Today we're going to learn about paragraphs.
This is part 1. What is a paragraph?
You can watch the video and use the worksheet to take notes in practice while you listen.
So what is a paragraph?
A paragraph is a group of sentences about one idea. Let's look at an example.
Here's a paragraph. I'll read it.
Anna is an excellent student.
She is intelligent.
She is responsible. Anna always does her homework, and she is never late for class.
As a result of her hard work, Anna is one of the best students in school.
So remember we said a paragraph is a group of sentences about one idea.
So,
which sentence tells us the one idea that this paragraph is about?
Anna is an excellent student. That sentence tells us what the rest of the paragraph is about.
So how many sentences are in a paragraph?
A paragraph has about five sentences. Sometimes you can have fewer, and sometimes you can have more.
But usually five sentences is a good number of sentences for a paragraph.
You can see that our example has exactly five sentences.
Remember, the first sentence of a paragraph is indented. That means there's a space before the first sentence.
Paragraph parts. So how many parts does a paragraph have?
A paragraph has three parts.
The first part is a topic sentence.
This tells the main idea or what the paragraph is about.
The topic sentence and our paragraph about Anna is:
Anna is an excellent student.
That sentence tells us what the rest of the paragraph is about.
the next part of a paragraph is
the detail sentences.
These
explain and support the main idea.
Our example about Anna has three detail sentences.
They explain and support why Anna is an excellent student.
Here are the three detailed sentences of our example paragraph
She is intelligent. She
is responsible.
Anna always does her homework, and she is never late for class. Do you see how these three detail sentences
explain the topic sentence? Because they tell us why Anna is an excellent student.
The last part of a paragraph is the conclusion sentence. This sentence reminds us of the main idea.
The conclusion sentence and our example paragraph about Anna is:
As a result of her hard wor,k, Anna is one of the best students in school.
This sentence reminds us of the topic sentence that Anna is an excellent student.
The meanings of these two sentences are similar.
But we need to use different words in the conclusion sentence than we use in the topic sentence. Do you see how they're similar?
The topic sentence (Anna is an excellent student) and
the conclusion sentence that reminds us of the topic (As a result of her hard work,
Anna is one of the best students in school).
Our paragraph practice for today is complete. I
Hope this video helped you understand what a paragraph is and how to identify each part of a paragraph. Thank you for watching!