What is a paragraph? You must be able to answer that question for yourself to teach paragraph and multi-paragraph writing effectively. Well, congratulations! You are about to enter a rare and elite club of teachers who truly understand paragraphs. We are going to explore sixteen different paragraph topics and peel back the curtain topic by topic to reveal the true nature of paragraphs.
By the way, this page is primarily for teachers. If you want to teach paragraph and multi-paragraph writing in a way that makes sense to your students, be sure to check out Pattern Based Writing: Quick & Easy Essay on the homepage!
1. What’s the Truth about Paragraphs?
I’ve always found that students benefit from a certain amount of clear, concrete, rigid, and simplistic paragraph instruction. But does that kind of information that we teach our students about paragraphs match the paragraphs our students read in newspapers, magazines, textbooks, letters, notes, emails, bulletins, picture books, and chapter books? No.
In 1866, Alexander Bain laid down the six laws of the paragraph, and ever since, textbooks and teachers have repeated the same basic information about paragraphs. Unfortunately, few people know that many researchers have said that those rules don’t exist in the real world. As an example, in the highly cited The Frequency and Placement of Topic Sentences in Expository Prose (1974), Braddock found that only 13% of professionally written expository paragraphs began with a topic sentence, and only 55% of expository paragraphs even had one.
Even today, academic researchers and theorists debate what a paragraph is. Plenty of people have presented models, but none have replaced Bain’s model in the minds of teachers.
2. Paragraph is a Verb: The Research Proves It
Why don’t all paragraphs look the same? The answer is simple: different writers paragraph differently. In fact, researchers (Arthur A. Stern in particular) have done experiments where they remove the paragraph formatting from a text and then ask English teachers to re-paragraph the text. Few teachers end up paragraphing the text the same way as the author. The result is that a surprisingly large number of so-called correct paragraph formats emerge.
Furthermore, when the researchers ask the English teachers to re-paragraph the paper a second time, many teachers fail to re-paragraph the text the same way they did the first time. Clearly, there is not just one correct way to paragraph a paper. This illustration points out the fact that paragraphing is a verb that encompasses a variety of choices a writer makes to create an effective and logical organizational structure.
3. The One Good Paragraph Fallacy
I often hear teachers talk about wanting their students to write one good paragraph. These teachers believe that if they can get their students to write one excellent paragraph, it will serve as a building block that will make whole compositions easy to write. I don’t find that this philosophy works. And the fact that English teachers can’t agree on how a piece of writing should be paragraphed makes clear the fallacy. In real writing, there is no such thing as just one good paragraph.
Real paragraphs and real paragraphing are dependent on the writing occasion, audience, genre, overall length of the composition—and so much more. In short, students must learn how to paragraph a short note, a short answer, or a journal entry just as they must learn how to paragraph a complete essay or report. Paragraphing is an activity of making choices that will help the reader understand what is written.
If a teacher desires a single good paragraph, the teacher must clarify what kind of good paragraph is desired. Does the teacher mean a good body paragraph, a good introductory paragraph, a good concluding paragraph, a good summary paragraph, a good narrative paragraph, a good expository paragraph, a good argument paragraph, a good sequence paragraph, or some other type of good paragraph?
Although the goal of one good paragraph is unnatural, practice in writing stand-alone, isolated paragraphs is somewhat necessary. Just don’t overdo it, as it’s not a great use of time. FACT: In 4th grade, the CCSS and most state standards require multi-paragraph writing. And in 5th grade, students are required to write complete essays. In short, who has time for JUST one good paragraph? We must help our students understand how to paragraph their writing across many different writing situations.
Are you an elementary or middle school teacher? Do you need to get results teaching writing? Have you taken a look at Pattern Based Writing: Quick & Easy Essay on the homepage?
4. A Paragraph is a Whole vs. A Paragraph is a Part of a Whole Composition
There are two ways of viewing and teaching paragraphs: 1) as a whole, and 2) as a part of a whole composition. Both methods of looking at paragraphs are correct—but only when a writer thinks about both viewpoints together at the same time. A natural and effective writer sees a paragraph as a whole logical unit and as a part of a whole composition—both at the same time.
