Composition Curricula without topic and concluding sentence requirements for paragraphs?

[Hunter]

I and my students struggle to apply formulaic writing lessons to our everyday writing. Topic and especially concluding sentences for every paragraph is awkward and limiting.

 

Are there any explicit and systematic curricula that teach unity and coherence and emphasis instead? I'm seeing these 3 keywords pop up in Principle Approach books and some OOP college handbooks.

[Ellie]

^{Writing Strands, and Understanding Writing.}

[mytwomonkeys]

my daughter usually has a closing paragraph depending on what she's writing, but not a closing sentence for each paragraph (that would be very limiting, i agree). i only teach a closing sentence when working on a single paragraph, and only when they're first learning to write. each paragraph does have a main topic & that topic relates to the overall theme of the paper, but it doesn't have to be introduced in a formulaic way. in a situation as you describe, i find outlining to work best. they do have keyword outlines as well, if that's what you are leaning toward (we used IEW). we incorporate KWO's still depending on the assignment & they work nicely in helping my daughter write clearly. my son is only 8, so he isn't there yet at all.

[Hunter]

I've found that spending too much time on paragraph development has backfired. Or at least it seems that way. I've seen good writers disagree with the popular formulaic writing curricula, but up till now I didn't understand why. I'm ready to listen now if anyone wants to preach to me.

 

I picked up a free book from the library discard boxes, where they have the books that were donated, but are too nasty to sell at the book sales. The book is actually crusty and something nasty is actually falling off the pages. BUT, it has pages and pages on this "unity, coherence, emphasis" thingy I first read about in the Noah Plan English Guide. The Noah plan does use the topic and concluding sentences but the crusty handbook does not.

 

Ellie I have UW. I don't remember "unity, coherence, emphasis". I'll have to reread it tonight. I haven't used it in awhile. I was reading some of it this week, but got lost in it, even with all my color coded notes. I thought I remembered formulaic paragraph development, but maybe I'm mistaken.

 

I've never seen Writing Strands. I'll look for some online samples.

[Ellie]

I've found that spending too much time on paragraph development has backfired. Or at least it seems that way. I've seen good writers disagree with the popular formulaic writing curricula, but up till now I didn't understand why. I'm ready to listen now if anyone wants to preach to me.

 

I think it is an error to focus on packaging everything in tidy little paragraphs, each with [insert favorite number here] of sentences and a topic and concluding sentence. Most of the writing we do IRL isn't like that; most of the good literature *I've* read isn't written that way, either, and I'm underwhelmed with most of the examples I've seen from products which overemphasize paragraphs.

 

Ellie I have UW. I don't remember "unity, coherence, emphasis". I'll have to reread it tonight. I haven't used it in awhile. I was reading some of it this week, but got lost in it, even with all my color coded notes. I thought I remembered formulaic paragraph development, but maybe I'm mistaken.

 

It doesn't use those terms, but that's what it teaches. Eventually, it teaches children that there must be paragraphs (because you cannot read a whole page of verbage which not broken up into smaller bite sizes), and that all the sentences in a paragraph need to go together; it does this without focussing on formulas.

[mytwomonkeys]

here is something that i have printed to start with my daughter next year. maybe it will help your students too? the whole website has quite a few useful resources that help me a lot with teaching writing currently. i hope you find what you need:)

[Hunter]

I think it is an error to focus on packaging everything in tidy little paragraphs, each with [insert favorite number here] of sentences and a topic and concluding sentence. Most of the writing we do IRL isn't like that; most of the good literature *I've* read isn't written that way, either, and I'm underwhelmed with most of the examples I've seen from products which overemphasize paragraphs.

 

It doesn't use those terms, but that's what it teaches. Eventually, it teaches children that there must be paragraphs (because you cannot read a whole page of verbage which not broken up into smaller bite sizes), and that all the sentences in a paragraph need to go together; it does this without focussing on formulas.

 

I'm going to definitely put in some quality time with UW tonight. UW is like Professor B math; I feel blindfolded when reading both of them. If I just settle down and use my less dominant strengths I CAN understand them, though. I'm just such a visual learner, I struggle with the layout and formatting of the pages.

