Lesson 11 — Activity 1: Providing Support for the Main Idea



One more review for you:

Paragraphs have the following:

  • Topic sentence: a statement about your main idea
  • Body: several sentences that support or explain your main idea
  • Concluding (or clincher) sentence: a statement that reviews your main idea


You’ve learned that the topic sentence and the concluding sentence are very important because they state the main point.

The body of the paragraph has to be effective in supporting or explaining your main point. If it is not, your reader will not have any reason to think about the message you are trying to communicate.

You have looked at some general ways that you can organize the body of your paragraph. Now you will see how you develop the body of your paragraph to support your main idea.

Think once more about a paragraph being like a hamburger.



 
Key terms should be defined.
Here are some techniques you can try to make sure that your topic has enough support to convince the reader that your point is accurate:

  • Define key terms that the reader needs to know to be sure that the information in the paragraph makes sense.
  • Give an example that explains the topic.
  • Look at the reasons or causes for the situation you are writing about.
  • Find facts or statistics that support your point.
  • Tell a story from personal experience that relates to the topic.
  • Think of ways to use comparisons or contrasts to illustrate your ideas.
  • Use a quote from a well-known authority on your topic.


A quotation from an expert or a famous person will add to your paragraph.

Images courtesy of www.imagesgoogle.com



Brett on the ice.
Brett looked once more at his paragraph about his love for hockey. He decided to add some further support for his main idea by including a statistic that he learned about hockey by researching online.

Hockey has been my passion since I was five years old. I was first introduced to the sport curled up beside my father, watching Hockey Night in Canada. Later that winter, we went to the local arena to watch our town's team play in the championship game. I started playing hockey myself the next year and have been playing ever since. I am now in bantam and this year our team has played great. I read that in 2011, there were over 600,000 kids playing hockey in Canada! Hockey is a fantastic sport and I’m so glad I started playing.



You can see the extra idea Brett included in the highlighted text above.


Remember!
Stating your point is not enough: the body of your paragraph needs to tell, describe, persuade, or explain the main idea so that your reader will understand your message clearly.