Effective writing instruction seesaws between these two viewpoints of paragraph writing. Ineffective paragraph writing instruction focuses on One Good Paragraph at a time. Unfortunately, the weakness of the One Good Paragraph Fallacy becomes most visible at the worst possible time: on state and district writing assessments. Nearly all high scoring papers on state writing assessments give the feeling of having two levels of beginning, middle, and ending:
Level 1: Beginning, middle, and ending in the whole composition.
Level 2: Beginning, middle, and ending in the paragraphs.
This is true even in 4th grade.
As you will see, every paragraph strategy and concept listed on this page treats the paragraph as a WHOLE, and none of them treats a paragraph as a PART OF A WHOLE COMPOSITION. That’s a big problem and a major roadblock in improving student writing. If you teach elementary school writing or have struggling middle school writers, be sure to check out Pattern Based Writing: Quick & Easy Essay. It’s the fastest, most effective way to move beyond just one good paragraph!
5. Five Traits of Paragraphs: 1) Division, 2) Unity, 3) Coherence, 4) Emphasis, and 5) Development
Long before we had the Six Traits, we had the three traits of Unity, Coherence, and Emphasis (UCE).
In 1866, Alexander Bain laid down the six laws of the paragraph. Then, early in the 20th century, Bain’s six paragraph rules were reduced to three paragraph traits: unity, coherence, and emphasis. These three traits explain almost everything good and bad about the structure of both a paragraph and a whole composition:
1. Paragraph: Each paragraph must have unity, coherence, emphasis.
2. Whole Composition: The whole composition must have unity, coherence, emphasis, and each paragraph in the whole composition must contribute to that unity, coherence, emphasis.
Worth mentioning, every sentence must also have unity, coherence, and emphasis, and each sentence must contribute to the unity, coherence, and emphasis of the paragraph it is in and the whole composition.
The reality is that there are not just Six Traits or these three traits (unity, coherence, emphasis). In fact, we can create a nearly-endless list of writing traits: e.g., logic, reasoning, beauty, proportion, style, elaboration, evidence, grammar, sentence structure, pronoun agreement, etc. For more on this, be sure to read Teaching Writing with the Six Traits and the Common-Core Traits.
As the heading indicates, we will briefly look at five paragraph traits: 1) Division, 2) Unity, 3) Coherence, 4) Emphasis, and 5) Development.
1. Division: When we look at a slice of cake, we all grasp that the slice is one part of a whole cake. We don’t need to see the whole cake to know that as fact. When we see a slice of cake, we imagine the whole cake (if just for a second). It’s impossible not to.
We want our students to understand that a paragraph is always one slice of a whole topic. A paragraph asks and answers one question from a larger topic. If teachers want their students to understand paragraphs, they must teach their students to skillfully divide topics.
2. Unity (Oneness): All of the ideas in a paragraph must fit together to form a single unified whole. Unity requires that we have a single clear topic that has been narrowed and reduced so that the writer can appropriately cover the main idea or main point in that paragraph. The topic sentence is a statement of the specific topic that will be covered in the paragraph. Therefore, the topic sentence is a statement that controls the paragraph unity.
3. Coherence (Understandability; Clearness; Clarity): Ideas in a paragraph must connect through logic and order to create coherence. Although logical connection and order are at the heart of coherence, writers must use additional strategies to make that logical order and connection clear. Writers use five main tools for creating coherence: transitions, pronoun reference, keyword repetition, synonyms, and parallel structure.
4. Emphasis (Highlighting Importance): To emphasize what is most important, writers often place the topic sentence at the beginning of their paragraphs so that the main point is immediately clear to their readers. Additionally, writers often place a concluding sentence at the end of their paragraphs so that their readers are certain of what that point was. Furthermore, writers often use various words and phrases (transitions and signal words) to highlight important information and shifts in logic: e.g., most important, on the other hand, in contrast, in particular, etc.
