Let’s be honest—teaching students to eliminate wordiness isn’t exactly the highlight of a student’s writing journey. Most upper elementary students believe that if they write more words, their story will be better. Meanwhile, you’re reading something like: “I went on a really long, extremely tiring walk across the very big and really wide field.” 
Good news: teaching concise writing doesn’t mean turning your classroom into a grammar boot camp. It just takes four smart strategies, a few giggles, and a dose of hands-on practice to help students learn to trim the fluff and make their writing shine.
Teaching the Concept
Skip the grammar textbooks that read like tax code. Instead, model a few examples and explain why they work. Give students a handout with the rules and a link to the Google Slides, so they’ve got something fun and functional to reference. Ready to start? Let’s look at the four biggest offenders of wordiness.
Be sure to get the handout. It includes the link to the Google Slides.
How to Eliminate Wordiness Rules
Rule 1: Redundant Pairs
These word duos love to travel in pairs—but only one actually needs a ticket.
For instance, instead of saying “tuna fish,” one can use “tuna.” Here are a few more examples:
- return again (return)
- general consensus (consensus)
- revert back (revert)
- personal friend (friend)
Help students identify these sneaky repeats and replace them with solo stars.
Rule 2: Explain the Obvious
“Bill sat down in the chair.”
Where else would he sit, the refrigerator?
This rule teaches students to avoid repeating themselves (even when speaking politely). Example:
My friend and I split a piece of cheesecake between us.
Rule 3: Unnecessary Modifiers and Determiners
Students often clutter their writing with unnecessary modifiers and determiners. These words sound fancy but rarely do any actual heavy lifting.
Watch out for:
- kind of
- sort of
- type of
- really
- basically
- for all intents and purposes
- definitely
- actually
Any particular type of beach chair is fine with me.
Any particular type of beach chair is fine with me.
The box was completely full of clothes.
Here is an example:
She went on a very long walk across the really long meadow.
This sentence would be edited to say…
She strolled across the vast meadow.
Rule 4: Repetitive Wording
Students should be mindful of repetitive words or phrases within the same paragraph. Let’s examine a couple of examples:
“I woke up about midnight because of a loud sound that woke me up.”
“It was a dark and stormy night. During the night, I had a nightmare about thunder and lightning. Suddenly, a loud crash of lightning woke me up. It was a stormy night for me.” 😵💫
The box was completely full of clothes.
Repetition can sneak in during drafts. Teach students to spot it and replace repeats with fresh phrasing or delete them altogether.
Your students will be amazed at how strong their writing sounds when they lose the extra baggage. Bonus: editing becomes less of a chore when they know why they’re cutting the fluff.
Want to bring this to life in your classroom?
Looking for a way to make grammar stick? These TPT lessons combine video instruction, animated shorts, and printable games to bring grammar to life. Students get clear visuals, engaging stories, and fun practice with concepts like prepositions, punctuation, and verb tenses—all in one easy-to-use bundle.
