What Is A Good Formula For Writing Body Paragraphs?

 

When I teach my middle school students how to write essays, I first go through the entire process with them.

First, we read and flip the prompt.  Then, we read and mark the text.  Instead of going headlong into planning, I pause the writing process and teach them what goes into an introduction (one type of essay at a time) and then what goes into a body paragraph.

I always start with informative essays.  So, after I have taught the student an informative introduction (argumentative introductions have a critical difference), I will teach the body paragraph.  I teach that this paragraph has at least 8 sentences.  Could students write more?  Sure, but no less.  This is what those 8 sentences are:

1. Answer

Answer is a transition with the restatement of the prompt with one of your reasons.

For example, in my digital informative essay unit, students will create a thesis that says that Mount Rushmore and Pipestone National Monument are significant places that should be protected because of their natural, historical, and cultural importance.

So the answer would be:  "Initially, natural benefits are one reason why Mount Rushmore and Pipestone National Monument are significant."

2. Cite Evidence

Given the reason from the answer, students will now be directed to look at the texts and choose a piece of evidence for "natural benefits."  Then, we discuss how to "prepare" the quote.  By "preparing", I mean to set it up with the name and author of the article and where it can be found.

For example, In "Pipestone National Monument" by E.C. Spangler, the text asserts, "...nature has been protected and can be enjoyed by all people for generations to come". (1,3)  

The (1, 3) refers to the first article, third paragraph.  

My students tended to need more practice with this concept, so I developed some practice activities for locating relevant evidence that I have used as centers:

3, 4. Explain with commentary

This is the hardest part for most of my students.  I have them answer two questions when they write commentary:

1.  Why is this evidence important? (In other words, Who cares?)

2.  How does this evidence show that the reason supports the answer?

An example of commentary based on the thesis and information above would be:  "This is vital because if the natural elements were not protected, then they might not exist in the future.  This proves that by protecting Pipestone, many plants, birds, and mammals are also protected."

This doesn't always prevent the redundancy that occurs in this section of the paragraph, but it helps.  The clincher to ensure less redundancy is to tell the students that they cannot repeat the same words (other than the proper nouns) from their topic sentence at all in this section.  They groan and moan, but it helps them think about what the evidence really proves.

I also give each of my students a "toolkit" with loads of sentence starters for evidence and commentary as well as tons of transition words to give them ideas of ways to say things differently.

5, 6, 7.  Ingeminate

This is a fancy word for "repeat" as in repeat the cycle of cite and explain.

I tell my students they start this with a transition, followed by a new piece of evidence for the same reason with 2 sentences of commentary that answer the 2 questions from above.

8. Top it off with a conclusion

This is the last sentence of the body paragraph and is the conclusion.  I teach my students to reverse the first sentence of this paragraph to write the conclusion.  So, if the first sentence starts with the reason, the last sentence ends with the reason.

For example, taking the sentence above, I would show my students how to write the conclusion this way:  Mount Rushmore and Pipestone National Monument are significant because of their natural benefits.

Now, the paragraph has come full circle.

➡️Did you notice?

The first letter of each sentence spells ACE IT - and students will surely ace their essays when they use this structure!  I might get some eye-rolls on this one, but it sticks!

Ready to try this with your students?  I have some body paragraph practice all ready to go!

Thanks for stopping by!

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