Practice 3: Compare the following two paragraphs and decide which one is not unified and why.

Lessons 9-10: Writing paragraphs

Problem questions:

• When do I begin a new paragraph?

• What transitional words and phrases can I use to make my paragraphs flow?

• How do I know if I have enough information to support my paragraph’s main idea?

A paragraph is unifiedwhen it develops a single main idea.

It is possible to identify certain qualities the effective paragraph all possess: These are:

UNITY COHERENCE ADEQUATE DEVELOPMENT

Practice 1: Answer the questions

1. If you write paragraphs that are too long, in which area might you have problems?

2. If you write too short paragraphs, in which area might you have problems?

Practice 2: The topic sentencestates the main idea of the paragraph, and the other sentences in the paragraph support that idea.

1. Do all paragraphs have topic sentences?

2. What does a topic sentence contain?

3. Where is a topic sentence in a paragraph?

4. Why are topic sentences useful to the reader and why are they useful to the writer?

Using Topic Sentences

Topic Sentence at the Beginning.

Topic Sentence at the End.

These sprays, dusts, and aerosols are now applied almost universally to farms, gardens, forests, and homes—nonselective chemicals that have the power to kill every insect, the “good” and the “bad,” to still the song of birds and the leaping of fish in the streams, to coat the leaves with a deadly film, and to linger on in soil—all this though the intended target may be only a few weeds or insects. Can anyone believe it is possible to lay down such a barrage of poisons on the surface

without making it unfit for life? They should not be called “insecticides,” but “biocides.” (Rachel Carson, “The Obligation to Endure,” Silent Spring)

Main Idea Implied

I am eight years old and a tomboy. I have a cowboy hat, cowboy boots, checkered shirt and pants, all red. My playmates are my brothers, two and four years older than I. Their colors are black and green, the only difference in the way we are dressed. On Saturday nights we all go to the picture show, even my mother; Westerns are her favorite kind of movie. Back home, “on the ranch,” we pretend we are Tom Mix, Hopalong Cassidy, Lash LaRue (we’ve even named one of our dogs Lash LaRue); we chase each other for hours rustling cattle, being outlaws, delivering damsels from distress. Then my parents decide to buy my brothers guns. These are not “real” guns. They shoot “BBs,” copper pellets my brothers say will kill birds. Because I am a girl, I do not get a gun. Instantly I am relegated to the position of Indian. Now there appears a great distance between us. They shoot and shoot at verything with their new guns. I try to keep up with my bow and arrows. (Alice Walker, “Beauty: When the Other Dancer Is the Self,” In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens)

Practice 3: Compare the following two paragraphs and decide which one is not unified and why.

Text 1:

One of the first problems I had as a college student was learning to use a computer. All students were required to buy a computer before school started. Throughout the first semester, we took a special course to teach us to use a computer. My laptop has a lot of memory and can do word processing and spreadsheets. It has a large screen and a DVD drive. My parents were happy that I had a computer, but they were concerned about the price. Tuition was high, and when they added in the price of the computer, it was almost out of reach. To offset expenses, I got a part-time job in the school library. I am determined to overcome “computer anxiety” and to master my computer by the end of the semester. (student writer)

Text 2:

One of the first problems I had as a college student was learning to use a computer. All first-year students were required to buy a computer before school started. Throughout the first semester, we took a special course to teach us to use the computer. In theory this system sounded fine, but in my case it was a disaster. In the first place, I had never owned a computer before. The closest I had ever come to a computer was the computer lab in high school. In the second place, I could not type well. And to make matters worse, many of the people in my computer orientation course already knew everything there was to know about operating a computer. By the end of the first week, I was convinced that I would never be able to keep up with them.

Practice 4:

Date: 2016-04-22; view: 924