Teach how to write a paragraph:
Make students dance to evidence waltz

When we talk about teaching students how to write a paragraph, we are really talking about writing body paragraphs on the classic formula popularly called the five paragraph essay.

This is format, the body or expository paragraphs are built on a pattern of three pieces of evidence.

Elsewhere, I showed you how writers can apply the conventions of conversation so the evidence supports the topic sentence of its paragraph. I call that conversational pattern the evidence waltz.

Now I want to show you a few tricks for teaching students how to write a paragraph in waltz-time.

Point out the evidence waltz in use

One step in teaching students how to write a paragraph is to get them to notice the evidence waltz in expository paragraphs in their reading. For example, the evidence waltz usually stands out in a story in a newspaper or a literature review in a scholarly article.

In a newspaper, it might look something like this:

Asked Friday morning whether the Assembly would vote on the kangaroo licensing bill, Assembly president Fred Fuzzbrain, R-Mudflats, said, "I won't even consider it." The president's opposition means there will be no action on the controversial bill this session.

In a scholarly article literature review, it might look like this:

Smith and Smith (2006) found no statistical difference in the number of mice that developed green hair after being injected with ReVerte compared to a control group that received no injections. Since the Smith and Smith study injected the drug rather than administering it topically, the findings do not prove conclusively that no relationship exists.

You don't have to teach a lesson on how to write a paragraph if you look for opportunities to teach and reinforce the steps of the evidence waltz individually as opportunities arise during your teaching of various topics.

If you are really sneaky, you can even the topic of how to write a paragraph into a discussion of literature.

You might, for example, use an informal writing prompt in which you ask students how the presentation of information in dialogue is similar to that in nonfiction paragraph writing. A follow-up prompt could ask how it is different from the presentation in expository paragraphs.

Prep step 1: introduce the source

Students, and other people who should know better, often refer to a book or a magazine as a source. Books and magazines are no more sources than a Jeep is a driver. Sources are either individual people or groups of individuals working together to produce information.

You can present this definition as you are teaching writing, but the best way to be sure students learn it is to discuss sources as you teach other topics.

For example, you can discuss print sources as part of your reading comprehension activities using their own textbooks.

With kids as young as middle school, you can use the terms author and source. Instead of asking "what does your book say" ask "what does the author say?" or "what does Geoffrey Smith say?"

You can discuss electronic sources in a unit on communications. You might discuss Internet sources in a class on study skills.

Simply using the same terminology when you teach study skills that you use when you teach paragraph writing helps reinforce the idea that sources are people.

Prep step 2: source's credentials

You can teach students how to locate information about the qualification of sources as you teach reading, study skills, research skills, and similar topics that are not strictly speaking part of teaching how to write a paragraph.

Information about an author may be found in the front matter of a book, in the biographical note of a magazine, or on the "about" page of a website.

It does little good to teach students how to write a paragraph if you don't also teach them how to find information about the sources they use in paragraph development.

Preparation step: what's omitted?

As you are teaching reading comprehension activities, call students' attention to how an author sets up the evidence. Draw attention to when authors use all three steps of the evidence waltz, when they omit one. If one is omitted, which one is it? Why did the author leave that step out?

Once students start analyzing the construction of a paragraph, they will see that writers often make a single sentence perform all three of the prep step tasks.

They will also see times when an author will devote an entire sentence to presenting the author's credentials. See if they can figure out what might account for the amount of detail the author chose to present.

Close reading of someone else's work helps students see what choices they have about how to write a paragraph.

Teach step 2 as a research activity

I recommend you require students to summarize evidence in a single sentence when they put it in their outline templates. The summary should name source, the source's main credential, and what the source said. Students must read well to be able to summarize well.

Even in a timed writing situation in they don't have access to their notes, student will remember the gist of their summaries.

Teach step 3 via informal writing

A simple way to show students why they need to explain the significance of their evidence is to use a 1-minute informal writing activity.

Give students a simple one-sentence piece of evidence from of a fictitious essay, like this:

Mayor Maybell Muttonhead said there are 1,248 licensed dogs in Mudflats but the number of unlicensed dogs is estimated to be half again as many.

Have each student continue the paragraph writing a sentence explaining the significance of the evidence. After they finish, ask them to share their sentences.

Students will see a wide variation in what their peers thought the evidence proves. For example, it might be used to prove that:

• Mudflats could increase its revenue without raising taxes if it enforced its current laws. OR

• Mudflats has a potential rabies problem. OR

• Requiring cats to be licensed in Mudflats is not likely to be successful. OR

• Something else I haven't thought of.

After they do this informal writing, students will understand why they need to draw out the significance of the evidence.

After your discussion, you might have a second informal writing activity in which you again have them reveal the significance of a piece of evidence, this time using something that is related to the discussion in which they just participated.

Miss Inky Fingers said students in her English class failed to explain the significance of 72% of the evidence in their writing in September.

These informal writing activities don't teach students how to write a paragraph, but they help them understand why they need to explain the significance of the evidence they present.

Application to other essay types

I illustrated how to write a paragraph using the kind of evidence typically found in so-called persuasive paragraphs. However, the need to draw out the significance of evidence is just as important if the writer is crafting less overtly persuasive paragraphs.

Less formulaic paragraphs (a description, for example) may require far more subtle handling than beginning writers can manage. That's one reason I like the five paragraph essay: it is so very flat-footed.