and the Nim's Island movie
. What was handed in consisted of two long paragraphs when it should have been broken down into several paragraphs, although I reviewed that a new idea or subject requires a new paragraph before the writing began. My student thought that anything written about the book was one idea and one paragraph, and anything written about the movie is another idea and paragraph.Even though I write for a web site professionally, I wasn't effectively teaching the concept of how to know when to start a new paragraph. Worse yet, after decades of "just knowing" when to start a paragraph, I could not come up with another way to teach this.
I did some research to get help with teaching about paragraphs, and found Purdue's Online Writing Lab's On Paragraphs to be a great resource to help with explaining paragraphs. Homeschool teachers can translate this information to the appropriate grade level for their students, while older students can use it as a refresher when needed. On Paragraphs is printable, and check out the Purdue OWL resources for grades 7-12 for more writing resources and instructional material.
