1. Paragraph Sandwich Yep, a paragraph is just like a sandwich! Today, you will learn what I mean!

2. Writing a successful paragraph is like making a sandwich. Nobody wants a plain old sandwich. We have to have lots of great ingredients! First we need a piece of bread. In writing a paragraph, you start with one great sentence, your topic sentence. The topic sentence introduces the main idea of the paragraph. The topic sentence helps you let the reader know what you are writing about and also hooks the reader into wanting to read the rest of the paragraph. I had never been home alone on such a dark, stormy night.

3. Next we need to add some details! Let’s start by adding some juicy tomatoes. We need to add details so our readers know more about what we are writing about. It adds more “flavor” to our writing, just like a slice of tomato will add more flavor to our sandwich. The lights had gone out more than an hour ago and the house was in complete darkness.

4. Adding more details… Let’s add the meat to our sandwich! We have to have meat on our sandwich. Let’s give our readers the “meat” of our paragraph. Now I wished I had gone to the grocery store with my mom, but it was too late!

5. Adding more details… Let’s add some fresh lettuce to our sandwich! We need to add more details. We need to make our paragraph and our sandwich more interesting. Again, it adds even more “flavor” to our writing, and more flavor to our sandwich. I finally found some candles so I lit a few and it didn’t seem so scary.

6. Finishing it up… Of course, our sandwich is not complete without a second slice of bread. Adding that last slice of bread finishes our sandwich, just like the last sentence in our paragraph completes our thoughts. It gives the reader closure. After a while, my mom came back, and she was very happy to see that I was safe and could take care of myself when I needed to.

7. Now let’s put our sandwich and our paragraph all together! I had never been home alone on such a dark, stormy night. The lights had gone out more than an hour ago and the house was in complete darkness. Now I wished I had gone to the grocery store with my mom, but it was too late! I finally found some candles so I lit a few and it didn’t seem so scary. After a while, my mom came back, and she was very happy to see that I was safe and could take care of myself when I needed to.

8. Now it’s YOUR turn. Using the paper I give you, you will build a Paragraph Sandwich.

9. Name ______________________ Date _________ Building a Paragraph Sandwich _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________