 

i hope you find what you need:)

 

I'm still at the point that I don't know what I need yet. I just know that what I was doing was taking us backwards in real life writing. Yes, it prepared for SOME types of testing, and yes it prepared for SOME types of junior college writing, but the more I plug away at some of these curricula, the more we sit in front of a paper, scratch our heads and say, "hmmm, everything we learned this week doesn't apply here, does it?"

 

When it comes to formulaic writing and cursive first, I've accomplished my goals of teaching students to write formulaic paragraphs in neat cursive, but they still can't write birthday cards that their mothers and siblings and peers can read. It's an interesting place I have found myself. There is a parable about making sure you place your ladder in the right place before starting to climb it. We labored up the ladder and got to the top, but...I think we are in the wrong place. :confused:

 

Thanks for the link.

[happyhomemaker]

From what I've seen thus far, and others please correct me if I'm wrong, WWS might fit the bill.

[Crimson Wife]

I have far too many writing books & programs on my shelf so I forget where I read this, but one line I really liked is that students need to know "the rules" before they can break them. I want to say it's from IEW's Blended Style and Structure in Composition but I'm not 100% sure.

[Hunter]

Ellie, thank you. UW is a good read tonight. It is so nice to be directed back to something already on the shelf, rather than something new. I'm a happy camper tonight!

 

Happyhomemaker, I forget what WWS is.

 

Crimson Wife, that's what I used to preach. But this is not working at ALL here right now. Students are being forced to discard EVERYTHING I taught them, when writing out cards and are back at square one with NO tools. They look at me bewildered, and I feel like worse than a failure. I feel almost like I have betrayed them. They worked so hard and have nothing that applies to such an important form of communication. If anything they feel LESS equipped than they did in the past, and quite self-conscious. And with the cursive only, they feel disconnected and elitist and I'm not even sure what.

 

They do need some sort of a formula, but the formulas requiring a topic sentence and concluding sentence do not work. And the cursive first, without taking time teach a student to print, is a topic for another thread, but they are dealing with that at the same time they are dealing with the inability to apply the paragraph formulas. They are frozen.

[happyhomemaker]

WWS= Writing With Skill

[shinyhappypeople]

Can you try guided writing practice for everyday writing? Using your birthday card example, ask leading questions, write down their answers, and keep going until you have a good birthday card note. Have them use your writing (but their words) as copywork, and keep doing this until the formula is second nature. I have no idea if this would work, though. Just tossing it out there. Good luck. I love hearing about your tutoring adventures :)

[Shmead]

Topic sentences exist as much to help the writer as the reader. For developing writers, the topic sentence forces them to state, clearly and completely, what the function of that paragraph is. You want this to be part of the essay proper because if you tell them that they just need to know, themselves, what the paragraph is there to do, they will think they know when what they really have is a vague impression. A topic sentence makes them write it out in a way that is clear to anyone. A second important role of a topic sentence is to keep the writer on track. It's very important that when a kid gets stuck, they go back and read the topic sentence, not the last sentence they wrote. If they read the last sentence they wrote, you get a wandering vine instead of a paragraph.

 

All this is to say that topic sentences are scaffolding, which sets you up to do a magic trick. Take a good essay and cross out the topic sentences. Now read it aloud. If there is coherence and unity, the essay will suddenly be tremendously improved.and lose nothing. This can be amazing, like ripping the tape off a painted wall: what looked good before suddenly looks professional. I know this works with an essay. I suspect it would work fine with a greeting card: just draft the inscription with a topic sentence, then cut it off. If it did its job, you won't miss it.

 

I think concluding sentences are generally a waste of time. If your paragraph has completed it's function, it should be obvious. If it hasn't, no last sentence will save it. In longer works, transitional sentences (at the end or beginning of the next paragraph) are important, but those serve to transition and connect, not conclude.

