Paragraphs 4

Paragraphs 4

Online interactive
Overview
Using this Resource
Connecting to the Curriculum
Marking Student Responses
Working with Students
Further Resources
This task is about identifying the main parts of a paragraph.

Question Change answer

a) Rawiri wrote a paragraph to persuade the principal that it would be a good idea to start the school day later in the morning.
The sentences of the paragraph are jumbled up.  Drag them into the right order.
  • starting-school-day-p4.png
  • in-addition-p4.png
  • for-these-reasons-p4.png
  • if-students-p4.png
  • for-example-p4.png

Question

b)  Here is Rawiri's paragraph.

Starting the school day later in the morning may help improve students’ school results.  For example, at Monkseaton High School, absenteeism has dropped by as much as 27 percent since the introduction of a 10am start to the school day.  If students are at school more often, they are likely to make better progress in their learning.  In addition, experts on sleep patterns believe that teenagers have different body clocks to younger or older people, and are able to concentrate best later in the day.  For these reasons, a later start to the school day is likely to have a positive effect on students’ achievements.

 

Read the paragraph again, then decide whether the sentence below is a topic sentence, a supporting sentence, or a summary sentence.

For example, at Monkseaton High School, absenteeism has dropped by as much as 27 percent since the introduction of a 10am start to the school day.

    • Topic sentence

    • Supporting sentence

    • Summary sentence

Question

Starting the school day later in the morning may help improve students’ school results.  For example, at Monkseaton High School, absenteeism has dropped by as much as 27 percent since the introduction of a 10am start to the school day.  If students are at school more often, they are likely to make better progress in their learning.  In addition, experts on sleep patterns believe that teenagers have different body clocks to younger or older people, and are able to concentrate best later in the day.  For these reasons, a later start to the school day is likely to have a positive effect on students’ achievements.

 

c)  Decide whether this sentence is a topic sentence, a supporting sentence, or a summary sentence.

 

In addition, experts on sleep patterns believe that teenagers have different body clocks to younger or older people, and are able to concentrate best later in the day.

    • Topic sentence

    • Supporting sentence

    • Summary sentence

Question

Starting the school day later in the morning may help improve students’ school results.  For example, at Monkseaton High School, absenteeism has dropped by as much as 27 percent since the introduction of a 10am start to the school day.  If students are at school more often, they are likely to make better progress in their learning.  In addition, experts on sleep patterns believe that teenagers have different body clocks to younger or older people, and are able to concentrate best later in the day.  For these reasons, a later start to the school day is likely to have a positive effect on students’ achievements.


d)  Decide whether this sentence is a topic sentence, a supporting sentence, or a summary sentence.


Starting the school day later in the morning may help improve students’ school results

    • Topic sentence

    • Supporting sentence

    • Summary sentence

Question

Starting the school day later in the morning may help improve students’ school results.  For example, at Monkseaton High School, absenteeism has dropped by as much as 27 percent since the introduction of a 10am start to the school day.  If students are at school more often, they are likely to make better progress in their learning.  In addition, experts on sleep patterns believe that teenagers have different body clocks to younger or older people, and are able to concentrate best later in the day.  For these reasons, a later start to the school day is likely to have a positive effect on students’ achievements.

 

e)  Decide whether this sentence is a topic sentence, a supporting sentence, or a summary sentence.

 

If students are at school more often, they are likely to make better progress in their learning.

    • Topic sentence

    • Supporting sentence

    • Summary sentence

Question

Starting the school day later in the morning may help improve students’ school results.  For example, at Monkseaton High School, absenteeism has dropped by as much as 27 percent since the introduction of a 10am start to the school day.  If students are at school more often, they are likely to make better progress in their learning.  In addition, experts on sleep patterns believe that teenagers have different body clocks to younger or older people, and are able to concentrate best later in the day.  For these reasons, a later start to the school day is likely to have a positive effect on students’ achievements.

 

f)  Decide whether this sentence is a topic sentence, a supporting sentence, or a summary sentence.

 

For these reasons, a later start to the school day is likely to have a positive effect on students’ achievements.

    • Topic sentence

    • Supporting sentence

    • Summary sentence

Question 1Change answer

g)  Choose one of the topics below and write a paragraph to persuade your reader of your opinion. Make sure your paragraph has a topic sentence, two or more supporting sentences, and a summary sentence.
 
  • Should products intended for human use be tested on animals?
  • Should the speed limit on the open road be raised?
  • Should students be allowed to eat during class?

Question 1Change answer

Read through your paragraph carefully. Think about the following questions, then edit your paragraph.
 
