I took my postcolonial literature students on a whirlwind tour of the Caribbean this morning (there and back in 50 minutes!), and now my freshman composition students are entering the bizarre realm of Paragraph Development. They're using an exercise I developed years ago, one that allows them to exercise some paragraph-development skills while getting really creative.
I start off by looking at a well-developed paragraph that includes a topic sentence, a sentence further explaining the topic sentence, a quote from an authority (C. Vaughan Hornswallow...okay, I made him up), a sentence explaining the significance of the quote, three sentences containing brief specific examples, and a transitional sentence. I give the students a handout with this model paragraph on one side, and on the other is a list of those eight types of sentences. Each student starts the process by writing a topic sentence (One good reason college students should...), and then they pass the papers around so that each succeeding sentence is written by a different student.
Where do they get their quotes and examples? They make them up, of course. I'm careful to remind them that this is the only time all semester that they're allowed to invent supporting evidence, so they'd better make the most of it. And they do! Students can be amazingly inventive when given the opportunity.
This exercise forces students to read very carefully the topic sentence and whatever else has already been written in the incipient paragraph, so that they can make sure what they write follows logically. Also, since every paragraph has to include three brief specific examples, they have to stretch beyond the obvious examples, moving the argument in some new and interesting directions.
What is the result? A lot of silliness, of course, but also a few amazing paragraphs. I'll collect the finished paragraphs and choose a few to share with the class on Friday, but meanwhile, it's fun to just stand here listening as students eagerly create well-developed paragraphs out of nothing.
5 comments:
I want to be in your class, Bev!
Betsy
It's the Seinfeld of paragraph exercises!
What a GREAT idea! Mad paragraphs!
It could be fun to try this on your blog.
I have used this activity several times: students love it, the results really show in their research papers, and it's a fun way of teaching something that is essentially very dry.
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