[Ellie]

Topic sentences exist as much to help the writer as the reader. For developing writers, the topic sentence forces them to state, clearly and completely, what the function of that paragraph is. You want this to be part of the essay proper because if you tell them that they just need to know, themselves, what the paragraph is there to do, they will think they know when what they really have is a vague impression. A topic sentence makes them write it out in a way that is clear to anyone. A second important role of a topic sentence is to keep the writer on track. It's very important that when a kid gets stuck, they go back and read the topic sentence, not the last sentence they wrote. If they read the last sentence they wrote, you get a wandering vine instead of a paragraph.

 

The problem is that not all paragraphs need topic sentences. Really. Not everything that we write fits into tidy little paragraphs which require topic sentences. Children need to know *how to write* before they can put out an essay; in fact, most of what they write in the real world will not be in the form of "essays."

 

I love the way Understanding Writing teaches children to write by starting with friendly letters; I love the way it teaches children to use strong nouns and verbs instead of endless adjectives and adverbs. Learning to put their words into paragraphs is a natural progression, which happens after they've learned to write.

[Hunter]

As I'm looking through the curricula I have here, I never noticed right away if each curriculum did or did not teach topic and concluding/transitional sentences. I just assumed that loosey-goosey curricula didn't, and that formulaic did. That's not true? It appears that there are formulaic curricula that teach formulas that do not include a topic and concluding sentence?

 

Classical Writing does not teach topic sentences. And as Ellie pointed out, neither does Understanding Writing. The Principal Approach does teach the topic sentence but appears to be based off of vintage texts and OOP handbooks that do not. All three of these curricula are meant to come after using Spalding's WRTR and are by no means loosey-goosey programs.

 

When did the "topic sentence" evolve? Is it a fairly new development? I'm going to read through some vintage texts today.

 

Happyhomemaker I think B&N has WWS now that I remember. I'll have to take a look at it again. I think I got scared at how much there was to it, and feared it was too time intensive for tutoring. Right now, I need to self-educate about paragraph development and it doesn't really matter what I will end out using or not using with students.

 

Shinyhappypeople, what I have been doing while writing my own cards, and other forms of REAL writing, is to stop using topic sentences. I am clueless how to guide a student, when I don't really know what I am doing myself. I'd been noticing something wasn't right for awhile, but was busy and just kinda covered my ears and said "lalalala" and kept moving forward just the way I was. I can't do that anymore. I came to a screeching halt in both my own self-education and in tutoring.

 

I have seen this topic arise over the decades, but quickly clicked off of those threads. I was firmly a believer in what Crimson Wife posted from IEW, and what Shmead wrote. It's not working here anymore though. I've hit the place these other teachers/parents were talking about. Where are they now? I'm ready to be converted, but they are gone. :crying:

[Hunter]

The problem is that not all paragraphs need topic sentences. Really. Not everything that we write fits into tidy little paragraphs which require topic sentences. Children need to know *how to write* before they can put out an essay; in fact, most of what they write in the real world will not be in the form of "essays."

 

I love the way Understanding Writing teaches children to write by starting with friendly letters; I love the way it teaches children to use strong nouns and verbs instead of endless adjectives and adverbs. Learning to put their words into paragraphs is a natural progression, which happens after they've learned to write.

 

 

The red is why I never purchased IEW. Right away I knew that wasn't going to work for me, after reading and studying Write Like Hemingway for a year. That cute little book lived in my backpack and went some INTERESTING places. :lol: When I got housed and settled down, IEW was one of the first curricula recommended to me, but after watching a video of a teacher helping students write some truly horrible "Tom Swifty" sentences I never looked at it again.

 

The blue is what I am finding. The essay format isn't working well for real world writing. I feel like I'm out on the streets without my hiking boots. I don't feel equipped to do the job in front of me. I have the wrong shoes on. I don't want to be barefoot. I want the right shoes. Lately I've just been pulling off the ballet slippers and walking barefoot thinking I just needed to learn more ballet, and that it would come in time. It didn't.

 

I need to pull out Write Like Hemingway and see if it teaches paragraph development. I checked Composition in the Classical Tradition, and it appears not to address the topic at all.

