All About the Informative Essay

Fourth Grade, Fifth Grade Writing

by Maggie Knutson July 26, 2017

Informative essays have a structure that is fairly easy to dissect. This lesson includes an anchor essay which
students will mark up, a mixed-up essay outline for them to sort, and a web for them to organize ideas for their
own essay.

Learning Objectives

Students will be able to identify the parts of an essay and generate ideas in their own graphic organizer.

Materials and preparation

Class set of Informative Essay: Anchor Paper

Class set of Informative Essay: Mixed Up Essay
Class set of Informative Essay: Idea Map
Whiteboard or chalkboard
Scissors
Glue
11x14 or other large-sized construction paper

Attachments

Informative Essay: Anchor Paper (PDF)

Informative Essay: Mixed Up Essay (PDF)
Informative Essay: Idea Map (PDF)

Introduction (10 minutes)

Ask students to work with a partner or table group and think of the three most important things to do in
order to be successful in school.
Share answers and decide on three as a class. Write them on the board.
Have students work together again and think of three details for each of the three ideas on the board.
Share and write three details under each idea.
Tell students that they just created an outline for an informative essay.
Discuss possible topics for the essay. Examples might include: How to Succeed at School, Three Keys to
Academic Success, and How to Rock Your Report Card.

Explicit Instruction/Teacher modeling (15 minutes)

Distribute the worksheet Informative Essay: Anchor Paper.

Go over the instructions and read the essay together.
As a class, follow the steps on the bottom. Students will mark up the essay, identifying each of the parts.
Add additional explanation about each of the parts as needed.

Guided Practice (20 minutes)

Distribute scissors, construction paper, and glue.

Distribute the worksheet Informative Essay: Mixed Up Essay.

Get more lesson plans at https://www.education.com/lesson-plans/

 Go over the instructions together and then support students as they assemble the essay outline.
Students will arrange the strips in a variety of ways. Having the freedom to do this will help them think
about how the ideas are related and organized.
Review the correct arrangement using the answer key, discussing discrepancies if needed.

Independent working time (10 minutes)

Distribute the worksheet Informative Essay: Idea Map.

Students will practice generating a hierarchical structure of information by creating a web of their own.
You may choose to have students actually write an essay based on this idea web.

Differentiation

Support

Give clues for the Mixed Up Essay activity by providing one or more of the topics or getting them started
with the title.

Enrichment

Instruct students to write an informational essay based on their idea web.

Instruct students to examine structure of other nonfiction texts. How is it similar? How is it different?

Assessment (5 minutes)

Provide three details and have students write a reasonable topic that they would fall under in a
paragraph.

Review and closing (5 minutes)

Discuss: How is the structure of an informational essay different from the structure of a narrative or a
story?

Get more lesson plans at https://www.education.com/lesson-plans/

 Name: Date:

Informative Essay: Anchor Paper

Read the essay. The essay has an introduction paragraph, three body paragraphs (in
bold) and a conclusion paragraph. After reading the essay, follow the directions to
identify the parts of an informative essay.

Making and Keeping Friends

Making and keeping friends is fun, but it also takes effort. Some people think that making
and keeping friends is natural and requires nothing but hanging out and having fun. True
friendships involve sharing parts of your lives with each other, showing that you care about
each others’ happiness and supporting each other when times are tough.

A lot of friends have things in common so it’s easy to share parts of their life with the
other person. For example, if both like drawing or Legos, then they can do that
together and share their creations. They can even create together! Sometimes sharing
parts of your life is simply telling the other person what is going on in your life and
keeping in touch.

Showing you care about the other person’s happiness is another important part of
being friends. Sometimes people do nice things to put a smile on their friends’ faces.
Another common way to make your friends happy is to make them laugh. Sometimes,
when they are down, just showing you care is enough to make them feel better.

Being there for friends when times really get tough is the hardest part of being
friends. Sometimes people don’t know what to do or say when their friends are
hurting, so it’s uncomfortable. A hurting friend usually just needs someone to listen,
but sometimes it’s nice to help them think about their problem and generate a
solution. There are also times when they are down because a friend hurt them and
that’s when that friend needs to apologize and ask how to make it better.

Having fun with someone is easy, but friendship takes time and effort. You
have to take care of your relationship like you would take care of a plant.
People need to feel connected to their friends and know that they care.

1. Circle the Big Idea.

2. Put a rectangle around each of the three Main Topics .
HINT: The body paragraphs each have a main topic.
3. Underline three details in each of the body paragraphs.

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Name: Date:

Informative Essay: Mixed Up Essay

The ideas in informative essays follow a pattern, or
Main Topic/
structure, to make it easier for the reader to follow
along. Informative essays start with a big idea. Big Idea

All of the information is divided into topics,

and those are shaped into paragraphs. Topic #1 Topic #2 Topic #3

Each paragraph has 2-4 details that give more

information about that topic.

Detail
Detail
Detail

Detail
Detail
Detail

Detail
Detail
Detail
The strips below are mixed up ideas that are the skeleton of an informative essay. Cut
them out and arrange them into Topics and Details. One of them is the Big Idea. Glue
them on a piece of construction paper in a way that shows the structure of the ideas.

A good apology has three parts

It’s difficult to accept and say out loud that you hurt someone
Apologizing opens up a conversation for the two people to talk
Apologizing can be hard
Admit what you did
You might be scared that the other person won’t accept your apology
The Importance of a Good Apology
It’s challenging to admit that you made a mistake
Apologizing helps the other person know you care
Apologizing is healing
Explain that you understand the harm it caused
Apologizing helps the other person know that you regret what you did
Ask what you can do to make it better

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 Name: Date:

Informative Essay: Idea Map

A graphic organizer can help you map out your main ideas and details.

Use the idea web below to make your own web outline. Pick a topic and put your main topic in the middle (like: Elephants are Majestic and
Amazing Creatures). Then, generate three sub-topics and write them on the “topic” branches (Kinds of Elephants, What Elephants Eat, Threats
to Elephants’ Survival, and How Elephants are Like Humans). Last, write three details that give additional information about each topic at the
end of each branch. Add more if needed.

Each topic and set of details will become a paragraph when you begin to draft your essay.

DETAIL DETAIL

DETAIL TOPIC #1 TOPIC #2 DETAIL

BIG IDEA

DETAIL DETAIL

DETAIL DETAIL

DETAIL TOPIC #3 TOPIC #4 DETAIL

DETAIL DETAIL

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