Boost Writing Skills With Descriptive Paragraph Prompts

Descriptive writing is all about painting a picture in the reader’s mind. To do this, students need to focus on the details and use all of their senses. Effectively describing a person, place, or thing with descriptive language can make their writing more interesting and engaging for readers. If you can teach students to write this way, their writing will become more vivid and come to life. That’s where we come in! Let us help you improve their writing skills with our descriptive paragraph prompts.

This worksheet has been designed to encourage your students to consolidate their descriptive writing skills and expand their vocabulary using adjectives to describe an animal they know and love…the Tree Sloth! This descriptive writing prompt provides students with a simple prompt and a group of words to use in their writing. These words include:

• slow
• lazy
• sleepy
• shaggy
• furry
• three-toed
• claws
• drowsy
• relaxed
• calm
• independent
• herbivore

Not only is this a fun activity about sloths, but it’s also a great way to develop their writing skills and ability to express themselves through descriptive writing. 

Differentiating Instruction for Student Needs

To extend students, have them flip the script and write from a sloth’s point of view. How might a sloth describe a person if they met in the jungle? 

For students who may need a little extra support, have them only pick one word or two words at a time and just focus on one or two sentences. You could also provide ELL learners or struggling writers with sentence stems to help get their ideas flowing.

Easily Download & Print

Use the dropdown icon on the Download button to choose between the PDF or Google Slides version of this resource. 

This resource was created by Lisamarie Del Valle, a teacher in Florida and a Teach Starter Collaborator.