 

Elllie, I spent a long time last night reading UW. Thanks again!

[mytwomonkeys]

i've thought about this last night. i do believe if something isn't working, by all means change it. definitely! but on that same note, that doesn't infer the other way is broken.

 

for my children (that's all i've ever worked with), writing is a process that evolves as they grow. so, starting off simple with a formula doesn't mean that you never steer from that or build upon it. my son is learning to write a simple paragraph with 5 sentences now (topic, 3 supporting, and closing). i am capable of teaching this. he is capable of writing it. so for us, it's a win.

 

when he writes thank-you notes, he really can use the same formula as above. it might read,

 

dear grandma,

 

thank you for the _______. it was the perfect gift! my friends and i are having a blast with it. even my sister thinks it's fun!

 

i hope you and grandpa are well.

 

see you soon.

 

daniel

 

 

this process is something that he can grasp & apply a formula too without feeling frustrated. the result is coherent and age appropriate. my daughter is older. my expectation in every area of her writing assignments are different. with my daughter, depending on the assignment, she may use an outline (especially for a research paper), but if she is writing a thank-you note, or emailing a friend, she organizes her thoughts in her head as she writes them. she has learned over time to write coherently - this comes from practice. the more she writes, the better she writes.

 

she is only in 5th grade now, so next year we will begin creative writing for the first time. i feel that she is ready for that now. again, the process will be new & challenging, but the result will only be limited by her imagination.

 

i think one formula doesn't apply to all aspects of writing. i also feel *what* you are writing determines how you should write it. an email won't look like an essay. a research paper won't read like a novel. a thank-you note won't look like an invitation. the best way for a child to learn these processes imo is simply by doing.

 

i absolutely agree that taking one formula and attempting to apply them across the spectrum will not work. but i do feel formulas can serve as a stepping stone for beginning writers to help organize their thoughts into coherent ideas that allow them to share without the frustration of writer's block.

[Hunter]

I'm not against formulas. That's the thing. I just realized that the formula of all paragraphs being based on a topic sentence isn't working, and I'm not sure where to go from there. My comfort zone is to look for a new paragraph formula, but am willing to listen to what all my options are.

 

Free Google Book The History of the English Paragraph. I'm off to go read.

[Shmead]

The problem is that not all paragraphs need topic sentences. Really. Not everything that we write fits into tidy little paragraphs which require topic sentences. Children need to know *how to write* before they can put out an essay; in fact, most of what they write in the real world will not be in the form of "essays."

 

That's why I suggested removing the topic sentences afterwards, like taking off the training wheels. It's like teaching a kid to say "This shows that" at the start of commentary right at first, and then cutting it out.

[Kalmia]

Image Grammar 2nd Edition by Harry R. Noden. (note: you must get the 2nd edition. It is twice as big as the first edition)

 

http://www.amazon.co...mar 2nd Edition

 

Noden as a whole section on how professional writers almost never use topic sentences. "From this experiment Stern concluded that the popular notion of the topic sentence paragraph was a myth, a fantasy that lacked validity when tested with professional writing samples and educated readers... Other scholars have noticed the same inconstancy... William Irmscher found that in paragraphs written by professionals, 50 to 80 percent did not contain a topic sentence (1979, 222)."

 

The vintage book, Writing in English by William H. Maxwell and George J. Smith, minimizes the topic sentence in favor of skillful selection, unity, completeness, and plan. And it has the best examples from classic literature I have ever seen.

 

http://books.google....ved=0CC0Q6AEwAA

[Hunter]

That's why I suggested removing the topic sentences afterwards, like taking off the training wheels. It's like teaching a kid to say "This shows that" at the start of commentary right at first, and then cutting it out.

 

 

Shmead, I have a habit of jumping in where I'm in over my head. I don't know how to apply this. I don't know whether this can work, or if I'm just not able to understand. I know I'm asking questions that I'm not capable of always understanding the answers to.

