Topic Sentences
A paragraph is a group of related sentences about a single topic. The first sentence in your paragraph is called a topic sentence. The topic sentence introduces the main idea of the paragraph. You are summarizing what you are writing in one sentence.
Supporting Details
Just like tables need legs to stand, paragraphs need details to support it. The next sentences in your paragraph will be the supporting details. Supporting details come right after the topic, and they make up the body of the paragraph. These sentences provide specific details to help develop the main idea of your paragraph. The details can be facts, examples, and information to support the writing. The details in the example are geared toward the topic sentence and provide additional information about what children do to form their own identity.
Textual Evidence
Since you are required to include textual evidence in your writing, let's talk about what that really means. When you provide textual evidence, that means that you are inserting a passage directly from the text that you read into your own writing to support the topic in your paragraph. Even though you are adding in information directly from the text, you don't want to begin with the quote without providing some kind of information to let the readers know what you are doing. Look at some of the sentence starters to help you begin.
Usually the titles of stories aren't as long as the short story in this lesson, but if you haven't introduced the title and author of the work you are providing as evidence, you must do so in the sentence starter. The evidence will provide an example of what your topic is addressing.
Commentary
After you provide the textual evidence, you will want to give your own commentary, or interpretation, to explain what the quote means. It will help to answer the question, "Why is this quote important?" or "How does this evidence support my topic?" You are explaining how the textual evidence you used supports the idea of your topic. Don't forget to use a sentence starter for this part as well. The commentary provides clarification of the quote and connects it with the topic.
Conclusion
Your last sentence is your conclusion. The conclusion should refocus the reader on the topic by tying the evidence and the commentary back to the topic sentence. The conclusion wraps up and closes the paragraph. The concluding sentence reinforces what the topic of the paragraph contains. It needs to show the reader that the paragraph is finished and nothing new is being addressed.