4th grade essay graphic organizer

Reading Worksheets, Spelling, Grammar, Comprehension, Lesson Plans

Main Idea Graphic Organizers

Strong reading skills require that students develop the ability to recognize the main idea and supporting details in text. One method for reinforcing this is to use graphic templates like these to help students make connections. These printable main idea and details organizers are helpful tools in your reading toolbox!

Main Idea Graphic Organizer

Learning how to properly structure an essay can be difficult. With this Main Idea Tree, students will create an outline that allows them to better understand the different parts of a five paragraph essay. Students will be asked to write their introduction, a main idea, three topic sentences, three supporting details for each topic sentence, and a conclusion.

Main Idea Tree

Use this image of a large tree to help your students understand the components of a paragraph. With this worksheet, students will be asked to write a main idea and follow it with three supporting details. What a great way for students to visualize the importance of the main idea in a paragraph!

Main Idea Organizer

Teach your students how to organize their writing with this helpful Main Idea Organizer. Students will be asked to complete the worksheet by writing their own main idea, three details, and a summary. This will help your students better understand how to organize their ideas for writing in the future, especially when writing an essay!

Staying organized can be difficult, especially when you are trying to keep your writing and ideas well organized. With this printable Main Idea Graphic Organizer, students can keep their thoughts and ideas organized and separated based on their order of importance.

Organize the Main Idea

Help your students learn how to better organize their ideas with this Main Idea Organizer. Students will be asked to come up with a title, write a main idea, and support the main idea with three written details. In order to excel at writing, it is important to learn how to construct paragraphs in a way that is easy for the reader to understand the argument.

Graphic Organizers

A graphic organizer is a visual display that demonstrates relationships between facts, concepts or ideas.

◂ English Language Arts Worksheets and Study Guides Fourth Grade. Graphic Organizers

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About this Interactive

Related resources.

Expository writing is an increasingly important skill for elementary, middle, and high school students to master. This interactive graphic organizer helps students develop an outline that includes an introductory statement, main ideas they want to discuss or describe, supporting details, and a conclusion that summarizes the main ideas. The tool offers multiple ways to navigate information including a graphic in the upper right-hand corner that allows students to move around the map without having to work in a linear fashion. The finished map can be saved, e-mailed, or printed.

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• Strategy Guides
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The Persuasion Map is an interactive graphic organizer that enables students to map out their arguments for a persuasive essay or debate.

This Strategy Guide describes the processes involved in composing and producing audio files that are published online as podcasts.

This strategy guide explains the writing process and offers practical methods for applying it in your classroom to help students become proficient writers.

This strategy guide clarifies the difference between persuasion and argumentation, stressing the connection between close reading of text to gather evidence and formation of a strong argumentative claim about text.

Students will identify how Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream of nonviolent conflict-resolution is reinterpreted in modern texts. Homework is differentiated to prompt discussion on how nonviolence is portrayed through characterization and conflict. Students will be formally assessed on a thesis essay that addresses the Six Kingian Principles of Nonviolence.

Students develop their reading, writing, research, and technology skills using graphic novels. As a final activity, students create their own graphic novels using comic software.

Students are encouraged to understand a book that the teacher reads aloud to create a new ending for it using the writing process.

While drafting a literary analysis essay (or another type of argument) of their own, students work in pairs to investigate advice for writing conclusions and to analyze conclusions of sample essays. They then draft two conclusions for their essay, select one, and reflect on what they have learned through the process.

Students analyze rhetorical strategies in online editorials, building knowledge of strategies and awareness of local and national issues. This lesson teaches students connections between subject, writer, and audience and how rhetorical strategies are used in everyday writing.

It's not easy surviving fourth grade (or third or fifth)! In this lesson, students brainstorm survival tips for future fourth graders and incorporate those tips into an essay.

Students explore the nature and structure of expository texts that focus on cause and effect and apply what they learned using graphic organizers and writing paragraphs to outline cause-and-effect relationships.

Students prepare an already published scholarly article for presentation, with an emphasis on identification of the author's thesis and argument structure.

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Informational Text Graphic Organizers

These informational text graphic organizers will meet nonfiction reading standards for 4th, 5th and 6th grades.

You can download this PDF containing 32 informational text graphic organizers for your intermediate reading workshop.

These worksheets will help you address many nonfiction standards in 4th and 5th grades.

This is another free resource for teachers and homeschool families from The Curriculum Corner.

We are sharing a complete collection of 32 free informational text graphic organizers for your intermediate classroom.

This huge collection of 32 graphic organizers is designed to address most of the intermediate informational text standards. They address key ideas & details, craft & structure and integration of knowledge & ideas.

These will be a welcome addition to your reading workshop!

Because this collection contains resources for fourth through sixth grade students, it will also make differentiating easier if you are looking to find similar organizers at different levels.

How to Use These Graphic Organizers

We always suggest modeling each graphic organizer before students are asked to complete one independently. This can make for a meaningful mini-lesson.  

Seeing how an organizer is correctly completed will help students fully understand the task they are being asked to complete. It’s also a great opportunity for you to model aloud your thinking as you work.

Model completing the organizer with the help of your students.

Showing students how you think through the process of completing an organizer can help them be successful in the future when completing their own.

It is a valuable lesson because as you complete the organizer, you are sharing your thinking. This then helps them

After completing an organizer as a class, be sure to display the sample so students can use it as a resource when needed.