 

 

Image Grammar 2nd Edition by Harry R. Noden. (note: you must get the 2nd edition. It is twice as big as the first edition)

 

http://www.amazon.co...mar 2nd Edition

 

Noden as a whole section on how professional writers almost never use topic sentences. "From this experiment Stern concluded that the popular notion of the topic sentence paragraph was a myth, a fantasy that lacked validity when tested with professional writing samples and educated readers... Other scholars have noticed the same inconstancy... William Irmscher found that in paragraphs written by professionals, 50 to 80 percent did not contain a topic sentence (1979, 222)."

 

The vintage Book, Writing in English by William H. Maxwell and George J. Smith, minimizes the topic sentence in favor of skillful selection, unity, completeness, and plan. And it has the best examples from classic literature I have ever seen.

 

http://books.google....ved=0CC0Q6AEwAA

 

 

Thank you! These look wonderful! I'm off to dive into the free one, right now. I finished skimming the history of paragraphs book. I got out of it what I want from it for right now, and am ready to move on to something else.

[Hunter]

William Irmscher found that in paragraphs written by professionals, 50 to 80 percent did not contain a topic sentence (1979, 222)."

 

 

For those of us who have tried to apply the TWTM logic level outlining method, we all know this is true! Too often the author doesn't even stick to one topic, never mind use a topic sentence.

[Shmead]

Shmead, I have a habit of jumping in where I'm in over my head. I don't know how to apply this. I don't know whether this can work, or if I'm just not able to understand. I know I'm asking questions that I'm not capable of always understanding the answers to.

 

Literally take a sharpie to a good traditional essay a student has written. Cross out the topic sentences. See if what is left reads as a coherent paragraph. If it is (and with good writers, it likely will be) then you are already accomplishing your goal.

[Hunter]

Literally take a sharpie to a good traditional essay a student has written. Cross out the topic sentences. See if what is left reads as a coherent paragraph. If it is (and with good writers, it likely will be) then you are already accomplishing your goal.

 

 

The problem isn't their ability to write a typical 5 paragraph essay. Their problem is when attempting to use that format prevents them from being able to say what they want to say in real writing.

 

Essay prompts are specifically designed to work with certain essay templates. Birthday cards, journaling, story writing, and everyday writing are not fitting into the templates we have been learning to write paragraphs and essays.

 

Yes, they COULD compose a birthday card in the essay template, but then they wouldn't be saying what they want to say.

 

And as for crossing out a sentence--if the other sentences are leaning on the sentence that is removed, instead of having been designed to stand on their own--I'm not sure I understand.

[Shmead]

I think you will be surprised at how well they DO stand on their own. The topic sentence is like a mold, and when you remove the mold, the structure is still there. And it works for things like birthday cards:

 

I would like to wish you a happy birthday. I hope you know how important you are to me. Today is your special day, and I hope it brings you nothing but joy: you deserve it. You have always been there for me, in the good times and the bad, and I don't know what I would do without you.

 

Cut the topic sentence off that, and it's a perfectly fine birthday inscription.

 

I don't know if this would work for you or not. It's the kind of thing that I do a lot with my students: they need the structure to get started, but as they grow they internalize the process and need fewer and fewer explicit cues. They usually come off with no problem. As writers develop, I prune as much as anything.

[forty-two]

 

 

The problem isn't their ability to write a typical 5 paragraph essay. Their problem is when attempting to use that format prevents them from being able to say what they want to say in real writing.

 

Essay prompts are specifically designed to work with certain essay templates. Birthday cards, journaling, story writing, and everyday writing are not fitting into the templates we have been learning to write paragraphs and essays.

 

Yes, they COULD compose a birthday card in the essay template, but then they wouldn't be saying what they want to say.

 

Question: You are saying that your students *have* something they want to say wrt birthday cards and such, but they can't say it using the essay format. Could they say it orally? I mean, if you said, "Hey, what do you want to say to your mom for her birthday?", could they tell you *something*? And if so, why not write down exactly what they said, on a scratch sheet, and then use whatever they've learned wrt organizing thoughts and copyediting to tidy it up a bit. It's basically the middling stages of WWE - where the adult takes down their oral narration and then the kid copies part of it over.