5. Development (The Effective Expansion or Enlargement of an Idea): The development of an idea (topic, main idea, point, claim, assertion, or whatever you want to call it) must be adequate, appropriate, and effective. Teaching students to effectively and appropriately develop their paragraphs is extremely important.
Teaching paragraph development may include discussions of methods of development, elaboration, support, proof, evidence, paragraph length, logic, and many more concepts. Worth mentioning, writers should develop important ideas more fully than less important ideas. This is one reason why paragraph lengths vary.
A Final Note on The Traits of the Paragraph: Most strategies and techniques designed to teach children paragraph writing focus on one or more of these concepts. Sadly, most of these strategies and techniques are just little paragraph exercises that do not create paragraph skill or provide a takeaway understanding of paragraphs. Pattern Based Writing: Quick & Easy Essay is the fastest, most effective method for creating effective paragraph and multi-paragraph writers! It’s got all five of these paragraph traits built into a system and method that makes sense to kids!
Do you teach beginning writers or struggling writers? If you do, be sure to check out Pattern Based Writing: Quick & Easy Essay on the homepage! It is the fastest, most effective way to teach students organized multi-paragraph writing… Guaranteed!
6. The Four Main Genres of Paragraphs: Similarities and Differences
We have four main genres of paragraphs: 1) Narrative, 2) Descriptive, 3) Expository, and 4) Argument. As the Venn diagram below illustrates, these genres of paragraphs have some things in common but not others. As you study the Venn diagram, consider A, B, and C:
A. The Two Things That All Effective Paragraphs Have in Common:
(1) The sentences in all paragraphs have unity of purpose, and (2) All paragraphs have a feeling of beginning, middle, and ending.
B. Circle #1: Narrative and Descriptive Paragraphs: These tend to (1) SHOW, NOT TELL.
C. Circle #2: Expository and Argument Paragraphs: These tend (1) TELL THEM what you are going to tell them, (2) TELL THEM, and (3) TELL THEM what you told them.
If you compare the paragraphs in an encyclopedia to the paragraph in a popular story, you will find a big difference in their structure. I call this the “Great Paragraph Divide,” which points to the fact that the rules that students learn about paragraphs apply more to expository and argument paragraphs than to narrative and descriptive paragraphs. Be sure to prove this to yourself: compare the paragraphs in an expository textbook to those found in a chapter book or young adult novel.
This is not to say that writers can’t write all four types of paragraphs in more or less the same way. In fact, with beginning writers, most of the paragraph instruction should focus on the same basic principles. But as students make progress with their paragraph writing skills, teachers need to be flexible and look for excellent writing, not formulaic paragraphs.
WARNING: Students read—and they want their own writing to look like the writing that they enjoy reading. So, what do students enjoy reading? They enjoy reading stories and internet stuff. Sadly, these genres of text are different from academic writing. Let’s take a quick look at two very different types of writing.
» Stories: Stories contain many narrative and descriptive paragraphs. In an entertaining story, authors write paragraphs in a way that serves the story: e.g., they create suspense, etc. The paragraphs follow a certain kind of story logic, and the author is a creative artist. The heart of this kind of paragraph writing is expressed in the story maxim “SHOW, DON’T TELL.”
In stories, many (if not most) of the narrative and descriptive paragraphs don’t have topic sentences. Why? Well, by definition, topic sentences telegraph or TELL what’s to come. Good storytellers DON’T TELL; they SHOW. Good stories reveal what’s happening moment by moment; they don’t telegraph what coming by using lots of topic sentences.
» Academic Writing: Academic writing uses many expository and argument paragraphs. These paragraphs are often fully-developed paragraphs that make critical main ideas and points clear and prove relevant claims using evidence. If the paragraphs are not fully developed, the reader will not be impressed. The reader may think that the writer did not know enough about the topic to develop their paragraphs. Or the reader may believe that the writer had not been willing to do the research necessary to understand the topic and to develop the important ideas.
