When you are starting out in essay writing, TEEL is a very useful acronym to use. It gives you a nice, easy way to order your paragraphs and ensure you have a well-developed argument that is backed up by evidence.

Activity:

Watch the video to give an overview of how to write a TEEL paragraph.

TEEL stands for:

• Topic sentence

The topic sentence is always the first sentence in a body paragraph. It should tell us what the paragraph will be about or what it will be arguing. By the time the reader has finished reading the topic sentence, they should know EXACTLY what the paragraph will be discussing.

• Explain

In the next sentence or two, you will need to expand on your topic sentence. Explain what you mean in greater detail, and give it a more SPECIFIC FOCUS. This is where you can use some of those factual statements and supporting details that you can’t use in your topic sentence.

• Evidence

Now that you have put forward an opinion or an argument, you will need to provide some evidence to support these claims and show that you are right. This will usually be done through finding a relevant quote from the book you are studying.

• Link

Finally, you will provide a linking sentence, which summarises your paragraph in a sentence, linking it back to the key terms from your topic sentence (or the essay topic, if one is provided). This will happen after you have explained your argument and provided evidence.

T.E.E.L. paragraphs are the real guts of an essay.

This is where you explore your ideas and provide your arguments and evidence.

An essay will have between three to five body paragraphs.

Each paragraph will need to be AT LEAST four sentences long, and will normally need to be longer.