One of my favorite topics to help students write about is people. Writing about people is a great starting point for early writers to use sources, an excellent way to give passages of material for kids to write from, and can even challenge upper-level high schoolers, depending on the expectations and skills included.
I love teaching writing about people for several reasons:
◦ It is one of the easiest research-based topics. There’s chronology, abounding information, and simplified ways.
◦ It is often of high interest to even young students.
◦ There are many ways to break down information, organize facts, and layout content.
◦ It is an excellent topic for expansion.
I love teaching 2nd-5th graders people writing with these approaches:
◦ Writing Boxes (signature layout for sentence and paragraph writing in many of my “Write-for-a-Month” and “Meaningful Composition” programs)
◦ Paragraph House Outline and Writing
◦ Five W’s charts, boxes, or lists
◦ Q and A outlines
◦ Sentence-by-Sentence outline over a given passage, especially story-based passages about people)
