Paragraphs: How to Build a Paragraph with Your Bare Hands!
The Topic Sentence
Building a paragraph is no big deal. You take about eight sentences or so, on a topic you have chosen, and string them together - one after the other - like bricks in a wall!
SIMPLE!
But there are two conditions:
Let’s say you want to buy a new stereo. You need a job first. You look all over town, but there’s no work. Than an idea strikes, like a coiled snake. You will write your Auntie Milkmore for a loan! Alas, you don’t know how to build a good enough paragraph to convince Aunt “Moneybags.” So you go to your faithful, caring, English teacher to get help.
“I need help, Ms. Sweet,” you say.
“I know that, but I’m only an English teacher,” she says.
“But that’s where I need help,” you say.
“With what, then,” she says.
“I need a stereo,” you say.
“I’m broke,” she says.
“I want to write to my Aunt Millkmore, in Wisconsin,” you say. “I need to know how to write a paragraph.”
“Well, what do you want to write about?” asks Ms. Sweet.
“I want to tell Auntie that it’s hard to find a decent job in town,” you say.
“If that’s your topic, then your first sentence, your topic sentence, must say exactly what you’ve said to me, just now.”
So, you write down on a piece of clean white paper (Auntie’s fussy).
“Finding a good job after school is not easy.”
“Now,” says Ms. Sweet, “write down four or five reasons explaining why it is especially hard to find a good after-school job.”
“I can’t think of that many.”
“Do you want the stereo?”
“Yes,” you say.
“Then write,” she says.
You do!
“How’s that?” you say, handing her the paper.
“Fine,” she says. “Now put the sentences together, topic sentence first, and you’ve got a paragraph.”
So you do!
Finding a good job after school is not easy. Nobody wants to hire a kid for just a few hours a day. Few people will pay a student a good wage. A job interferes with homework. If you for out for a sport or a club, there’s no time for a job after school. Kids need money to buy the things they want, but without a job they can’t get money.
“You could improve it,” Ms. Sweet says.
“How?” you ask.
CONNECTORS
“Put in some connectors,” Ms. Sweet says. “The paragraph will sound better and your aunt will listen better.”
“What’s a connector?” you ask.
“It’s a word or a phrase that makes the sentences in your paragraph fit together better and sound better. Your paragraph won’t sound so much like a list. It will sound like you are talking, which makes the reader want to read it all.”
“I want my aunt to read it all,” you say.
“Then watch how I put the connectors in your paragraph,” she says.
Of course, you watch!
Finding a good job after school is not easy, for a lot of reasons. First, nobody wants to hire a kid for just a few hours a day. Second, few people will pay a good wage. And a job interferes with homework. Third, if a person goes out for a sport or a club, there’s no time for a job after school. Last of all, kids need money to buy the things they want, but without a job, they can’t get money.
“There you are,” she says. “It’s not perfect, but I wanted you to see how to use the connectors. I put quite a few in.”
“I can see that,” you say.
“You don’t like it?” she says.
“I love it,” you say. “The connectors are underlined in the paragraph?”
“Yes, just for your benefit. Don’t underline your connectors when you mail the letter. And there are a lot more where these came from. I’ll give you a list later.”
“Thank you, Ms. Sweet.”
“You’re welcome,” she says.
“Do you have an envelope, Ms. Sweet?”
“Goodbye, Waldo.”
“Later, Ms. Sweet.”
Now you mail your paragraph, with a tearful request for money, and you get your stereo and listen happily ever after!
Aren’t you glad you built a paragraph?