The "Unelaborated" Paragraph

The Unelaborated Paragraph:

How it works: The teacher provides students with a teacher created "bare-bones" paragraph that has minimal information for each part of the assigned paragraph structure (Claim, Evidence, & Reasoning or Topic Sentence, Details and Concluding Sentence). An example can be seen below from The Book of Unknown Americans.

Prompt: Do Benny Quinto's past actions make him a bad person?

Unelaborated Paragraph:

Benny Quinto is a bad person. In Chapter 6, it says,"I stole some of it from the church" (44). This shows that Benny is a bad person.

The above "paragraph" contains a basic claim, non-contextualized evidence from the book, and an attempt at reasoning. *Note: unelaborated paragraphs should not have any errors in grammar, punctuation, or spelling, as the goal is to focus on revising content and adding complexity of thought.*

After providing an unelaborated paragraph, the teacher can, in this order:

Why to use it: 

Student writing is often formulaic and lacks elaboration. Having students practice elaborating "basic" paragraphs can shift student understanding of teacher expectations towards more sophisticated work. 

When to use it:

This strategy can be used before student writing to help set expectations for what quality looks like and provide students with targeted practice on elaborating their ideas and connecting thoughts within a paragraph

This strategy can also be used during the writing process, as students revise their own paragraphs in response to teacher feedback.