Three Steps to a Solid Paragraph

THESIS STATEMENT for Entire Paper:

Fairy tales, although primarily thought of today as entertaining childrens
stories, have lessons about human nature that were originally intended to
teach children how to act and what to avoid.
CLAIM (Assertion): Make your claim. This is usually the TOPIC SENTENCE of
the body paragraph, and it is functioning as a mini-thesis for your paragraph.
(This would be R + A sentence of the RACES strategy. In this example, the A =
jealousy to the question of R = Character Motivation)
In the fairy tale Snow White, the evil stepmothers main motivation for
wanting to destroy Snow White is jealousy.
EVIDENCE/Proof: Remember to act as if nobody reading you believes a word you
say. In this phase of your paragraph, you must offer specific EVENTS and
QUOTES from the story as HARD EVIDENCE for your claim. Its always good to
offer at least three pieces of evidence in order to make a strong argument. The
example below contains PARAPHRASED evidence. For COMPARISONCONTRAST, this evidence may be paired for similarity or difference
(juxtaposition).
The Queen believes that she has good reason to be jealous. The magic
mirror that has always acclaimed her as the fairest in the land has begun
to give that honor to Snow White. Additionally, Snow Whites father and the
people of the kingdom continue to look at the beautiful princess as a
reminder of her generous and much-loved mother. (37)
EXPLANATION: This is the Big So What of your evidence. Your job here is to
show how your assertion and your proof tie into the meaning of the work as a
whole. When considering your explanation, you want to tie your paragraph back to
the focus of your essay, i.e. your thesis statement.
To tie our short paragraph about Snow White to the thesis statement above, we
could say something like:
Snow Whites evil stepmother is eventually consumed by her jealousy. She
sets in motion a plan designed to destroy the young princess, but ultimately
this plan results in her own gruesome death instead. The Brothers Grimm
report her end as being sealed up in a barrel full of nails and dragged
through the streets until she dies. Her innocent victim, of course, lives
happily ever after. Clearly, the creators of this story wanted to leave no
doubts for the reader about the destructive nature of jealousy.
How are different paragraphs in an essay distinguished? Each paragraphs form
takes the shape of its function:

THE READER
Meets the CLAIM
AHA, tis TRUE

Fully Understands WHY

Final

Introduction

Opening

Topic
Thesis Statement
(GPSRoad Map)

Body Paragraphs (3+)

Topic Sentence
Evidence
Explanation
Transition
Sentence

Conclusion
Lead-In Sentence
(transition from final
body P)

Topic Summary
Concluding
Sentence