Teachers need to be aware of different styles of paragraphing in various genres of text because students read fantastic books that contain many paragraphs that contradict what they learn in school. Teachers need to be able to explain what’s going on in the paragraphs that their students read, even if they demand a rigid formula when their students write. In the end, all skilled writers develop an intuitive sense of effective paragraph writing.
7. Paragraph Length and Paragraph Style
Teachers and students alike can learn much that is true about paragraphs by analyzing and comparing the internals of even a small number of different pieces of writing. By internals, I mean these three averages:
A. Average number of sentences per paragraph.
B. Average number of words per paragraph.
C. Average number of words per sentence.
When teachers and students examine paragraphs and consider the averages, it creates a certain kind of clarity and understanding. The easiest place to start is by considering #1 “Average number of sentences per paragraph.” Let’s take a closer look at that one.
Average Number of Sentences per Paragraph: This is the easiest average to work with. In the end, it provides a surprisingly accurate portrait of what’s going on in a piece of writing. The Average Number of Sentences per Paragraph is a reflection of both voice and style.
In short, we have three styles of paragraph writing:
A. Short Style: This style averages 2.5 – 3.5 sentences per paragraph.
B. Fully-Developed Paragraph Style: This style averages 4 – 7 sentences per paragraph.
C. Long Paragraph Style: This style averages 8 or more sentences per paragraph.
Let’s take a quick look at these three styles.
A. Short Paragraph Style: A large percentage of excellent professional and student writing is created using a short 2.5 to 3.5 average sentences per paragraph. You will find this short style in newspapers, magazines, stories, and many high-scoring student writing samples.
B. Fully Developed Paragraph Style: This is the style that we usually try to teach our students. This style of writing is required for high-level academic writing. It’s not the writing skill that creates fully developed paragraphs—it’s the thinking skill.
C. Long Style: Long style is too long for young student writers. We shouldn’t waste valuable class time teaching students to write paragraphs that contain 8 or more sentences. It prevents the development of a nice and natural paragraphing style in multi-paragraph writing. Young student writers primarily write short whole compositions, and short whole compositions can’t support long paragraphs.
I recently counted and analyzed the average-paragraph-length on all of the student-writing samples from this state writing assessment. You can see the results of that paragraph study here. You may also want to read The Ten Stages of Paragraph and Multi-Paragraph Mastery.
8. Classifying Paragraphs: The Different Types and Kinds of Paragraphs
In The History of the Paragraph (1894), Edwin Herbert Lewis said, “…there may be as many types of paragraphs as there are ways of developing an idea.”
What did Lewis mean by that? Well, every good paragraph has a point of some kind. Writers will use one or more “Common Thought Patterns (CTP)” to make that point clear. In short, writers don’t write a cause-and-effect paragraph. They use cause-and-effect thinking to make an idea or point clear.
When we teach students about “types of paragraphs,” we are teaching them organized ways of thinking. Organized paragraphs use natural patterns of logical thought.
A paragraph is never just one type of paragraph. For instance, a paragraph may be expository, contain some description, use cause-effect, and identify a problem-and-solution all at the same time. Once again, types of paragraphs are just ways of thinking and ways of making points clear.
Having said that, teachers and students alike benefit from understanding various ways to think about, analyze, and classify paragraphs. Let’s take a quick look at four models that help us do this:
1. The Four Main Genres
2. Methods of Paragraph Development
3. Patterns of Paragraph Organization
4. Types of Structural Paragraphs
1. The Four Main Genres (aka The Four Modes of Discourse or The Four Main Purposes): The four main genres are (1) narrative, (2) descriptive, (3) expository, and (4) argument. This model is by far the most important model for classifying paragraphs. Every paragraph is PRIMARILY one of these four types of paragraphs. I say primarily because it’s not helpful to think that a paragraph can’t use a combination of description, narration, explanation, and argument. Despite that fact, a reader should always be able to determine what kind of paragraph it is—primarily.
