Paragraphs and Beyond “The Writing Process”

1. Writing for purpose: Why do we write? 2. The Writing Process. What you need to check for when submitting a written assignment. 3. Constructing a Paragraph and Extending the Process to Longer Pieces: Narratives/Essays 4. Business Letter (Corrections) 5. Any questions before we begin? Reminders – NSG #1 Reading your Independent Novel - Vocabulary Unit #4

 Explain  Instruct  Describe  Tell a story (Narrative)

 Examples!

- Not enough detail to support the topic - Not having a clear theme statement to let the reader know what your writing is about. It should clearly deal with the topic you have been assigned - Organizing your thoughts into a logical sequence - Structural problems: sentence structure, paragraphs, conventions - Lack of proofreading!!

Are your building block to any type of writing Is a group of sentences that develops a main idea The beginning of a new paragraph signals that a new idea will be introduced Good paragraphs have three main parts: 1. Main Idea: this can be clearly expressed in a topic sentence, which can appear anywhere in the paragraph.

2. Supporting Sentences: explain the main idea of the paragraph. They use related details or examples to expand on the idea presented. 3. Closing Sentence: A good closing reinforces the main idea! It can add something new, and leave the reader with a manageable chunk of information to think about.

Good paragraphs have: Order Unity Coherence

 The Essay OR Narrative…

 Look at the following photographs. Study each carefully and decide on an idea you would like to express about the photograph in a descriptive, narrative or expository paragraph. Notice all the details in the picture. The details will help you form a conclusion. The conclusion you have formed is a main idea, in this case a dominant impression. It is a suitable topic sentence for a paragraph.

 Picture #1:  Picture #2:  Picture #3:

Any questions??