Read along to find eight easy ways to use elaboration anchor charts to teach writing besides displaying them on your classroom wall. Pass out sticky notes and have kids write examples of sentences they have included in their paragraph that matches each elaboration poster. In the end, you will have a collection of mentor sentences to use with them.

Read the lessons and examples and put them to use. Use Dialogue to communicate with your instructor and peer reviewers. Remember that Criterion® doesn’t score your content. Is your thesis clear? Are your main ideas clear and do they support your thesis statement? Have you used the best reasons, details and facts to develop your ideas?

Elaboration looks different depending on the genre in which you are writing. In Narrative, elaboration means to be more descriptive and help the reader feel like they are in the story. In Informational, elaboration means to explain the main idea in depth using key details that also describe or develop the topic.

1. Basic, listed support/elaboration: Texts typically present a list of details that is often vague and/or loosely connected to ideas supporting the opinion of a text. This list can easily be reordered without changing or confusing the meaning of the text. 2. General layered elaboration: Texts typically provide a sentence-to-sentence progression of

“What are some important elements of an informative essay?” (Answers will vary, but should reference the use of a focus statement in the introduction, points that are explained with evidence, and elaboration in the Proof Paragraphs.)

The first time of elaboration is to explain. When you explain you tell what you mean. (Read 1 st example) (Call on a student) How would you explain what a cookie is? (Accept reasonable answers, sweet treat, round, chocolate, oatmeal, etc.) Another type of elaboration is to exemplify or give an example.

Writing strategy to teach elaboration for both 4th and 5th grade classrooms. It includes a step by step guide, exit tickets, and writing anchor chart.

This set of posters for elaboration are a helpful visual reference to help students understand the importance of explaining and elaborating their ideas in writing. This set features seven types of elaboration along with examples and definitions students can use in their writing.

Elaboration is the process of selecting and integrating details that support, explain, illustrate, and/or develop ideas. Regardless of whether these ideas come from source materials or from experience, full, relevant elaboration enhances

This is a picture of a chart I’ve used in third, fourth, and fifth grades. It lists explicit strategies for elaboration on the orange sticky notes, but it also offers ways to incorporate those strategies into text.