2. Methods of Paragraph Development: As Lewis pointed out over a hundred years ago, we have many ways to develop an idea. In a paragraph, we can give a definition, an overview, a summary, a reason, an example, an explanation, or a specific instance. We can also give facts and information, provide an illustration, use repetition, make an analogy, make a comparison, contrast things, give a description, describe a process, divide and classify, make a claim and provide proof, refute a claim, and more.
3. Patterns of Paragraph Organization/Common Thought Patterns (CTP): The most common form of paragraph organization is the traditional pattern of “topic sentence, details, concluding sentence.” That pattern creates a feeling of “beginning, middle, and ending,” which makes it an invaluable model and a great place to start. Of course, when we wrestle with complex ideas in writing, things get messy fast. Expressing the truth of a complex topic is not as simple as laying bricks.
For the most part, patterns of organization teach common ways of thinking that humans have used for thousands of years. As an example, if hunter-gathers didn’t have any food, that was a problem, and they considered various solutions. Furthermore, they probably thought about the causes of the problem, along with what they should do first. That’s organized thinking.
Point being: These patterns of thinking are not novel. In fact, they are an inherent part of how we think. The problem is that ideas flow out of us like a dam breaking, so we need to teach our students how to get ideas and organize ideas to communicate an organized message. These natural ways of thinking are not remarkable, but creating order from the chaos of a tsunami of ideas is. Our goal as teachers is to help our students bring control to this process.
Here are a few more time-tested ways to organize information: point-by-point, block form, spatial order, chronological order, sequential order, climactic order, anticlimactic order, general-to-specific, specific-to-general, order based on importance, use deductive reasoning, use inductive reasoning, use enumeration, cause-and-effect, problem-and-solution, question-and-answer, the point patterns (PPE point, proof, explanation, etc.) and more.
4. Types of Structural Paragraphs: In multi-paragraph writing, every paragraph is a part of the whole. As a part of the whole, ever paragraph plays a role in a multi-paragraph composition. Here are a few roles that paragraphs play: introduction paragraph, conclusion paragraph, body paragraph, summary paragraph, transitional paragraph, isolated paragraph, amplification or elaboration paragraph, continuation paragraph, dialogue paragraph, and more.
9. Analyzing Paragraphs: The Real Types and Kinds of Paragraphs
Once again, in 1894, Lewis said, “…there may be as many types of paragraphs as there are ways of developing an idea.” We must not forget that important piece of wisdom.
To be clear, the reason most teachers fail in teaching their students paragraph and multi-paragraph writing is that they do not have a system and methodology that works. Pattern Based Writing: Quick & Easy Essay works! Furthermore, it’s a system and method that makes sense when we analyze and discuss writing across the curriculum.
“What’s going on in this paragraph?” I frequently ask my students that question across the curriculum. That question opens the door to the truth of paragraph writing. Of course, because of Pattern Based Writing: Quick & Easy Essay, my students understand what’s going on in paragraph and multi-paragraph writing. This means that when I ask my students, “What’s going on in this paragraph?” it’s both an opportunity to review what students already know and an opportunity to expand on that knowledge.
When teachers stop and examine paragraphs with their students, they will find their own reoccurring paragraph patterns. Warning: Don’t try to fit what you see into a topic sentence and details model unless it’s a classic example. Truthfully, the words topic sentence and details are so generic that they are almost meaningless. Instead, download my free Definitive List of Writing and Grammar Skills and check out the “Paragraphs and Whole Compositions” section. Teach your students the truth of what’s going on in paragraphs by using a whole new vocabulary.
Here are two examples of what I hope to hear by the end of the school year:
» Expository Paragraph: The student says, “It looks like the paragraph starts with a general statement of fact, and the writer explains what she means and why it’s important and interesting. The writer also gives another fact and a definition.”
