stranded on a deserted island. Describe what you would do?
• Create a narrative about a magical adventure.
• Write about a time when you learned something important.
• Think about the prospect of time travel. How would you react, and where would you go?
• Develop a narrative about a superhero you create.
• Describe a time when you overcame a fear.
• Imagine you can do whatever you want. Tell me what it would be and how you’d use it.
• Create a narrative about a day in the life of your pet.
• Write about a time when you had to stand up for what you believe in.

10 Prompts for Informative Essay Writing

A list of ten 5th grade writing prompts to get you started on an informative essay:

• Write an essay about a famous person who inspires you.
• Research and write an essay about a historical event that interests you.
• Write about the benefits of physical activity and exercise.
• Write an essay about the effects of technology on society.
• Research and write an essay about a country you would like to visit.
• Write about the importance of reading books .
• Write an essay about the positive and negative effects of social media.
• Research and write an essay about an animal species that is endangered.
• Write about the importance of recycling and conserving natural resources.
• Please write an essay about the role of education in shaping our future.

10 Prompts for Research Writing

Here are ten Research writing prompts for 5th grade:

“Research is formalized curiosity. It is poking and prying with a purpose.” -Zora Neale Hurston, author and anthropologist.

• Research and write about your favorite historical figure.
• Choose a famous landmark and research its history and significance.
• Investigate and write about an important event in history.
• Research and write about a unique and interesting animal species.
• Study and write about famous inventors and their inventions.
• Research and write about the culture and traditions of a country you are interested in.
• Explore and write about a current scientific discovery or innovation.
• Investigate and write about the effects of climate change on a particular region or ecosystem.
• Research and write about a famous artist and their artwork.
• Study and write about a significant moment in space exploration history.

10 Funny Fifth Grade Writing Prompts

Here are ten prompts for Fun Writing Prompts for 5th Grade:

• Write a funny story about a talking animal.
• Imagine speaking to your pet and writing about what you would say.
• Write a comic dialog between two unlikely characters.
• Write a humorous story about a mischievous character getting into trouble.
• Create a funny story using three random objects.
• Write a funny kids’ poem . This can be about your favorite food.
• Imagine a world where everything is opposite, and develop a narrative about it.
• Develop a narrative about a silly superhero with extraordinary power.
• Create a funny dialog between a parent and a child.
• Develop a narrative about a funny and unexpected event that happened to you.

10 5th Grade Poetry Writing Prompts

The following are ten writing topics for 5th graders seeking poetry writing prompts:

• Write a poem about your favorite season.
• Imagine you are a raindrop falling from the sky. Write a poem describing your journey.
• Write a poem about a place that makes you happy.
• Choose an object in the room and write a poem about it.
• Write a poem about a dream you had.
• Create a poem that includes the words “whisper,” “twist,” and “moon.”
• Write a poem about a memorable moment with a friend.
• Describe a beautiful sunset in a poem.
• Write a poem about the ocean and all its wonders.
• Create a poem about your favorite animal.

10 Prompts for 5th Grade Fiction Writing

Opinion writing prompts 5th grade to help encourage critical thinking and self-expression in young students. Here are ten 5th grade writing prompt ideas to get them started:

• Create a story about a mysterious package that arrives in the mail.
• Develop a narrative about a person who can time travel.
• Create a story about a magic tree that grants wishes.
• Imagine being lost in the forest and creating a story about your adventure.
• Develop a narrative about a group of friends who discover a hidden treasure.
• Create a story about a person who can talk to animals.
• Create a narrative about a family vacation gone wrong.
• Imagine you could shrink to the size of an ant. Develop a narrative about your adventures.
• Create a story about a person who wakes up one day with superpowers.
• Develop a narrative about a group of people stranded on a deserted island.

10 5th Grade Animal Writing Prompts

Here are ten writing ideas for 5th grade for animal-themed assignments:

• If you could be any animal for a day, which animal would you choose and why?
• Create a narrative told from the point of view of a bear family as they emerge from their hibernation period.
• Describe the life of a whale in the deep sea.
• Write a persuasive essay on why zoos are important for conserving endangered animals.
• Describe the life of a squirrel gathering nuts for winter.
• Write a fictional story about a fox trying to outsmart a group of chickens.
• Describe the life of a butterfly from caterpillar to butterfly.
• Write a research paper on the migration patterns of birds.
• Describe the life of a lion in the savannah.
• Write a poem about the beauty of nature and the animals that live in it.

10 5th Grade Emotion Writing Prompts

Here are ten prompts for 5th grade writing prompts About Emotion:

• Describe a moment when you experienced a strong sense of self-satisfaction and accomplishment.
• Describe a moment when you felt scared and how you overcame your fear.
• Create a narrative about a character who overcomes a difficult challenge.
• Describe a time when you felt happy for someone else.
• Write a letter to your future self about your dreams and aspirations.
• Describe a time when you felt angry and how you managed your anger.
• Develop a narrative about a character who learns the importance of forgiveness.
• Describe a moment when you felt grateful for something or someone.
• Write a poem about the different emotions that people feel.
• Describe when you felt sad and how you coped with your sadness.

