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ELA 4: Complete Sentences
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In this lesson we'll subject you to some verbs and predicates. Each one is a necessary part of a complete breakfas—er...sentence.

ELA 4: Word Choice
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Choosing words carefully is important. You may end up vexing the assemblage of citizens you're conversing with...or you might even just plain bore...

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ELA 4: Building a Good Biographical Body Paragraph 167 Views


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Description:

Every body paragraph should start off with a good topic sentence. Not to be confused with a Hot Topic sentence...which should only be used in paragraphs related to skating and t-shirts with 90s cartoon characters on them.

Language:
English Language

Transcript

00:04

[Coop and Dino singing]

00:13

Look at the cover of any celebrity gossip magazine – y'know, the ones your Aunt Mildred [Woman holding People magazine]

00:18

is totally obsessed with – and you'll no doubt see something about

00:21

so-and-so celebrity's beach body.

00:23

Getting your beach bod ready for summer isn't easy – especially after a holiday season

00:27

of turkey dinners and pumpkin pies. [Man clutching stomach and collapses]

00:28

Thankfully, today we're going to be talking about getting a different sort of body in

00:32

shape – your biographical body paragraph.

00:35

First, we need to choose a main idea from the introduction paragraph.

00:39

Hopefully, our first paragraph outlined our main points, so now all we have to do is pick [Main points highlighted in paragraph body]

00:43

one and make that the topic sentence for this body paragraph.

00:46

If our first paragraph didn’t outline our main points…then it’s going to be back

00:50

to the drawing board.

00:51

Uh…no. That’s the wall. Our mother is going to be furious. [Boy drawing on the wall and mother appears angry]

00:54

Once we’ve nailed down our topic sentence, all that's left to do is expand our paragraph

00:59

using interesting and relevant information that we learned from our research.

01:02

And how do we know if information is relevant? Because we have our topic sentence!

01:07

If it relates to the topic sentence, it's likely a good match for our paragraph.

01:11

So…if our topic sentence has to do with the vanishing rain forests, and we came across [Rain falling in rainforest]

01:15

a source that supports the claim that flossing is important…

01:18

…uh, probably not relevant.

01:20

If, on the other hand, our research turns up something rain forest related…we’re totally good.

01:25

A great way to get a sense of how a good body paragraph should look [Boy walking in library]

01:28

is by checking out some examples.

01:30

Find a body paragraph from a biography of your choosing

01:32

and analyze it so see what makes it so great. [Boy checks out book in library]

01:35

Take this one, about Albert Einstein.

01:40

The topic sentence in this paragraph tells us that Albert shared his research.

01:43

That's the focus of the paragraph.

01:45

From there, it goes on to give supporting evidence describing the response to his letters [Supporting evidence highlighted in paragraph]

01:49

from scholarly journals and colleagues.

01:51

The last sentence concludes the paragraph by discussing how this allowed him to spend

01:56

his days doing what he loved. Playing field hockey.

01:59

Uh…wait. No…all that imagining and thinking stuff. Yeah. [Einstein playing field hockey]

02:02

Anyway, everything in this paragraph works well together, which is what makes it so strong.

02:07

The topic sentence introduces the idea, the supporting details develop it, and the conclusion

02:11

summarizes the paragraph nicely, too.

02:13

The next time you write a biographical body paragraph, go through it just like we did

02:17

here, and ask yourself if the topic sentence, supporting sentence and concluding sentences [Coop discussing a biographical body paragraph]

02:21

all do the jobs they're supposed to do.

02:23

If the answer is yes, you've likely written a stellar body paragraph.

02:27

But hopefully you’ve written that stellar paragraph on some type of computer, or paper.

02:31

You’re starting to run out of wall space…[Girl walks into room of writing on the wall]

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