» Argument Paragraph: The student says, “The writer begins by stating a reason. The writer then quotes a source fact and explains why it’s important. Finally, the writer links to the next paragraph: the consequences of not taking action.”
Although the “types and kinds of paragraphs” are a fascinating and valuable teaching tool, teachers should address them as part of a larger conversation based on analyzing how writers write and how people communicate. After all, many students intuitively know how to argue quite well when they want something or believe that something is unfair. They give reasons, state facts, quote sources, and appeal to emotions. Therefore, include the following types of questions in your discussions on how to create effective paragraphs:
How do people make points? How do people prove points? How do people explain things? How do people tell what happened? How do people give information? How to people describe things and processes? How do people instruct others? How do people tell what other people think? How do people compare things? Why do people compare things? Why do people talk about problems and then talk about solutions? Why do people talk about the cause of something and the effect it is having?
The answers to these questions are “natural patterns of thought,” and they are reflected in the types and kinds of paragraphs.
10. Examples of Ten Common Thought Patterns (CTP)
We are going to look at ten little vignettes that provide the essence of ten different ways of thinking.
As you will see, we could use most of the vignettes as a topic sentence for a paragraph or as a thesis statement for an entire essay. Point being: Ideas can be condensed and expanded to various sizes like an accordion: e.g., sentence size, paragraph size, whole composition size, or book size.
Unless I’m working with a specific paragraph formula, I never require a single paragraph. In fact, if students write a single long paragraph, I try to help them find a place where they could have indented. My goal is to create natural and organized writers across the curriculum.
Let’s take a look!
1. How-to Paragraph (Process Paragraph): First step, second step, third step, final step.
2. Compare and Contrast Paragraph: Although eggplant and cantaloupe are both fruit, they are different in many ways.
3. Descriptive Paragraph: It was a dark and stormy night, yet the moon glowed enchantingly.
4. Informational/Explanatory Paragraph: Doctors and nutritionists say that eggplant is healthy in many different ways.
5. Classification Paragraph: There are two main kinds of vegetables: terrible tasting vegetables and so-so tasting vegetables.
6. Narrative Paragraph: It was a dark and stormy night, yet Johnny was still hard at work. He had squandered the day away and now had many chores left to do.
7. Persuasive Paragraph: There are many valid reasons why parents should let their children choose if they wish to eat their vegetables.
8. Definition Paragraph: Some people believe that sitting around all day doing nothing is being lazy. That simply is not true. A person might be thinking deeply, and that is not being lazy.
9. Evaluation Paragraph: Vegetables may not be as healthy for you as you think. In fact, there is some evidence that shows that vegetables are quite unhealthy. Let’s examine that evidence and discover the truth about vegetables.
10. Problem and Solution Paragraph: As much as 40% of all food in the United States is wasted. One possible solution for this problem is to enact legislation that will provide incentives for businesses to donate this food to charity instead of throwing it in the trash.
It’s a foundation, a framework, and a methodology for teaching writing! Check out Pattern Based Writing: Quick & Easy Essay on the homepage to learn more!
11. The Structure of a Paragraph
Fully-developed paragraphs often have a specific kind of structure. This is especially true for expository and argument paragraphs. The four models below all illustrate this same structure, but in different ways:
1. Topic sentence, details, and concluding sentence.
2. Beginning, middle, and ending.
3. The Hamburger: bun, tomatoes, lettuce, meat, and bun.
4. Tell them; tell them; tell them. Tell them what you are going to tell them. Tell them. Then tell them what you told them.
5. Check out Pattern Based Writing: Quick & Easy Essay to discover a model that actually works!
12. A Paragraph Defined: What is a Paragraph?
Over two-thousand years ago in Ancient Greece, the paragraph mark became the first-ever form of punctuation. What was it? The paragraph mark was a mark that was placed in the margins of a text to divide groups of ideas.
Ever since then, people have tried to grasp the true nature of the paragraph. To this day, academic theorists still debate what a paragraph is. Some academics say that a paragraph is a mini-essay, while others say that a paragraph is an extended sentence.
