Hamburger

15 minutes to Ignite

Hamburger Strategy

Strategy Parameters

Genre: All.
Grade Level: Grades 2–6.
Writing Process: Planning and drafting.

At-A-Glance

The Hamburger Paragraph Strategy uses the familiar visual of a hamburger to teach students the structural components of a strong paragraph, mapping the topic sentence, supporting details, and conclusion to the buns and fillings. This concrete metaphor helps students plan their content depth, check their organization, and ensure their paragraph has enough “juicy” supporting details. The approach simplifies paragraph writing into manageable, memorable parts, which strengthens independence for young writers.

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Best Practices

Encourage creativity in supporting details by having students brainstorm facts, personal experiences, and observations before they start writing.
Model each part of the paragraph explicitly, writing the paragraph live with students and modeling your thinking aloud for each step.
Write the paragraph in order (top bun, juicy details, bottom bun) to ensure students establish a strong claim before finding supporting details.
Reinforce the metaphor regularly by integrating it into the writing conversation with questions like “Did you build the full burger?”.
Use a concrete and visually engaging analogy, connecting the top bun to the topic sentence, fillings to details, and the bottom bun to the conclusion.

Common Pitfalls

Don’t assume all students understand the metaphor without consistent visual support and modeling to build the connection between the burger parts and the paragraph components.
Don’t overcomplicate the fillings (details) when first introducing the strategy; start simple with facts, personal examples, or descriptions.
Don’t just describe the burger parts; you must actively model the writing process for each section.
Don’t neglect to use sentence stems to help students start brainstorming (e.g., “One surprising fact is…”).
Don’t move on without reinforcing the metaphor regularly or providing constructive feedback using the “seasoning” analogy.

Implementation Tips

Introduce and Model the Visual: Begin by modeling the strategy using a hamburger image and a clear, visual breakdown of each paragraph part, connecting the top bun, fillings, and bottom bun to the topic sentence, details, and concluding sentence. Create a classroom anchor chart to keep the structure visible and reinforce it with tactile activities like cut-and-paste burger pieces.
Guided Practice and Reinforcement: Introduce sentence starters for each layer and use whole-class builds, paragraph assembly lines, and sentence sorting games to provide group activities that reinforce understanding. Support diverse learners by providing word banks, transition menus, and chunked organizers to help them build strong, complete paragraphs.
Independent Application: Transition to independent practice by providing graphic organizers and visual checklists based on the hamburger structure. Utilize writing stations that focus on mastering each individual burger layer, such as strengthening the topic sentence or ensuring the details are “juicy.”