Writing

It’s important to give your paragraph a title. Which topic did you choose? That will help you come up with a title.

Do you remember the example opinion paragraph we looked at together? The topic was saving the neighborhood park. The title was "Our Park."

Give your paragraph a title.

We need to begin our paragraph with a topic sentence. This sentence states the topic - your opinion. Let’s take a look at the topic sentence from "Our Park."

South Lincoln Park should not be closed down.

Now it’s your turn! Introduce your opinion by writing your topic sentence.

Now it’s time to add the reasons and explanations that you wrote on your graphic organizer. You should have at least two reasons. These will help you build the body of your paragraph.

Let’s take a look at the park paragraph again.

The park has been a part of our community for over 80 years. Families have so may memories at this park. Future generations should be able to enjoy it too. All our park needs is a little love to bring it back to life. We should work together to clean up the park and raise money to buy new playground equipment. If we all work together, we can make a big difference and bring our park back.

It’s your turn! Write the body of your paragraph. Use the information you wrote on your graphic organizer to help you. Remember, this is your rough draft, so it doesn’t have to be perfect yet.

Let’s wrap up your opinion paragraph by writing your closing sentence. You are reminding the reader what your paragraph was about, and telling them why they should agree.

Take a look at how the park paragraph was closed.

Let’s work together to fix our park instead of closing it down.

The closing sentence reminded us that the paragraph was about saving the park. The reader hopes to convince his town to work together and save the park instead of shutting it down.

Think about how you want to end your paragraph and add your closing sentence.

You cite evidence to help explain your thinking. You are answering the question “How do I know?” Citing textual evidence requires you to look back into the text for evidence to support an idea, answer a question, or make a claim. Sometimes when you are writing an opinion paragraph, you may want to add evidence from a text that helps to support your opinion. When you are writing your paragraph, you should name the text when you refer to it and use a combination of direct and indirect citations. A direct citation is when you use the exact words taken from an original source in their writing. An indirect citation is when you use your own words, but the ideas or facts come from the original source.

Click on each writing sample to see if it is an indirect or direct citation.

Here are some questions you can ask yourself to help guide you with citing text evidence.

• Where in the text is that mentioned?

• What evidence in the text supports your answer?

• Where in the illustrations, photographs, diagrams, maps, etc. is that supported?

• Which key details led you to your conclusion?

As you work on the rough draft for your opinion paragraph this week, be sure to cite any evidence you add using indirect or direct citations.