In 1866, two-thousand years after the Greeks invented the paragraph mark, Alexander Bain decided it was time to take the next step in addressing the paragraph. He thought deeply and spent many sleepless nights. But finally, he created the first-ever set of paragraph rules, which remain the foundation for everything we teach students about paragraphs today. Bain also defined the paragraph this way:
Paragraph Definition: A paragraph is a group of sentences with unity of purpose.
If we compare the Short-and-Lively Paragraph Style used by many professional writers to the Organized, Fully Developed, Academic Paragraph Style used by many academic journal writers, we see that Bain was correct. The one thing that those two contrasting paragraph styles have in common is that that the paragraphs are all “groups of sentences with unity of purpose.”
Point being: Bain’s definition encompasses all types of nicely written paragraphs. If a group of sentences has been marked as a paragraph by a professional writer and approved by a professional editor, the sentences have unity of purpose. Any paragraph that doesn’t have unity of purpose is flawed.
13. Unity-Based Paragraph Analogies and Metaphors
Because unity is so essential in paragraphs, various unity-themed analogies and metaphors have been developed over the years. Let’s take a look at three.
A. A paragraph is a family of ideas that are all related and connected. (Note: This is the only analogy that illustrates true unity and relatedness. By definition, families represent relatedness and connection.)
B. A paragraph is a hamburger or sandwich full of ideas. (Note: I’ve never had success with burgers or sandwiches because lettuce and meat, etc. are not connected to each other or the bun. They simply go inside the bun. Students know that all kinds of unrelated things can go inside a bun: e.g., worms, butterflies, battleships, math, and pizza.)
C. A paragraph is a group of ideas that can fit under a single umbrella. (Note: Similar to the hamburger/sandwich problem, anything can fit under an umbrella.)
Once again, check out Pattern Based Writing: Quick & Easy Essay to discover a model that works!
14. What Kinds of Questions Do Students Have About Paragraphs?
As I created Pattern Based Writing: Quick & Easy Essay on the front board, I could see my students’ eyes light up as if saying, “I get it! I finally get it!” I had never seen anything like it before when teaching paragraph or multi-paragraph writing. It was thrilling to see!
Years later, I see that half of the traditional paragraph theory just isn’t true, which is why it doesn’t make sense to kids. The truth is that paragraph writing is more of a skill than it is knowledge. When it comes to paragraphs, many excellent student writers don’t really understand what they do. They just know when to indent. And that’s a great place to start!
What follows is a hypothetical Q&A. Most struggling writers don’t ask lots of questions about paragraphs. In short, they don’t know what to ask. As you will see, if they did ask the questions, many teachers would not know how to answer them.
The reality is that teachers should stop explaining paragraph theory and get their students writing with Pattern Based Writing: Quick & Easy Essay. Remember, students read paragraphs in the real world, and they see much that does not match what they learn in school. Here is what they don’t understand.
1. Teacher Says: A paragraph is 3-5 sentences. Of course, some paragraphs are also 6- 10 sentences.
Students Want to Know: Which is correct? How long is a paragraph supposed to be? Why do I see some paragraphs that are just 1 sentence, and other times I see paragraphs that have 20 sentences?
2. Teacher Says: A paragraph discusses one main idea, and the details support the main idea.
Students Want to Know: What’s a main idea? What’s a detail? What’s support? I’ve been told what those things are, but I don’t understand what they are. Additionally, I don’t see them in many of the paragraphs that I read in our textbooks. Some paragraphs in our textbooks are just a couple sentences. Why?
3. Teacher Says: The sentences in the paragraph must have a logical order.
Students Want to Know: What’s logic? What’s a logical order? Is there only one logical order?
4. Teacher Says: You must indent and begin a new paragraph every time you move on to a new main idea.
Students Want to Know: How do I know when I have moved on to a new main idea? I always seem to be writing about the same main idea I began with. When does the main idea switch? This entire page is about how great my dog is. That’s my main idea. Where should I indent?
