Off the top of your head, what do you remember having been taught about the topic sentence?

I should have listed this request down in the education forum, but I was afraid it might have been overlooked.

My freshmen have been working on increasing their writing fluency this year. Although we work on nitty-gritty grammar problems (and mysteries), these students haven't had to worry about writing topic sentences. However, we will focus very much on formal essay paragraph structure during February, and I'm trying to figure out lots of different ways to approach this most certainly dreaded terrain in which the students must discipline their thinking.

The topic sentence is taught in a variety of sometimes contradictory ways. I've been surfing the Web all morning and have found several contradictions, which are actually fun to come across. But one thing is evident: topic sentences are here to stay and professors are frustrated when reading papers in which students have written poorly-constructed topic sentences. One writer on the Web wrote that topic sentences are like traffic signs through the terrain of an essay. I thought that was pretty good. Highway markers may have been an even better image.

Anyway, if any of you could jot down a thought or two about what you recall about learning to write a clear topic sentence, I will read here with interest and will report to my freshmen the writers on 'the word board,' as I refer to it, have written.

Dear WW: while hoping to avoid being nonPC, do you remember
the old Afro-American preacher's description of his sermons:
"I tells 'em what I'm going to tell them, I tells them, and then I tells 'em what I told 'em."

what do you remember having been taught about the topic sentence?
1.) That it's the first sentence in the paragraph.
2.) That it tells the reader what the rest of the paragraph will be about.

> what do you remember...

Nuthink, I am afraid, Miss ~ my edumification was probably scandalously remiss in such structural post-facto analysis.

Since it still means little to me now apart from Jackie and Bill's clues, my lookup tells me this:

The topic sentence is a sentence that sets out the main idea or topic of a paragraph. It is often the first sentence especially when arguing a point where it may well be followed by further information, examples etc.. If the writing is exploring a point, it frequently comes as the last sentence, drawing a conclusion from the argument.

http://www.usingenglish.com/glossary/topic-sentence.html

It seemed a pretty clear description without being overly precriptive about positioning and so on - what think others?

When I said it's the first sentence in the paragraph, I was thinking of the students she'll be teaching: ones who, by and large, have very little knowledge of "official" English. That is indeed what I first learned; it was only later, after we had mastered the idea, that it was explained to us that being first wasn't always necessarily so.

For me, the best way to understand topic sentences was to see really good examples in action. You should also talk about the different kinds of TS -- a TS that presents an already mentioned point for further inspection versus the "change of direction" TS ("Another way that the author demonstrates this is through..."). I think mastering the latter is particularly important. My essays always were criticized as making abrupt transitions or jumping from point to point until I mastered that type of TS.

[EDIT] Oh, another thing I just remembered. It really helped me when a teacher told me to write the whole essay first, then add in the TSs at the end. This can also help clear up more meta- structural problems with the overall essay. Of course, this is only a reasonable approach if the writing is being done on a computer, but perhaps you could just have them leave a few lines blank at the start of each 'graf to fill in a TS later (Jackie is right about the "put it first for now, get tricky later" theory).

a teacher told me to write the whole essay first, then add in the TSs at the end.

Yeah, kinda like writing the opera first and the overture after everything else has been written.

yeah, I allus write the mission statement once I've got the marketing report drafted ;)

Who was it said the mission statement usually boils down to:

All Babies Must Eat.

?


Then there's always http://www.dilbert.com/comics/dilbert/games/career/bin/ms.cgi

We strive to competently administrate mission-critical technology while continuing to dramatically restore principle-centered content for 100% customer satisfaction

Thanks, bro, that saved hours of sweat! :)

write the whole essay first, then add in the TSs at the end
I think this is an excellent idea for beginning writers. Most kids know what they want to say--that's not usually the problem (if they're even halfway interested in the topic, that is). As I used to try and get across to my son, it isn't enough that the student knows the material--he has to be able to tell others what he knows. Same with peoples' thoughts--others have to be able to understand what they're trying to say.
I think it could be really, really helpful to some kids if they were given the freedom to put their thoughts down however they think them, and then be made to go back and pick out what goes together and what doesn't, and organize them. They could then create topic sentences, or perhaps might find that they had one already but hadn't realized it.

As to creating a mission statement: I should think you'd get far more "points" for having one that "matches" the report!

And then there are mystery novels: I've never written one, but I should imagine that most authors figure out first how the mystery is going to be resolved, rather than build up and up to it and THEN try to think of a way out.

I always write my lesson plans after class...

LOL, eta ~ must remember to pass this tip onto my wife!

For the purposes of the evaluation my kids will go through in March, they really do need to learn how to set up their well-defined topics before plunging in and writing their paragraphs. The problem for the kids is learning the relationship between the paragraph body and the topic sentence that starts that body in what is called a 'loose paragraph' structure (i.e., topic sentence followed by supporting sentences). Too many students seem to think that by writing a narrative is ample. Too many seem to think that if they tell what happened first, second and last, they've told enough to answer any question.

Essentially, what a student writes about in the paragraph would be the topic part of the topic sentence. The word what takes on a lot of significance here--and it is simple to understand. However, if the students don't know what they're going to write about, they will (at this age) write about the washer and the dryer and the candlestick maker. If what the student is writing about is 'the problem with laundry appliances,' that clearly defined topic will keep him from writing about the candlestick maker. I use this as a broad example, but there is truth here. When students set out writing before they limit their thinking to a specific topic, their paragraphs end up meandering all over the place while they tell anecdotes and finally hit upon a point that they'd like to make. This kind of meandering and narrative freedom leads to very poorly written paragraphs.

Meandering does have its place. We do an open writing exercise each class. In fact, the open writing exercise begins the session in English 9. I usually play very slow music in the background, soften the lights, provide plenty of unlined paper, and the students write for 15 to 20 minutes about any topic they wish. Those who can't think of something to explore can use a topic I suggest on the board. For instance, we've exam week looming ahead of us next week, so the suggested topic today was: "Examination Study Strategies." But most of the kids like writing about other things they want to get off their minds before moving into the lesson. This unedited and very loose structure allows them to develop fluency and positive attitudes toward writing. I always tell them that I enjoy their free writing exercises very much because I get to know them.

The goal, however, is very different in working toward developing a formal essay. Although the free writing (meandering) exericise is a good way to open up thoughts, the writing would have to be reorganized into workable paragraphs with relatively stringent requirements in order to be turned into a formal essay. These essays take a lot of careful thinking--and it feels like painful work to some of my students.

To write a cohesive, well-structured paragraph with pertinent supporting arguments, examples and explanations takes at least as much mental effort as working out equations. The problem is, as I see it, is language is so much a part of what we do and how we think that many of the students I teach don't realize how very, very hard it is to turn casual language and casual thoughts into well-disciplined ones. Ah, me. But there's joy, too, when writing a formal argument out as well as you can--even if someone else might formulate equally impressive counter arguments. It's the careful mapping out of thoughts that's the exciting thing here.

I like Jackie's idea of writing the topic sentence after writing the supporting sentences in the paragraph as long as the student is very, very clear about what he is going to write about and what his point is in writing the paragraph. If he wants to show how a certain species of animal has very unusual feeding habits, he at least needs to jot down: unusual feeding habits of the anteater. Without some kind of cage to put the paragraph into--some kind of confinement of topic--suddenly all kinds of other animals might appear in that paragraph. But to write the supporting sentences and then to go back labor over a strong topic sentence might work with my kids. And I'll try your strategy, Jackie, with a slight modification. Thanks for the idea.