 

Also, I know you don't want loosey-goosey stuff, but Bravewriter et. al. are really good for this sort of thing - for harnessing what they *do* know - how to speak fairly coherently in their native language in familiar situations - and using that as the base for learning to write. It's expressly meant to avoid the very problem you ran into - where your rote knowledge of explicit rules has overruled your intuitive knowledge of language so that you write *worse* than you speak, are in fact worse off than if you'd never learned anything and just wrote exactly as you speak.

 

Really, if they can say something to their mom to her face to wish her happy birthday, they can write a message in a birthday card. If they can say it, they can write it (assuming the physical ability to form letters/words is there, which it sounds like it is, since they can write an essay to a formula).

[Hunter]

Shmead thank you for that explanation. It doesn't really apply to a situation i recently faced, but I think it will apply to some future scenarios that I will be better prepared to handle when they arise.

 

Forty-two I will check out Bravewriter. I was just reading UW and it does teach topic and concluding sentences in lesson 2.4. I don't think it stresses the topic sentence continually through the program, but it is taught and I'm assuming built upon. I'm really interested in reading curricula right now that reject the idea that ALL paragraphs MUST include a topic sentence. I think I'll probably need to read some loosey-goosey and then bring that back to some more formulaic curricula. The topic sentence is a nifty tool, but no ONE tool is useful for all tasks, I'm discovering.

 

Write On! has been my favorite curricula lately, and it doesn't teach the topic sentence as far as I can tell. I do need some composition rules to notebook though, and bring back to use with Write On! I'm just going to teach clustering and indenting for paragraphing for right now, and read read read about what my options are.

 

I know I don't want to use Classical Writing, but I'm going to sit down and read some of it tonight.

 

Thank you everyone who has contributed. I'm a person who learns from the write to learn approach. Just by writing, I often figure out a lot on my own. I often need an audience though to get me started writing. I feel like I know a lot more tonight than I did yesterday, and I appreciate that.

[forty-two]

Forty-two I will check out Bravewriter. I was just reading UW and it does teach topic and concluding sentences in lesson 2.4. I don't think it stresses the topic sentence continually through the program, but it is taught and I'm assuming built upon. I'm really interested in reading curricula right now that reject the idea that ALL paragraphs MUST include a topic sentence. I think I'll probably need to read some loosey-goosey and then bring that back to some more formulaic curricula. The topic sentence is a nifty tool, but no ONE tool is useful for all tasks, I'm discovering.

<snip>

Thank you everyone who has contributed. I'm a person who learns from the write to learn approach. Just by writing, I often figure out a lot on my own. I often need an audience though to get me started writing. I feel like I know a lot more tonight than I did yesterday, and I appreciate that.

If you are thinking of exploring the world of loosey-goosey writing ;) for inspiration and application, you might like Peter Elbow. He was one of the main inspirations for Bravewriter, and I've really enjoyed his books. He's as loosey-goosey as they come ;), but does have a core of discipline, too. His latest book, Vernacular Eloquence: What Speech Can Bring to Writing, is all about applying the virtues of conversational speech to writing. It's more (exceptionally awesome :)) ideas than nuts-and-bolts practicality, but that's how I like my books ;), and it makes it easier to apply to whatever nuts-and-bolts approach you like. He has some draft chapters of Vernacular Eloquence at his website, if you want to get an idea of where he is coming from: http://works.bepress...type.html#other . I've also really enjoyed his Writing With Power and Writing Without Teachers - in my experience, you can get a pretty good idea of whether you will like them from reading the samples.

[Hunter]

Thanks forty-two. I'm moving outside my comfort zone, but I want to be careful not to ask the wrong questions. I know I could ask for what will meet my immediate wants, but...if I'm asking for the wrong things, then in the long run those answers won't be helpful. So I'm going to branch out a bit wider than I think that I will be able to tolerate, and just listen for a bit. Thanks for the links!