An option for independent reading time is to create a storage spot for organizers students have been taught to use. They can pick a page that is a good fit for their current book.

Once or twice during the week, students can choose an organizer that fits their current independent reading selection and complete the organizer.

This option gives students choice and encourages some independence.

You will find these ideas covered in these graphic organizers:

Writing questions

You can download this free set of reading graphic organizers here:

Reading Download

As with all of our resources, The Curriculum Corner creates these for free classroom use. Our products may not be sold. You may print and copy for your personal classroom use. These are also great for home school families!

You may not modify and resell in any form. Please let us know if you have any questions.

States & Capitals Matching Cards - The Curriculum Corner 4-5-6

Tuesday 19th of November 2019

[…] Key Ideas & Informational Text Graphic Organizers […]

Preparing Your Reading Workshop - The Curriculum Corner 123

Monday 10th of June 2019

[…] Literature for 4th and 5th                 Informational Text for 4th and 5th […]

nancy alevras

Tuesday 9th of April 2019

Thank you for sharing your resources!

Monday 20th of August 2018

Hi there, I love all of your products and am so appreciative. Your link for 4 th and 5th Graphic Organizers for informational text is not working. I would love to have these! Mary [email protected]

Jill & Cathy

Hi Mary, we just tested the link and didn't have problems on our end downloading the PDF. Maybe it was a problem with the connection or something. If you try again and still experience difficulty, please email us and let us know the error message you are receiving. We will try to help you problem solve.

Reader's Notebook for Students - The Curriculum Corner 123

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[…] Grades 4-5 Graphic Organizers for Informational Text […]

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Free Opinion Writing Graphic Organizer

November 14, 2020 by Cristy

Text-based opinion writing is a form of essay writing that is usually taught beginning in fourth grade. In this type of writing, students are asked to read anywhere from 2 – 4 sources. Then, they respond to a prompt by stating an opinion and supporting it with evidence from the texts. As you can imagine, this is a very complex and multistep process. As a teacher, it can be difficult to know where to even begin. Breaking it down into mini lessons supported by anchor charts and an opinion writing graphic organizer is extremely helpful. It can really help you organize your teaching and help stack the building blocks needed for students to develop a solid essay.

This post will share how to introduce an opinion prompt, teaching students how to gather text evidence, and create a solid plan for their writing by using a graphic organizer as a planner.

How to Teach Students to Plan for an Opinion Essay

1. Start with the Opinion Writing Prompt

Define an opinion writing prompt for students. Let them know that it consists of a few sentences that raise an issue or a question that they will respond to in an essay. It is the first thing they should read before heading into the sources.

Show students several prompts and have them identify keywords within the prompt. A couple of words that identify the prompt as an opinion writing prompt are ‘opinion’ and ‘whether.’ Then, have students underline keywords they should be referring to as the read and write.

Have students write these steps in their journal or provide them with a poster they can refer back to when they need it. Having students create a table of contents for their journals can also be beneficial because it will allow them to find these notes quickly and refer to them as often as needed.

2. Gathering Text Evidence While Reading

Provide students with a set of texts based on the same topic. It is best to make sure one text offers a variety of pros while the other offers a variety of cons.

Have students annotate the text as they read looking for pros and cons. Some of the symbols I suggest to my students are:

• + / –
• for / against

Students can simultaneously sort the information into a two-column “pros” and “cons” organizer. This will help them for the next step when they will choose a side.

3. Choosing a Side

Teach students how to analyze their evidence. Explain to them that in order to have a well written essay, they will need to be able to support their choice and elaborate on it. Review with them some of the questions they should be asking themselves:

• Which side has an overwhelming amount of evidence supporting it?
• Which side do I feel more connected to?
• Which side can I elaborate the most on?

4. Introduce How to Plan Your Writing

A well written opinion essay will be organize, supported with relevant facts, and include tightly connected elaborations. Introducing your students to an opinion writing graphic organizer will help guide them in their thinking and planning for their essay.

I have introduced many planners in the past to my students, but the 4-paragraph opinion writing graphic organizer pictured here is the one that has been the most helpful to my students.

Show students how each part represents a paragraph and go over what should be included in each one. Students should realize that bullet points and phrases are the best way to plan.

5. Model Filling in the Graphic Organizer

Now that you’ve gone over what goes in each section, model how to fill in the planner as students copy what you are writing. Think aloud through the process, so they understand what their thought process should be as they fill out their opinion writing graphic organizer.

Introduction:

Include the side you are choosing and write down words from the prompt. (The “hook” can be added to the planner later.)

Body Paragraphs:

Include the answer.

For “cite,” just include the source and the paragraph where the information is found. (Ex. Source #1 Paragraph #1) They may include a keyword or two, but it should not go further than that. Having students write out the entire evidence will waste precious writing time and may frustrate them as well.

In “elaborate,” have students write a word they might want to define, a connection they may make, or a remark they want to add to support or clarify.

Conclusion:

Refer back to the introduction for keywords and circle back to where they started.

Grab a FREE Graphic Organizer

Click here or on the image below to download the PDF of the graphic organizer.

Looking for More Support?

Hopefully, these tips have helped you organize your beginning opinion writing lessons. 

If you would like more than the opinion writing graphic organizer, you can check out this resource that includes teacher notes, pacing guides, posters, anchor charts, and more. Just click on the image to take a closer look.

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4th Grade Reading and Literature Graphic Organizers

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