The Key to a Good Essay: The Paragraph Writing Class Instructor: Adelia

Rosa Parks, a black seamstress who refused to relinquish her seat to a white man on a city bus in Montgomery, Ala., almost 50 years ago helped touch off the civil rights movement of the 1950's and 1960’s. For her act of defiance, Mrs. Parks was arrested, convicted of violating the segregation laws and fined $10, plus $4 in court fees. In response, blacks in Montgomery boycotted the buses for nearly 13 months while mounting a successful Supreme Court challenge to the Jim Crow law that enforced their second-class status on the public bus system. The events that began on that bus in the winter of 1955 captivated the nation and transformed a 26-year-old preacher named Martin Luther King Jr. Mrs. Parks, was regarded as "one of the finest citizens of Montgomery," Dr. King said. EXAMPLE A Author: E.R. Shipp Source: The New York Times, 2005

Rosa Parks, a black seamstress who refused to relinquish her seat to a white man on a city bus in Montgomery, Ala., almost 50 years ago helped touch off the civil rights movement of the 1950's and 1960’s. For her act of defiance, Mrs. Parks was arrested, convicted of violating the segregation laws and fined $10, plus $4 in court fees. In response, blacks in Montgomery boycotted the buses for nearly 13 months while mounting a successful Supreme Court challenge to the Jim Crow law that enforced their second-class status on the public bus system. The events that began on that bus in the winter of 1955 captivated the nation and transformed a 26-year-old preacher named Martin Luther King Jr. Mrs. Parks, was regarded as "one of the finest citizens of Montgomery," Dr. King said. EXAMPLE B Author: E.R. Shirpp Source: The New York Times, 2005

A Paragraph… is a group of sentences about one main idea. is indented. includes a topic sentence (tells the reader the main idea). includes supporting sentences (give more information about the main idea: examples, details, facts, and/or reasons). includes a concluding sentence (more general than the supporting sentences.

How long should a paragraph be? There is no specific number of sentences in a good paragraph. Be your own judge. If you have successfully developed the main idea with several supporting sentences, you have done your job.

A paragraph is like a….

Topic Sentences/Controlling Ideas The topic is the general subject of the paragraph. The controlling idea limits the topic so that the paragraph covers only a specific part or aspect of it.

This is the topic sentence from the example: Rosa Parks, a black seamstress who refused to relinquish her seat to a white man on a city bus in Montgomery, Ala., almost 50 years ago helped touch off the civil rights movement of the 1950's and 1960’s. The topic sentence tells the reader that the topic of the paragraph is Rosa Parks. There are many paragraphs that could be written about this person, but the example paragraph focuses on one aspect of her life. Which of the following is the controlling idea? -her education-her hobbies -her family-her influence on the civil rights movement

Do you think you could write one paragraph about your university? If someone asks you to write about this school, what might you choose to write about?

Decide what is the topic and the controlling idea. Teachers at my school must have several kinds of qualifications in order to teach there. The students at my university come from many different backgrounds. The university offers many different undergraduate and graduate majors. The campus offers many recreational activities for its students.

Practice: Topic sentences 1. Yesterday I took some notes during my ISTL 1000 class. 2. There were both national and local events during the civil rights movement. 4. In 1957, President Dwight D. Eisenhower dispatched federal troops to protect black students. 3. There are many different people who were influential in the civil rights movement.

6. Throughout history people have tried to define “racism.” 7. The 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas outlawed racial segregation in schools. 5.Many organizations were founded as a result of the civil rights movement.