5. Teacher Says: The topic sentence is usually the first sentence in a paragraph.
Students Want to Know: Why do I see many short paragraphs that don’t seem to have any topic sentence? Why can’t I find the topic sentence in so many of the paragraphs I read? It doesn’t seem to me that the first sentence is usually the topic sentence.
6. Teacher Says: The topic sentence expresses the main idea of the paragraph.
Students Want to Know: What’s the difference between a topic sentence and a main idea? Are they the same thing? Do all paragraphs have a topic sentence? Does a paragraph have a main idea if it doesn’t have a topic sentence? How can you determine what the main idea is if the paragraph doesn’t have a topic sentence?
15. Teaching Paragraph Writing: Seesawing Between Isolated Paragraphs and Multi-Paragraph Writing
Are state and district writing assessments important to you? If they are, you want to read this section very carefully. As I frequently mention, we have two ways of viewing and teaching paragraphs, and we want to seesaw between them to some degree:
1. Teaching Isolated Paragraphs: Teachers approach a paragraph as a single whole.
2. Teaching Multi-Paragraph Writing: Teachers approach a paragraph as a part (a division) of a whole composition.
Although isolated paragraphs are an excellent way to teach children the patterns of logical thinking, they have little use in the real world. Think about how your students routinely write across the curriculum. They write short answers, long answers, essays, reports, letters, journal entries, learning-log entries, notes, science experiment reports, book reports, posters, writing assessments, etc.
Although we may write a single isolated paragraph on occasion, we only do so because there are times when we can communicate our entire message in a single paragraph. In the real world, we never have a purpose of writing an isolated paragraph.
If you only teach isolated paragraphs, you won’t like what you see when it’s time for a state or district writing assessment. Even if you do an excellent job of teaching prewriting, nearly all high-scoring student writers skillfully divide their writing into paragraphs on the fly. Put simply, they create their paragraphs as they write. They feel and create two levels of beginning, middle, and ending!
To score well on writing assessments, even elementary and middle school writers must begin a piece of writing with an intuitive sense of the whole. On state and district writing assessments, students who are stuck in the isolated paragraph mentality often fall into one of these two categories:
1. They write a single very long paragraph.
2. They begin with a very long paragraph, and each subsequent paragraph gets shorter and shorter.
Neither of these scores well.
In summary, students understand ALL forms of paragraph writing better when they understand paragraphs as a part of a whole composition. Pattern Based Writing: Quick & Easy Essay is the fastest, most effective method for teaching this!
16. My Paragraph Comparison Exercise: What is the Truth of Paragraphs?
Your students learn about paragraphs every time they pick up a book, newspaper, or magazine. Therefore, you need to see what they see. Although I do teach simple and concrete paragraph and multi-paragraph concepts, I also connect those concepts to all kinds of writing across the curriculum.
Here is an exercise that I recommend that all teachers do so that they discover the truth of paragraphs for themselves. As you have read “Our Sixteen Paragraph Topics,” you have learned a tremendous amount about paragraphs. You now know the truth about paragraphs logically, but you still need to prove it to yourself on a personal level.
As an exercise, go to the library and gather 10-20 books, magazines, and textbooks from different sections of the library. Make sure you have chosen some from the children’s section, the young-adults’ section, the old-classics section, the best-sellers section, the academic-journals section, the popular-fiction section, the non-fiction section, and the textbooks section. Open these books and compare how different authors in different genres have created their paragraphs. What you will find is this: A paragraph is a division—a division that is a part of the whole. The author indents or skips a line to make that division clear to the reader.
Writers create paragraphs for the reader and to communicate their message. When you compare the classic children’s stories Goodnight Moon (1947) and Make Way for Ducklings (1941) to the classics the Iliad (c. 1194 BC) and Dante’s Divine Comedy (1320) to your textbooks and your favorite magazines, newspapers, and novels, you will know that this is true.
