Teach paragraph writing skill
Focus first on body paragraphs

Paragraph writing makes a scribbler feel like a writer. Even though the hardest part of writing is the preparation, you'll never convince your younger students that they are doing real writing until they start writing paragraphs.

Start by teaching students how to write body paragraphs. They are used more frequently than the other types. Also, they can—and frequently do— stand on their own as miniature essays.

Save teaching about introductions and conclusions until after students master the art of body-paragraph writing.

The body paragraph is writing's heart

When writers plan an essay modeled on the thesis + support (or persuasive essay) pattern, — what Ms. Inky Fingers calls writing an outline — they concern themselves only with the middle or body section of the paper.

Together those body paragraphs develop the thesis statement that is the main idea of the entire paper. The introduction and conclusion are merely ornaments that help focus attention on that thesis.

Each body paragraph has a topic sentence that sums up its main idea in much the same way the thesis sentence sums up the central idea of the entire essay. Click here for more about body paragraph structure, including diagrams.

Warning: Be careful to use the phrase topic sentence when you mean the main point of a paragraph, particularly with beginning writers.

If you use just topic, some students will think you mean the general subject about which they must write a thesis statement.

Writers develop their topic sentences by supplying

• Evidence,

• Specific detail,

• Logical reasoning.

Efficient writers plan their support in advance, noting it in the outline or template they use to organize their material.

Body paragraph writing requires using linking devices and transitions to make the separate sentences mesh into an entire unit.

Linking devices are tricks like repeating key words, using synonyms for those terms, and including unambiguous pronoun references. Such links help writers convey their ideas clearly.

Transitions are words or phrases that indicate changes in the direction of thought. In combination, linking devices and transitions make a piece of writing cohere.

The key to paragraph writing is good planning.

Students first need a thesis statement, topic sentences for their body paragraphs, and supporting evidence for the topic sentences. They develop all that material at the planning stage before they get to composition.

Introduction paragraph

The job of the introduction is to get the reader’s attention and direct it toward the thesis. To do that well, writers have to know what will be in their body paragraphs so they don't duplicate that content in their introductions. Learn more about introductions and get help teaching introduction paragraph writing elsewhere on this site.

Conclusion paragraph

The conclusion paragraph is a little more elegant than writing “the end,” but it amounts to the same thing, which is fortunate: teaching students how to write a conclusion paragraph is nearly impossible.