Forming a Body Paragraph

This is your claim, or topic sentence.

Remember that a claim is a statement that can be argued.

For Example: Esperanza demonstrated she was an ungrateful daughter in the first vignette, The House on Mango Street.

After your claim, you need to give your reader background information

Always pretend that you are writing to someone who has no idea what you are talking about.

For example: Esperanza demonstrated she was an ungrateful daughter in the first vignette, The House on Mango Street. In this vignette she explains how disappointed she was in the run down house her parents bought. She points out all of the negative aspects of the house.

In this next layer, you need to get prep for your textual evidence.

Sentence frames:

For example, in the text it says, "TEXUAL EVIDENCE"

According to Esperanza, "TEXUAL EVIDENCE"

The author states, "TEXUAL EVIDENCE"

This is your evidence. You need to provide evidence from the story to prove your claim.

Make sure you are copying the evidence exactly as it is written originally. (including punctuation and spelling)

Make sure to ALWAYS wrap textual evidence in "quotation marks"

For example: Esperanza demonstrated she was an ungrateful daughter in the first vignette, The House on Mango Street. In this vignette she explains how disappointed she was in the run down house her parents bought. She points out all of the negative aspects of the house. For example, the text states, "But the house on Mango Street is not the way they told it at all."

This is the MOST IMPORTANT part of your paragraph.

This is where you explain why the textual evidence proves your claim.

Over explaining is always better than under explaining

After every sentence, ask yourself, "So what?"

Example: This evidence proves that Esperanza is ungrateful because she only focuses her attention on the negative parts of the house. This shows us that she didn’t pay attention to the positive part of owning a house. This also tells us that she didn’t thank her parents. This proves that she is ungrateful.