 

I was just reading Classical Writing and was overcome with such exhaustion just reading it, I had to put it down. Some days I'm just tired and anything and everything will exhaust me, but...I don't think CW is what I need right now.

 

Somewhere on one of my portable hard drives I have Fred Lybrand's writing course that I purchased a couple years ago. I think I'm going to give that another listen to.

[Ellie]

I was just reading UW and it does teach topic and concluding sentences in lesson 2.4. I don't think it stresses the topic sentence continually through the program, but it is taught and I'm assuming built upon. I'm really interested in reading curricula right now that reject the idea that ALL paragraphs MUST include a topic sentence. I think I'll probably need to read some loosey-goosey and then bring that back to some more formulaic curricula. The topic sentence is a nifty tool, but no ONE tool is useful for all tasks, I'm discovering.

 

 

There's nothing wrong with teaching the concept of a topic sentence. UW doesn't beat that to death the way other things do. And with its emphasis on strong nouns and verbs, knowing who one's audience is when writing, focussing on a smaller topic and describing it in detail rather than giving general information of a larger topic (remember the fair?), and more, UW does a better job, IMHO, of actually teaching children how to write. If they know how to write, they can more easily learn things like topic sentences and when they're actually needed.

 

Products like WriteShop make me crazy. I can deal with the less-creative, less-exciting instruction in R&S's English series because there is quite a bit of writing in general (I count writing sentences in the grammar lessons as writing, too), and writing of different kinds (such as friendly letters and poetry). But I *love* UW. And Writing Strands, but I don't think you cared for that, did you?

[Hunter]

I've never seen Writing Strands or WriteShop.

 

Have you ever seen Write On!? For over a year now, I've been using the 3 sentence report, 3 paragraph report (free in the TM), and intro and conclusions with short term students that won't be sticking around long. They really like it because it is so adaptable and repeatable. It's not loosey-goosey, especially with a few key charts I've added over the year, but it also does not provide the explicit instruction I would like to offer longer term students.

 

If all I had was UW, I know for a fact I could settle down and use it. I always end out using UW and Climbing to Good English as references. They are awfully bulky as references though. For some reason I seem to always wander away from UW and don't know why. I have a TON of notes in it. Maybe it will be like Spalding 4th. Maybe one day, it will just be time, and I will settle down with it.

 

Write On! is probably taking short cuts, with the longer term students. Just because a few key worksheets are right for the short term students, doesn't mean I should be using the full curriculum with the longer term ones. I don't know.

 

No matter what I use, I want to teach paragraphs differently than I have been. I ordered a nicer copy of the old Harbrace College Handbook 4th edition that I got from the library. It's just too crusty for me to settle down with long enough to decide if I like it. Unidentifiable debris keeps falling it my lap, and grosses me out. I have the feeling this handbook will be my resource for teaching paragraph development. Time will tell, though.

 

I was also taking a look at English for the Thoughtful Child tonight. It's the recommended beginner text in TWTM 1st edition. I've seen the vintage edition, but never the edited reprint. It teaches a looser paragraph than UW, but still provides explicit rules in little boxes that pop off the pages.

[Hunter]

Elementary English Composition by Fred Newton Scott, has individual chapters about the different genres of paragraphs. The beginning of the chapters explain the genre, and the end of the chapters explicitly state whether a topic sentence is needed or not. The assignments in the middle are too hard for K-8, but the general paragraph information at the beginning and end of the chapters can be applied to any curriculum.

 

According to Scott, descriptive and narrative paragraphs don't always use topical sentences. Expository paragraphs do. Argumentative paragraphs often have both topic and concluding sentences.

 

Also of interest in this book is the teaching on oral paragraphs and compositions. If anyone has been struggling with implementing narrations and recitations and understanding why/how they might be useful, this book might help.

 

Scott wrote some excellent generic composition lesson plans in Lessons in English book 2 1916 edition. There are repeatable lessons plans for animals, birds, biographies, cities, buildings and more, that can be applied to unit studies, or adapted to a child's interests. Here is bk1 1916 edition, if you are looking for it.