Section 2: How to Write Paragraphs

By the end of section two, you will have worked step-by-step through ways of teaching learners how to write paragraphs using two basic paragraph structures.

Tutors can apply this information to:

teach how paragraphs are constructed covering points such as:

• there is one main idea for each paragraph (or two closely linked ideas);
• the focus of the whole paragraph is controlled via the topic sentence;
• a topic sentence is constructed with both a topic and a controlling focus

build learner confidence and skill by:

• modelling paragraph writing process: 3 ways to write a paragraph
• focusing on topic sentence construction initially
• providing activities for learners to explore how using the same topic yet a different controlling focus leads to different paragraph content.

Also three kinds of (optional) concluding sentence can be used:

• predicting (slide #26 How these kittens fared later in life is another story.)
• restatement (slide #27 What a huge variety of dogs there are!)
• summary (slide #28 Dogs’ noses have proven very useful to humans.)
• … and then there is the reader… what does the reader want or expect?

To view the videos in this section click here.