Expository Writing Teaching Resources

Whether you call it expository writing, informational writing or informative writing in your classroom, it's important for students to learn to write in a manner that shares straightforward information on a certain topic to educate their reader. It's a skill that will serve them well throughout their education and well into adulthood.

Getting your students started with informative writing this school year? The Teach Starter team of teachers has put together everything you need to teach this core writing type to your elementary writers, including printable worksheets, writing prompts, writing templates, and more.

Each resource in this collection has been thoroughly reviewed to ensure it's ready to be used in your classroom, and you'll find editable options so you can make the adjustments you need to meet state-level standards and meet your students where they are at.

What Is Informative Writing?

New to teaching this type of writing? Let's run through a quick refresher! (If you're all set and just need resources, feel free to skip ahead and start downloading the worksheets you need!)

The main purpose of informational writing is to educate the reader with facts rather than to change how the reader thinks or even to move the reader to take action.

Informative writing goes by a number of names, so maybe your district calls it something else. Some other names it goes by include:

Informational writing
Explanatory writing

Informative Writing vs. Persuasive Writing

Informative writing is just one of the many writing styles your students will learn in elementary school, but it's important to establish the clear differences between them.

Take persuasive writing, for example. Like informational writing, it requires becoming educated on the topic a student is writing about, and it involves using facts in writing.

On the other hand, a persuasive writing essay is written to convince the reader of something. In higher grades, it transitions into opinion writing because it takes a side on a topic rather than remaining impartial.

That's not true of an informative writing piece, which takes a "just the facts, Jack" form.

What Are the 5 Elements of Informative Writing?

As you dive into teaching informational writing, there are 5 elements you'll want students to focus on explaining to the reader. They're often called the 5 Ws:

Who
What
When
Where
Why

Students may also include a sixth element, which explains "how" something happened.

Informative Writing Examples

You may want to start your students off on your informational writing unit with examples to help familiarize them with this sort of writing. Fortunately, informational writing is found all around us in daily life. Students have almost surely read a few along the way and simply not known the name.

Some examples that students will likely recognize include: