1. The Paragraph Loom Burton Center Writing Workshop Series Spring 2010 Burton Center Writing Workshop Series Spring 2010

2. The Warp and the Weft Evidence = warp Thoughts, insight, opinions, ideas = weft One without the other is a meaningless pile of yarn.

3. Paragraph Elements Unity Coherence – Logical bridges – Verbal bridges Topic sentence Evidence Signposts and transition sentences

4. Unity If one were looming a rug, then he would not be able to change colors in the middle of a line without a big knot in the design. – The same occurs if you change ideas in the middle of a paragraph. On the other hand, if you never change paragraphs between ideas, then you lose your reader.

5. Coherence If yarn in a rug is not tied off somewhere, then what do you think would happen to the rug? The same result occurs when you leave your thoughts untied to one another, and the reader gets lost. – Tie your thoughts and evidence together by keeping them organized in logical sequence. – Repeat key ideas and words for a sense of continuity. – Use transition words or “signposts” and transition sentences between thoughts and evidence.

6. Topic Sentence Each paragraph’s main idea should be stated with a topic sentence. – More experienced writers can place the topic sentence in various places of the paragraph. – Beginning writers will find it easier to place the topic sentence in the beginning of the paragraph. – Not all paragraphs need topic sentences; if it feels like you are interrupting a larger idea, then leave the topic sentence out. You should still be able to easily summarize what every paragraph is about, however.

7. Evidence Remember that evidence is embedded into your paper just as the warp is embedded in a loom– it does not stand out like the thoughts of your paper, but without it, any argument falls apart. For every thought expressed, some type of evidence is expected (a thought already believed to be true adheres to the adage “that goes without saying”).

8. Using Evidence Types of Evidence Examples Illustrations Statistics Quotes and paraphrases Anecdotes (evidence by story) Definitions Ways of using evidence Compare and contrast Cause and reason Effect and consequence Analyze Describe

9. Workshop Activity On a sheet of paper or in Word, create two columns (create a two column table in Word). Prewriting: Think about what your favorite food is. Write a paragraph designed to convince a friend that your food is best, aiming to use as many of the elements of a paragraph that you can remember from this workshop. Switch with a partner; in the second column, identify as many elements used by your partner in his/her paragraph as you can by writing the element’s name out to the side of the line where the element is used in the paragraph.

10. Workshop Activity Example Contrary to the well-accepted belief, year-round schooling has no constructive impact on education. Most year-round schedules use the 45-15 method: 45 days of school followed by 15 days off. Because of this, there are many first and last days of school. All those transitions disrupt the learning process. Also, there is no evidence of higher test scores. Due to that, many schools that change to year-round schedules end up switching back. For example, since 1980, 95 percent of schools that tried the year- round schedule changed back to a traditional calendar. It is obvious that changing to year-round schooling does not help students; therefore, why is the change necessary? Topic sentence Evidence Coherence: Signpost Signpost Evidence: illustration, statistic Transition sentence Unity: all information about same idea

11. Paragraph example from http://www.thewritesource.com/studentmod els/ws2k-summer.htm