Write down exactly what you are writing your paper about. One or two sentences are enough to get your paper focused on one topic. This statement will later serve as the thesis, or main idea, of your paper. If you are writing a paper in support of your school allowing students to wear what clothes they want to school, you might write, "John F. Kennedy High School should allow students to choose the clothes they wear to school, not impose uniforms."
Learn as much as you can about your topic. Trips to the library and Internet searching will take up much of the time it takes to complete your paper. Stick to reading about and noting only information that directly pertains to your topic. Background information is important to include in your paper, but you do not have much room to go into great detail in a five paragraph paper. Avoid rabbit trails to keep your paper on track. Constantly ask yourself if what you are reading supports the main idea of your paper.
Outline your paper. Write down what you will include in each of the five paragraphs. Include the thesis in the first paragraph, some background on the topic and the supporting information presented in the rest of the paper. The other paragraphs should cover one reason why the school should allow students to pick their own clothes and provide evidence to support the reason. Include the most powerful reason in the first paragraph of the essay body, then the next most important and so on. You might say that students' creativity is stifled if they have to wear uniforms, uniforms are a financial burden on some families and that uniforms reduce individuality. Each of these reasons must be supported by hard evidence from your research. Your conclusion should tell the reader how this topic and your stance on it relate to the wider world, and it should briefly summarize your paper. Avoid inserting new information about the topic in the conclusion.
Write a first draft of your paper. Use transitions such as, "first," "next," "then," "moreover," and "however" to control the flow from one sentence to another and from one paragraph to another. Read through your paper for sentence and overall structure, and again for spelling, punctuation and grammar mistakes. Look for flow of logic, varied sentence structure and action words that make an impact on the reader. Write a final draft of your paper that includes a works cited page formatted according to the specifications of your teacher.