A “How to Make a Paper Airplane” Procedure Text

Are your students ready to move on from everyday procedures such as “How to Brush Your Teeth,” “How to Make a Sandwich,” or “How to Make the Bed?” If so, it might be time to re-energize your students about procedure writing with this “How to Make a Paper Plane” procedure text. After all, what child doesn’t love experimenting with paper plane designs and seeing which one flies best!

This procedural writing activity has been designed to help your students better understand the purpose, structure and language features of procedures by engaging with a well-structured and well-written example text. This two-page text models how to write a successful procedure text, including all the key features such as interesting facts, required materials and a sequence of steps (with accompanying diagrams, of course!). After reading the example procedure, the students are required to write a procedure for a paper airplane of their own creation using the template provided.

Turn This Procedural Writing Worksheet Into a Procedural Writing Lesson!

The beauty of this resource is that you can easily build an entire lesson on procedural writing around it. Here is how one of our experienced teachers would use this resource:

1. Distribute the worksheets and some spare paper to the students. The spare paper is for plane making!
2. Read through the procedure as a class. Have the students follow the steps to make the “Sparrow” paper plane featured in the text.
3. Discuss the effectiveness of the procedure. Were the steps easy to follow? Did the paper planes turn out as intended?
4. Spend some time analyzing the language used in the text. Have students color-code grammatical features such as action verbs, adverbs and adverbial phrases.
5. Experiment time! Have the students create their own paper plane design. Remind them not to make it overcomplicated as they will need to write the steps for someone else to follow!
6. Have the students write a procedure for their own paper plane design using the template provided in the resource.
7. Once complete, have students swap their procedures with a partner. Can their partner successfully re-create their plane?

Download This Procedural Writing Example

This resource downloads as a black-and-white printable PDF. Use the Download button above to access.

For sustainability purposes, please consider printing this resource double-sided.

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