Putting It All Together

Lesson Plan - Get It!

Audio:

In your previous lessons, you learned about the parts of a paragraph and explored each part.

If you missed any of the lessons in this Writing a Perfect Paragraph series, please go to the Related Lessons in the right-hand sidebar.

In this lesson, you will put all of the parts you learned about together to create one dynamic, perfect paragraph!

Start by taking some time to review the parts of a paragraph.

The Topic Sentence

Do you remember that the topic sentence is the first sentence in a paragraph? It contains the main idea of the paragraph. You must provide your readers with a clear idea of exactly what information they will gain if they continue to read, which means it must also be interesting. The four ways to write a topic sentence are:

• State an opinion Begin your paragraph by stating an opinion that you will support by explaining and providing examples.
• Include a number or number word Begin your paragraph by writing a statement that includes a number or a number word. For example, "There are several ways to win a basketball game," or, "There are three ways to win at this video game."
• Be explicit Use a list in your topic sentence.
• Combination Use a combination of two or three of the options discussed above in your topic sentence.

The New Ideas with Explanations or Examples

You also learned the New Idea(s) with Explanations or Examples comes next. This is the information you want to share with the reader. New ideas begin with transition words, such as "first," "next," or "last," and give readers a hint that a new idea is coming. These new ideas are always followed by explanations or examples to support them. These make your paragraph interesting!

The Conclusion

The conclusion is the final sentence of a paragraph. The conclusion is where you restate the main idea from the topic sentence, using words different from what you used in your topic sentence. Wouldn't it be boring if your conclusion were exactly the same sentence as your topic sentence? When writing the conclusion, writers ask themselves, "So what?" to make sure the conclusion not only restates the topic sentence, but also steps it up to drive the point home to the reader.

In the Got It? section, you are going to practice putting all of the parts of a paragraph together to write your very own paragraph. Are you ready?