Draw a parallel for the students between a basic paragraph and a simple sandwich. Have your students first list the components of a sandwich, and describe what each component does. If they struggle, use helpful reminders or even provide for them some basic sandwich ingredients. In the end, they should recognize that a sandwich consists of two pieces of bread that support the sandwich, maybe some type of condiment that adds flavor to the sandwich, and some type of filling such as cheese or meat that provides the main part or body of the sandwich. Connect each element of a sandwich to a basic element of a paragraph in this way: the bread pieces equal topic sentences, the condiment is an elaboration or more detailed description of the opening topic sentence and the filling (meat, peanut butter, etc) is the "meat" or body of the paragraph.
Show students through the analysis of several paragraph samples that follow the sandwich model of a paragraph structure. First, show students complete examples that have an opening topic sentence (top bread), a descriptive complimentary sentence (condiment), several body sentences related to the topic sentence (filling) and a concluding or summarizing topic sentence (bottom bread). You can then introduce sample paragraphs that are missing one or more of the basic structural elements. For example, a paragraph that has no opening topic sentence, or a paragraph with no body sentences.
Lead students in the construction of cut-outs representing the physical components of a sandwich. Have them cut out pieces of paper in bread shapes, in the shape of a condiment splash and in the shape of various fillings such as a piece of ham or a cheese.
Provide your students with a jumbled paragraph. Instruct them that the order of the sentences in the paragraph is mixed up and that they must reorder it according to how it should fit together, and which part represents which component of the sandwich.
Read each sentence aloud and ask students to hold up the cut-out representing the part of the sandwich they believe that sentence represents. For example, you might read the sentence, "Once upon a time, millions of years ago, dinosaurs roamed the Earth." Students could then hold up a cut-out (in this case, a cut-out of bread) to indicate that this sentence would be a topic sentence.
Ask students to compose a paragraph together about the room or an object in the room using the sandwich-style of paragraph construction method. Students should be able to work together to come up with a very basic paragraph. For example, "Ms. Smith has a large, red apple on her desk. Jimmy gave Ms. Smith the apple in the morning. The apple is delicious. It is also good for Ms. Smith. Ms. Smith is very thankful for the large, red apple on her desk."
Group students together into groups of two or three and ask them to write a second paragraph about a new object in the room using the sandwich-style paragraph construction method.
Share student groups' paragraphs with the whole class. Ask the class to hold up their cut-outs indicating what each sentence represents in the paragraph's sandwich construction.
Ask individual students to write a paragraph about some object or person from their home using the sandwich-style paragraph construction method. This can be completed either in class or as homework.
Share, discuss and correct the paragraphs that individual students wrote about some object or person from their home, emphasizing each component of a paragraph.