10 Journal Writing Prompts for Fifth Graders

The following are ten suggestions for 5th grade journal prompts to use:

• Describe an instance where you successfully conquered a challenging obstacle.
• Describe a moment when you felt proud of yourself and why.
• Write about a place that is special to you and why it is important.
• Describe a time when you helped someone else and how it made you feel.
• Write about your favorite book and what you learned from it.
• Describe an instance where you made a mistake and what you learned from it.
• Write about a person who inspires you and why.
• Describe a time when you felt grateful for something or someone.
• Write about your favorite hobby and why you enjoy it.
• Describe when you tried something new and what you learned from the experience.

When choosing 5th grade journal topics, consider selecting prompts that encourage students to explore their interests, emotions, and experiences in a safe and supportive environment.

10 5th Grade Descriptive Writing Prompts

Here are ten topics to consider when looking for descriptive writing prompts for 5th grade:

• Describe your favorite outdoor place and explain why it is special to you.
• Write a descriptive paragraph about a delicious meal you recently enjoyed.
• Imagine you’re walking through a spooky forest. Describe what you see, hear, and feel.
• Describe the view from your bedroom window. What can you see in the distance?
• Write a paragraph describing a character from your favorite book. What do they look like, and what makes them interesting?
• Describe your dream bedroom. What colors would you use, and what kind of furniture would you have?
• Imagine you’re on a deserted island. Describe the island and the environment around you.
• Write a paragraph describing a memorable moment from a family vacation.
• Describe a special item you keep in your room. Why is it important to you?
• Imagine you’re in a bustling city. Describe the sights, sounds, and smells you experience.

Encourage Fifth Graders in Becoming Writers

Writing is a significant skill that is essential for communication, expression, and personal growth. As highlighted in an article published by UCONN , writing prompts play a crucial role in engaging students’ interest in a particular topic and encouraging them to write thoughtfully and creatively. While effective prompts should introduce and limit the writing topic, they should also provide clear instructions about the writing task. It is imperative to equip 5th graders with resources and guidance to help them develop their writing skills. 

Educators and parents can provide 5th grade journal prompts and creative exercises to assist students in exploring various forms of writing and finding their unique voice. Additionally, feedback and constructive criticism can help students improve their strengths and weaknesses. Ultimately, teaching 5th graders to write improves their academic and personal lives by promoting self-expression, creativity, and critical thinking.

Fifth Grade Writing Prompts for Developing Young Writers

5th-grade writing prompts can be a powerful tool for parents and teachers to help students develop their writing skills and creativity. By providing a starting point for writing, prompts can help students overcome writer’s block and find inspiration for their ideas. The prompts in this collection cover a wide range of topics and genres, encouraging students to explore their interests and experiences through writing.

“A well-crafted writing prompt can spark creativity and lead to a deeper understanding of oneself and the world around us.” – Laura Robb

Parents and teachers can inspire students to develop regular writing habits and enhance their skills by utilizing 5th grade journal prompts. According to an article published by the Journal of Instructional Research , both approaches of writing i.e. direct and indirect, have positive effects on students’ writing abilities. This article dived into exploring these approaches for promoting writing. The direct approach focuses on teaching writing skills explicitly and providing feedback on children writing. The indirect approach, on the other hand, emphasizes creating a supportive environment that encourages writing.

We can motivate students to write on a variety of topics, experiment with different writing styles, and share their work with others. By nurturing a passion for writing, we can help our students become confident, creative, and effective communicators. Why not give these prompts a try and see where they take you? Let’s encourage our young writers to unleash their creativity and express themselves through the power of writing.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Are these prompts suitable for all 5th class students.

These 5th grade writing prompts are designed to be accessible to most students, but they may need to be modified or adapted for students with special needs or English language learners.

How can I implement these ideas into my lesson plans?

Creative writing prompts 5th grade to use it for anything from journal entries to class discussions. Teachers can also have their students use these as a springboard for creative thinking and topic development.

Can these prompts be used for other grade levels?

Yes, many of these prompts can be adapted for other grade levels depending on the level of complexity and difficulty. Teachers can also modify the prompts better to fit the interests and abilities of their students.

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GRADE 5 EFAL DESCRIPTIVE ESSAY WRITING EXEMPLAR.pdf

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Grade 5 Writing

In our Grade 5 Writing Workbook, children will advance from writing three-paragraph essays to five-paragraph essays. Outlining and revising are fun with our colorful activities and intuitive teaching method.

