Writing Class Note

Classroom Note 1: Paragraph

Features that Consist on a Good Paragraph [Personal Point of View]

·         Easy to be understood by the reader

·         To the point

·         Structured

·         Formality

·         Technical rules

·         Relevancy

Features that Consist on a Good Paragraph [Class Point of View]

·         It has a topic sentence.

·         It has supporting sentences.

·         The topic sentence and the supporting sentences have to be related.

·         There is only one topic in a paragraph.

Four Features of a Paragraph [Great Writing 2: Great Paragraphs]

·         A paragraph has a topic sentence.

·         All of the sentences in a paragraph are about one topic.

·         The first line of a paragraph is indented.

·         The last sentence, or concluding sentence, brings the paragraph to a logical conclusion.

Classroom Note 2: Developing Ideas for Writing a Paragraph

            The important thing to develop our ideas for writing a paragraph is brainstorming. After brainstorming, we will consider which parts should be used and which ones shouldn’t, or we call it mind mapping.

Lastly, the thing that should we do is writing the paragraph. It’s important for us to make an ideas map before starting to write down our ideas into a paragraph.

Classroom Note 3: Topic Sentence

Features of a good topic sentence (Great Writing 2: Great Paragraphs Page 47):

·         It controls or guides the whole paragraph.

·         A good topic sentence is not a general fact that everyone accepts as true.

·         A good topic sentence is specific but also not too specific.

The ideal topic sentence controls the whole paragraph by including controlling ideas in the sentence. Here is the example of controlling ideas:

Crosswords puzzles are not only educational and fun but also addictive.

main idea                                 controlling ideas

Classroom Note 4: Definition Paragraph

            Definition paragraph is purposed to define something so that readers will understand about something’s meaning. Here is the ideas map of a definition paragraph titled “Gossip” from Great Writing 2: Great Paragraphs page 102.

Classroom Note 5: Opinion Paragraph

·         This type of paragraph is purposed to express writer’s opinion.

·         Including valid data in the paragraph is required to strengthen the opinion, such as studies, examples, news, or experts’ opinion.