What it is. An orderly paragraph puts what the reader needs first, first.
Why our test works. Children order by what they thought of first rather than by what the reader needs. Framing the question from the READER'S side turns ordering into a decidable problem, and it is the same reader-first move the register work has been teaching since Grade 3.
Leans on. Lessons 12 and 21.
Watch for. This is the last MCT lesson before the project. Point forward to it explicitly.
Read and use Orderly Paragraphs from Paragraph Town, pp.85–85. The worked example is the one you build on the board: Teacher reads the key passage of Orderly Paragraphs aloud with the book open and models th The class reads Writing Book 5, p.66 — our own page, so a child who was absent can still get the lesson.
You open by saying where this sits — what it follows and what it is part of — in one sentence, and then you give them the reason it matters, in your own words, for about ten seconds. Before anything new, sixty seconds of retrieval on U7 set 1: ask, take the answers from boards rather than hands so you see all thirty, and do not re-teach — note who has lost it and carry on.
Then you do one yourself, building it on the board and leaving it up: Teacher reads the key passage of Orderly Paragraphs aloud with the book open and models the move it teaches on one sentence. The board copy is what they look back at when they stall, so it stays there for the whole lesson.
The We-do is the main whiteboard moment of the lesson — short answers, boards up on your signal, every child visible at once. Class applies the move from Orderly Paragraphs to two sentences together, checking against the book's own example. If the answer is a whole sentence rather than a word, take it on their notebooks instead, because a sentence written on a whiteboard is written once and destroyed.
They open Writing Book 5 to page 66 and read it with you. Stop at the worked example and let them look at it.
Exit directions in full, standing still, before anyone moves. Then they work alone: In your notebook: apply Orderly Paragraphs to three sentences of your own, double-spaced.
You close on the exit direction — Read out one sentence that uses Orderly Paragraphs. — taken from every child before anyone stands, and then the line you want them to still have tomorrow: Put it in the order the reader needs.
This is the last MCT lesson before the project. Point forward to it explicitly.