Have I written a clear topic sentence that tells the reader what the paragraph will be about?
Have I written one or more supporting sentences that provide detail about my main idea?
Have I written a summary sentence that rounds off the paragraph and refers back to my main idea?
Task administration: 
This resource is ideal for students to work through independently after working with the teacher on Paragraphs 1. 
Levels:
4, 5
Curriculum info: 
English, Creating meaning, Writing
Key Competencies: 
Thinking, Using language, symbols, and texts
Keywords: 
paragraphs, organisation, topic sentences, supporting sentences
Description of task: 
This task is about topic, supporting, and summary sentences in paragraphs of persuasion.
Curriculum Links: 
This resource can be used to help to identify students’ ability to create texts to meet the writing demands of the New Zealand Curriculum.

Links to the Literacy Learning Progressions for Writing:

This resource helps to identify students’ ability to:

  • choose effective content, language, and text structure
  • create content that conveys ideas relating to the topic with some details
  • organise their writing into paragraphs in which the ideas are clearly related
  • use organising devices such as topic sentences

as described in the Literacy Learning Progressions for Writing at: http://www.literacyprogressions.tki.org.nz/The-Structure-of-the-Progressions.

Learning Progression Frameworks
This resource can provide evidence of learning associated with
Using writing to think and organise for learning, set 4
Using writing to think and organise for learning, sets 5-6
Writing meaningful text: text features, set 5
Writing meaningful text: text features, sets 5-7
within the Writing Learning Progressions Frameworks.
Read more about the Learning Progressions Frameworks.
Answers/responses: 
This is one of a group of five paragraph resources that focus on paragraph structure. The resources focus on topic sentences, supporting sentences, and summary sentences. The resources also support students to compose their own paragraphs for a range of purposes: to describe, to explain, and to persuade. 
This group of resources was trialled with groups of students in Year 7 and Year 8.
 
The table below shows the difficulty levels of the various tasks, based on the results of this trial.
 
Paragraphs 4
This resource focuses on persuasive paragraphs. Students re-arrange the sentences of a jumbled paragraph. They then identify whether each sentence in the paragraph is a topic sentence, a supporting sentence, or a summary sentence. They use this knowledge to compose their own persuasive paragraph.
 
Task Student response Y7/Y8
a)
Ordering a jumbled paragraph – the school day
All sentences in correct order – moderate
b)
Supporting sentence ‘For example, at …’
Very easy
c)
Supporting sentence ‘In addition …’
Medium
d)
Topic sentence ‘Starting the school day …’
Very easy
e)
Supporting sentence ‘If students are at school …’
Easy
f)
Summary sentence ‘For these reasons …’
Very easy
Diagnostic and formative information: 
Task Student response Y7/Y8 Next steps
a)

Ordering a jumbled paragraph – the school day
Many students were able to identify a suitable topic and summary sentence, but found it difficult to arrange the supporting sentences so that the paragraph flowed logically.
 Work as a group to re-order the sentences in this or other paragraphs. Discuss the effect of various choices.  Each student could suggest an order and present it to the other group members, giving reasons for their choice. As a group, decide on the order that you think works best.
Focus on the words within a paragraph that provide cohesion – words that act as links between sentences, such as pronouns, connectives, and words that are repeated. Identifying these will help students to see the flow of ideas that connects parts of the paragraph.
b), c), d), e), f)
Identifying topic, supporting, and summary sentences
Students had more difficulty identifying supporting sentences than topic or summary sentences.
 Work with a variety of paragraphs from different text types. As a group, can you identify the supporting sentences?  What different kinds of information and structures do writers use to provide supporting details? What words signal that this is sentence is providing extra detail to support the main idea (look for words like ‘such as’ or ‘for example’)?
Delete one or more supporting sentences from paragraphs of text. Can students fill in the gap with an appropriate sentence or sentences?
c)
Constructing own paragraph
Some students wrote topic sentences that were a mixture of topic sentence and supporting sentence, for example ‘I don’t think students should eat in class because they need to get outside in the fresh air and need to have a break from work’.
 Co-construct a paragraph as a class: different groups could try writing the topic sentence, a supporting sentence, or a summary sentence. Put the paragraph together and, as a group, decide how to edit the paragraph so there is a logical flow of ideas. Focus on ways of linking sentences, for example by using pronouns, connectives, repeated words or synonyms.
Students could then work in pairs to construct and review paragraphs. 
The resource, Thinking about How Language Works, provides useful additional information for teachers about aspects of language. Part two, connecting and tracking ideas in text, is particularly useful when thinking about cohesion and flow within paragraphs.
 
The following ARB resources are about paragraphs and paragraph structure: