We’re almost at the end of this blog series! We’ve discussed word level comprehension, sentence level decoding and now we’re looking at whole paragraphs. 

Understanding how paragraphs, or small parts of a text, work together is essential for reading comprehension. Strong topic sentences, logical paragraph order, and effective transition words guide readers through an author’s argument or narrative. 

Without these structural elements, even the most insightful ideas can become confusing or disconnected. Teaching students to analyze paragraphs as they’re reading enhances their ability to comprehend whole texts. Likewise, they’ll also become better writers too! By recognizing how paragraphs build upon one another, students can track themes, follow arguments, and grasp an author’s purpose with greater clarity. Again, this is something that I honestly think we don’t even realize we need to teach! 

To support these skills, we can use paragraph-level reading or writing activities. Below, you’ll find a list of TEN options! What are some other ideas that you have?

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Reading Paragraph Activities

1. Paragraph Sorting Challenge

What is it and how do I do it? Take a well built paragraph from whatever text you are reading in class. I would retype it or copy/paste it into a document so that you can edit it to meet your needs. You’ll want to cut the sentences apart and scramble them up. Put the slips into an envelope and ask students to reconstruct the paragraph into an order that makes sense. This can be as simple or as complicated as you want it to be – a simple version might include a picture book that you read to help teach theme, a complicated version might include questions like where to place the sentences that evoke imagery. It is up to you and the level of your students.

For Example: A descriptive paragraph, like the opening passage of Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, would work well for this. Scramble the sentences about the Salinas River and then have your students put the paragraph back together in order. Tell them to focus on logical sequencing, transitions, and imagery. Then you can discuss what helped them determine the correct structure.

2. Topic Sentence Scavenger Hunt

What is it and how do I do it? This activity, obviously, focuses on topic sentences. You’ll provide body paragraphs from whatever text you are reading. However, you’ll have taken the topic sentence out. You can actually provide the topic sentences that the author wrote, separately, or ask students to write their own topic sentence. Students will have to infer the main idea and then match or write new topic sentences. 

If you have students write their own versions, definitely have them compare their version to the original and reflect on what works, or doesn’t work.

For Example: Victor Frankenstein’s thoughts after creating the monster in Frankenstein by Mary Shelley would be great for this! Remove the topic sentences and have students infer the main idea of each paragraph. Then, ask them to write new topic sentences for his arguments about ambition and responsibility. 

Or something from Atticus Finch’s courtroom speech in To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee would be great too. Your students can write new topic sentences or match the topic sentences written by Lee to the appropriate arguments that Finch makes.

3. Transition Match-Up

What is it and how do I do it? Take the transition words and phrases out of a paragraph or two. Give them to students in a fill in the blank or mad-lib style version of your text. You’ll explore the functions of common transition words by matching them to the appropriate sentences within the paragraph. This can help your students understand how transitions guide readers through ideas smoothly.

For Example: Select a paragraph from the Declaration of Independence. Bonus points for bridging between content areas. =) Remove transition words like “therefore,” “however,” and “consequently.” Give students the list of transition words and have them insert them where they think the words make the most sense. A challenge version follow up could be having them rewrite the paragraph with different transitions to see how the meaning changes.

4. Paragraph Purpose Investigation

What is it and how do I do it? This is an advanced activity that has students analyzing different paragraph types, like descriptive, narrative, argumentative. It helps students see that the text types they have learned about can actually all be in one text. By identifying and labeling different paragraphs functions in a text, they can better comprehend the whole text. In order to do this, you’ll need a pretty complex text. You can even have them experiment by rewriting paragraphs in a different style.

For Example: Select paragraphs from different parts of Night by Elie Wiesel. These paragraphs should serve different functions: descriptive, narrative, reflective, argumentative. Using Wiesel’s famous Nobel Peace Prize speech as a supplement could work, too. Ask students to label each paragraph’s purpose and justify their reasoning. Then, challenge them to rewrite one of the paragraphs in a different style.

5. Compare Strong vs. Weak Paragraphs

What is it and how do I do it? This one is pretty simple. Provide students with strong examples from a mentor text and weak examples, probably written by you or even an AI bot. Ha! Compare the well-structured paragraphs with the weaker ones to identify the characteristics of effective writing. As a bonus, you can have them revise the weak paragraphs to improve clarity and depth. 

For Example: Really anything would work for this. It is a great strategy to use to drive home any element that you’re trying to teach to your students: descriptive writing, imagery, argument, use of quotes. Anything!

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Writing Paragraph Activities

6. One-Sentence Summary Race

What is it and how do I do it? With this activity, your students will practice their summarization skills by condensing a paragraph into a single sentence. They must focus on key ideas while maintaining accuracy. This is actually a really great strategy for critical thinking and reading comprehension, in general. However, it does also help in understanding paragraphs as well.

For Example: Choose a key paragraph from a pivotal moment in the text that you’re reading, such as John Proctor’s confession in The Crucible by Arthur Miller. Challenge students to write a one-sentence summary that captures the main idea. You can have students read them out loud, which also integrates speaking and listening, or submit them electronically. Then have them compare the responses. 

I recommend having students submit them to you and then assigning a few good ones back to your students to compare. This saves time and limits the amount of cheating. You can also use this as an opportunity to discuss the elements of a good summary.

7. Expand and Condense

What is it and how do I do it? This activity is two-fold and is SO GOOD for differentiating, depending on what your students need. You can have some students expand on a super simple paragraph, and others condense a longer paragraph. Which skill do your students need more practice with?

Personally, I would recommend writing your own example paragraphs about whatever text you’re reading. I have found it to be super tough to find published paragraphs in our canon curricula that need to be expanded or condensed. =)

For Example: Give students a brief summary paragraph about how the pigs’ came to power in Animal Farm by George Orwell. Then have them expand it with specific details from the novel. Or, on the flip side, provide a long, super detailed passage and challenge them to condense it into a more concise summary without losing key ideas.

8. Paragraph Remix

What is it and how do I do it? This is one of my favorite activities! Provide a paragraph from a text that you’re reading and ask students to rewrite it in a different tone, style, or era. This is a really great tool for understanding how diction and structure shape meaning, as well as discussing author’s choices.

For Example: Choose a paragraph from Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare and have students rewrite it in a modern, informal style. Then, reverse the exercise by taking a modern paragraph (such as a newspaper editorial) and rewriting it in Shakespearean language. It’s super fun and requires a really deep understanding of what is happening in the text!

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These activities not only help students analyze and understand paragraphs, aiding in comprehension, but they also build critical thinking and writing skills. By applying one or two of these strategies to their every day activities, teachers can actually teach students how to comprehend in engaging and text-based ways. Comprehension and writing fluency are things we have to teach!

What are your favorite paragraph-focused activities? Share your ideas in the comments!