Adapted from Mr
Paragraph Construction
Adapted from Mr. Leal…
Cee…. I’m right…
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Claim – Topic Sentence
Evidence- (examples, statistics, anecdotes, information…)
Explanation- of how the Evidence proves that Claim is true
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Claim - Mr. Kortman is mentally unstable.
Evidence – After class yesterday, Mr. Kortman was sitting in a corner rocking back and forth. Also, he seemed to be muttering to himself incessantly.
Explanation – For the average adult, this behavior demonstrates that one is not well mentally and emotionally. If one is mentally and emotionally stable, they are able to control such involuntary movements. Usually people who behave this way are put into psychiatric care. If they are teachers, they are relieved of their duties.
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Claim - Mr. Kortman dominates on the basketball court.
Evidence – One of the regulars on the school court explained that Mr. Kortman scored 41 points including ten three-pointers. Moreover, he blocked fifteen shots.
Explanation – Scoring 41 points is an accomplishment for any player let alone during a 15 minute lunch break game. Additionally, it’s important to also play defense. Although Mr. Kortman was playing against students half his size, the number of blocked shots indicates that he can dominate at the defensive end.
Set-up - Gives the context for your quotation / evidence
- C: Simba matures physically, but, more importantly, he has grown emotionally over the course of the story.
- S: At the end of the story,
- E: Simba confronts Scar and the evil hyenas.
- E: Though it is significant that Simba confronts his enemies physically, it is more important that he no longer runs from his problems but faces up to his mistakes of the past. He admits to the truth of his father’s death, accepting responsibility in a new and healthy manner. Furthermore, he demonstrates his inherently heroic nature by confronting the enemies of his civilization in a way others have been unable to.
Ozymandias- Shelly
Claim–Shelly’s poem teaches us that we must live in the now for nothing will remain when we are gone.
Set-up – In Shelly’s famous poem, “Ozymandias”, a traveler looks over a statue of a once great pharaoh and remarks,
Evidence – “boundless and bare, / the lone and level sands stretch far away” (781).
Explanation– The pharaoh that the statue depicts attempted to cement his legacy by building a monument to himself that would look eternally over the civilization that he created as a testament to his power. The statue, along with the civilization itself, decayed as all things must and the irony of his attempt at immortality became clear for the narrator and reader alike. The decay of a once great civilization shows that nothing in the future can be counted on, so the theme of the poem in its assertion of living in the present is made clear.