Topics Covered in this Book:

• Direct and indirect quotations
• Main and dependent clauses
• Noun, adverb, and adjective clauses
• Writing a three-paragraph essay
• Writing a five-paragraph essay
• Outlining, editing, and revising an essay

Aligned to State Standards.

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• Reviews (59)

59 reviews for Grade 5 Writing

Ana A. – April 4, 2020

I love the method! Very happy with the purchase. The method is wonderful, building blocks for a good foundation. 💕 Love the whole series.

VictoriaG – October 7, 2013

Good for details I started my son on this workbook and it is pretty good for helping him with the details that kept plaguing his writing. It was such a bummer to see red all over his paper over capitals, commas, and such. It handles grammar well. He is in fourth grade and able to figure out the directions and complete the work pretty much on his own. I haven’t gotten to the end where they work on paragraphs, but so far, so good.

Meade Barrington CSW – April 29, 2021

Very good book Very good book

Sleepless Dreamer – September 6, 2016

My son likes it, Not what I was hoping for but really good. When I ordered this book I thought it was more like just writing essays, but in my opinion it’s more like a mix language/writing book. Great little pictures for that age group. And it starts slowly until the writing takes more body. I am very happy I bought this book for my 5th grader homeschooler, also it helps on his handwriting because it has dotted places where he has to trace. It has 71 pages of exercises.

Giddy Giddy – June 8, 2015

One Too Many, But That’s Okay Ok, so I must say that I ordered one too many of this book, but after glancing through its content, I decided to keep both copies for each of my kids (4th and 5th grades). I can’t wait to see their reactions to this curriculum, but if they are like me (when I was their ages), they will love it. I will give a thorough review once I have hands-on experience.

jsw – April 12, 2018

Wonderful book for young minds Great book to work on writing. My daughter is learning about independent and dependent clauses and how to write essays which helps her with everyday writing. She’s become more interested in writing using kumon books whereas before she could care less for writing.

Christopher Robbins – December 8, 2018

Useful workbook for kids needing to improve writing skills. Shipped fast. My child loves to read but, struggles with writing. Writing workbook helps to reinforce needed skills. Shipped quickly, thank you.

Crys~ – February 10, 2014

It makes writing easy for my 5th grader. I like how it breaks down the writing steps into simple format. Then it slowly builds the writing up to age appropriate skills. I think this will give my child a solid foundation for her writing skills.

HR – October 17, 2013

U rock Kumon!! I absolutely love Kumon and will continue to buy these for my kids they have helped tremendously and I love the fact that they keep coming out with more and more topics every year!

Bosslady – January 8, 2014

Excellent I bought this for my daughter as prep during the summer for her between 4th and 5th grade summer. it was very good and has helped her immensely improve her writing skills. Highly recommended.

Oxana – March 3, 2019

Good and with answer key I like it

Edawrd E – April 4, 2018

Five Stars Using it for a great purpose

kykyosmama – August 31, 2017

Love Kumon workbooks Perfect, great shape. Good explanation and example in book.

Al Makedon – October 19, 2017

Five Stars Good book.. my son is getting better

Chi Wang – June 18, 2014

A very good exercise for brain This is a very good skill for my kid during the summer vacation. It’s going to benefit anyone before the next level.

T. Parrish – January 22, 2016

Five Stars This is an excellent book and I am planning on ordering more from Kumon.

Jenny L. – April 17, 2017

Five Stars It’s a good tool!

Hui Z. – September 27, 2017

Five Stars good

Shiva – January 10, 2019

Not worthy for 5th Grade Contents could have been better for 5th grade

Waikiki, Hawaii – August 26, 2016

Well thought out… Very impressive curriculum!

Brittney Burns – June 23, 2015

Five Stars This book is excellent for my children!

J. Bon – February 13, 2016

Five Stars Great!

CJ – July 4, 2014

Five Stars great book!

HW – February 8, 2015

One Star unuseful

Amanda – November 28, 2014

nice writing practice I believe writing is a very important skill for every child, so I have always been trying to improve my son’s writing skills. This workbook with excellent prompts came as a great help. It has inviting prompts for fifith graders, which can be used for journals, assignments, poems, conversations, songs and more. My son really likes the prompts. It is a workbook of imaginative situations and questions that got my son using his brain to come up with wildly creative ideas when he began to put pen to paper. It has given my son a chance to grow his creativity and imagination, and it made writing much more exciting for him. I’m glad I bought it.For more practice, we simply used the online writing exercises on the Beestar website. The worksheets are well-designed and have interesting real-life questions for your child to practice. If you are like me, you will be surprised that kids nowadays are pretty quick and smart in online learning.

Meg – February 20, 2014

Nice but not as attractive as grade 3 and 4 version. I am very impressed with the quality and nice organization of the Kumon book series. We had used the writing for grade 3 and 4. The books make the Kumon system more interesting to kids and the prices are more affordable than the traditional Kumon classes. The books had worked very well with the weekly Beestar online program-a fun and effective resource. But somehow the 5th grade book is not as interesting to my kids. Maybe they found it less challenging after working intensively with the other books and Beestar. I will continue to try the writing of higher grades as Kumon builds solid foundation. As I really hope my kids will use them for a long period pairing with Beestar, and I hope Kumon will publish books for students of higher grades.

TCJ – July 22, 2014

Five Stars absolutely great for my struggling son! thanks!

one_two_three – January 4, 2022

Another good KUMON practice book. I have been giving KUMON books to my twin daughters since they were 4 years old. The KUMON method has is strengths and weaknesses (as everything in life, I presume). It may be quite repetitive and, therefore, boring but, on the other hand, usually it takes ~15-20 minutes to complete the task for the day and you really shouldn’t rush it and try more than a single assignment per day.If you started early (as we did) then “doing KUMON” becomes just a part of daily routine and it will really help your children to improve their skills in writing or in simple computational math. I bought all the KUMON books for my daughters’ grade and ‘feed’ them one-by-one. It is much, much cheaper than signing them up for KUMON (I think 60-70 pounds per subject per child) but requires investment of your time and patience.Overall, I recommend this book, but I really suggest to parents of all young children to start as early as possible.

Melanie Torres – May 29, 2022

Great My son can do these on his own. Enjoys them. Great tool to help.

Amy – February 12, 2022

This is such a great book! Very pleased! Very easy to help guide child and highly recommend !

jason – February 16, 2021

Good for homeschooling I bought this book for my son as he chooses homeschooling this year. The exercises have examples, and they are not too hard. Also it has provided answers keys.

Sachin Jain – September 22, 2020

Easy to follow Kumon products are majority of the times good. So no exception this time around. To qoute, direct and indirect speech is first introduced as fill in the blanks. That way its easy to follow and understand. One thing, the price is not consistent. I bought for 750 and at the time of review it’s 550

Vee – April 28, 2020

Very good book. Good ideas and activities My daughter needed to work on her writing skills and comprehension of textWell I hit the jackpot with this book. It has been helping her form proper sentences and use her imagination.The price was right and there are lots of different activities and exercises.I’m extremely satisfied with this workbook and I will try to find other books from the same company.

Sally – August 7, 2020

Like Like. Friend to recommended this , hope it could improve my son’s writing…

Metal Monkey – October 13, 2020

As expected Nice supplementary

Verruac – May 28, 2020

Review Good for keeping up writing skills

Novelette – October 11, 2019

Momey will spent Very good book! Really helpful in building writing skills.

I. S. George – April 27, 2020

It’s a Kumon book As you would expect from a Kumon book

Wayne smith – April 19, 2017

Four Stars Easy to follow. I like how the lesson are laid out too.

Amazon Customer – June 5, 2019

good very useful

Amazon Customer – July 30, 2019

Dev – July 30, 2016

Four Stars A perfect book for kids practice. Thanks.

Aruna – August 24, 2018

Good book Exercises are simple and kids love to do it.

Indumathy Narayanan – January 11, 2018

Very thought provoking exercise book Good content on 35 pgMight look costlyBut worth it.The child to whom we got this loved itN obsessed with finishing all the pages.Thank you Amazon prime for overnight delivery.

kingbo – January 31, 2019

very good very good

RS – November 12, 2017

Great These books are both challenging and interesting. They are a great tool to encourage more developed, organized, and thoughtful writing skills.

Emma Johnson – January 12, 2017

Three Stars Disappointed that these are USA Kumon and therefore not the same levels or standard as uk ones.

Taiye – May 9, 2015

Four Stars Improvement noticed afterr a few weeks

Tree-top – August 7, 2015

Three Stars Too easy for grade 5 kid

chaps – July 29, 2016

Good book Impressive

Xheme Ibraj – September 18, 2015

Five Stars Perfect. Thank you very much!

monica raynolds – November 12, 2015

Five Stars love it

Lillians Bookstore – September 29, 2015

Five Stars thumbs up

jeyakumar kingsley – September 4, 2015

Kwame – October 19, 2017

Five Stars just as advertised.

Zein Eid – August 15, 2017

Five Stars Excellent

JujuCD – September 2, 2014

Muy útil Son libros perfectos para reforzar y repasar y fortalecer conocimientos. Se hacen 1 o 2 páginas por día y así los niños mantienen y mejoran su nivel.

NAB – October 4, 2018

Wrong grammar My child just started the first exercise and it has wrong grammar. Says comma is used before ‘and /or’ while listing a series of things. If this is first exercise not expecting much in the further chapters. Disappointed !!

wiSH – November 17, 2015

Two Stars very basic for my daughter in year 4

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