W04 Writing Lesson: Body Paragraph

Introduction 

By now, you should have received feedback from your instructor on your first writing assignment where, in a basic paragraph, you answered the question, “Why am I enrolled in PathwayConnect?” Hopefully you will be able to apply that feedback to improve your writing on your upcoming Basic Essay Assignment (due at the end of Week 5). As a reminder, the prompt for that assignment is:

In last week’s Writing Lesson, you learned about the basic components of an introductory paragraph—the hook and the thesis. In last week’s Writing Practice, you also had the opportunity to:

• Select which prompt question you would like you engage with for this assignment.
• Write a thesis statement in response to that question.

Now that you’ve settled on your prompt question and thesis statement, you can begin working on the body of your paper. That is what this week’s Writing Lesson will help you to do.

Lesson

The good news is the components of the body paragraph will feel very familiar to you. That is because they are essentially the same components as the basic paragraph that you learned how to write in the W02 Writing Lesson.

As a reminder, the basic paragraph has four parts:

1. Single controlling idea
2. Topic sentence
3. Supporting details
4. Concluding sentence

The body paragraph has the same four parts with the following two adaptations:

1. The single controlling idea of each body paragraph ties back to the thesis statement (or controlling idea of the essay)
2. The conclusion sentence serves not only as a conclusion, but as a transition as well

This means that the four parts of the body paragraph become:

1. Single controlling idea that ties back to the thesis
2. Topic sentence
3. Supporting details
4. Concluding/Transition sentence

Parts of the Body Paragraph

Single Controlling Idea that Ties Back to the Thesis Statement

The first thing a solid body paragraph needs to do is focus in on one controlling idea—one that directly ties back to the thesis statement of the paper. While the basic paragraph only requires a controlling idea specific to that paragraph’s content, any body paragraph in an essay must always take into account what the thesis statement (or controlling idea of the essay) is and what role the controlling idea of that specific paragraph will play within its context.

To illustrate, let’s return to the example discussed last week. If you’ll remember, that example was based on the following prompt question:

What is one thing you can change in your life in order to allow the Holy Ghost to be a more central part of your learning?

Based on that prompt, the example thesis statement became:

One thing I could change in my life to make the Holy Ghost a more central part of my learning would be to study my scriptures before logging into Canvas each morning.

This thesis statement only mentions one change the writer will make: study scriptures before logging in to Canvas. This means that the writer will only need one body paragraph to explain this single change. In other words, since the thesis statement, or controlling idea of the whole essay, only has one element in it, the essay only needs one body paragraph to discuss that one change. This will likely be the case for your Reflective Essay because all of the prompt questions only call for you to share one thing.

In the future, you will be asked to write about more than one thing. This means your future essays will need more than one body paragraph. Look at the following example:

In the Ponder and Record exercise above, you probably deduced that the thesis statement outlines three controlling ideas. They are:

• Studying the scriptures
• Praying for guidance
• Keeping the commandments

This means that, according to this thesis, this particular essay would have three body paragraphs—one focused on each of the three controlling ideas.

Moving forward, as you examine your prompt questions and create thesis statements, allow the number of controlling ideas you outline to be your guide. This will help you determine how many body paragraphs you will have and what each of those body paragraphs will focus on.

Topic Sentence

As you learned in your W02 Writing Lesson on the basic paragraph, the purpose of the topic sentence is to indicate what controlling idea that paragraph is going to explore. With the body paragraph, the purpose of the topic sentence is no different.

As mentioned in the section above, the only thing that changes in the body paragraph is the fact that its controlling idea (the idea enumerated by the topic sentence of that paragraph) must tie back to the thesis statement of the paper, while still serving its purpose of showing what the controlling idea of that particular paragraph will be.

Let’s return to our example thesis statement to illustrate:

One thing I could change in my life to make the Holy Ghost a more central part of my learning would be to study my scriptures before logging into Canvas each morning.

With this as the thesis statement of the introductory paragraph, the topic sentence of the subsequent body paragraph might be:

Both the promises of latter-day prophets as well as my own personal experience have taught me that regular scripture study is a sure way of inviting the Holy Ghost to be a more central part of any learning process.

Notice how the topic sentence strengthens the thesis statement while also creating the controlling idea and supporting details for that body paragraph? It is clear that scripture study will be the controlling idea of this paragraph (as illustrated by the thesis), but it is also clear that this controlling idea will be supported by details centered on the expert testimony of the prophets as well as the personal experience of the writer.

Supporting Details

You’ll remember from your lesson on the basic paragraph that there are four basic types of supporting details you could use to support the controlling idea of your paragraph:

• Facts
• Expert testimony
• Statistics
• Personal experiences

The body paragraph is no different. The same types of supporting details will work. Much like with your basic paragraph assignment, your Basic Essay assignment also requires you to use two different types of supporting details in your body paragraph that directly support your controlling idea. If you are unsure of what that might look like, let’s return to our example topic sentence:

Both the promises of latter-day prophets as well as my own personal experience have taught me that regular scripture study is a sure way of inviting the Holy Ghost to be a more central part of any learning process.

The topic sentence above indicates that the expert testimony of “latter-day prophets” as well as a personal experience of the writer will serve as the two different supporting details for this paragraph. In application, these two supporting details might look like the following within this body paragraph:

• Expert Testimony.
  • Several latter-day prophets have spoken of the blessings of regular scripture study when it comes to learning. President Gordon B. Hinckley promised that the minds of those who read their scriptures would be “enlightened and [their] spirits ...lifted.” President Howard W. Hunter pointed out that out of all of the types of study, scripture study was the “most profitable of all study in which we could engage.” President Ezra Taft Benson likewise noted that “when individuals and families immerse themselves in the scriptures regularly and consistently, other areas of activity will come...[and] personal revelation will flow.” Based on these promises, there can be no question that regular scripture study will invite the Holy Ghost to enhance my learning if I remain committed to it.
• Personal Experience.
  • My own personal experience has provided me with an equally strong testimony of the power scripture study has to invite the Holy Ghost into my learning experience. Back in high school when I attended early-morning seminary, I worried a lot about how my lack of sleep and additional homework/scripture study would impact my academic grades. I was sure my GPA would suffer. I was so surprised when the opposite actually happened. Though I was running on less sleep and study time than in any years previous, my grades had never been higher. I knew that was the direct result of the help of the Holy Ghost I had been blessed with due to my faithful scripture study.

Concluding/Transition Sentence

The final section of the body paragraph is the concluding/transition sentence. While similar to the simple concluding sentence of the basic paragraph,

As you learned in the Concluding Sentence section of your W02 Writing Lesson, this sentence should not be a simple restatement of the topic sentence. Rather, it should be a brief summary of how the supporting details shared throughout the paragraph support the controlling idea of that paragraph. The same is true of the concluding/transition sentence with this small addition-- this sentence can also serve as a link back to the thesis statement (the controlling idea of the essay) as well.

Let’s return to our example to illustrate. Based on all of the example sentences shared in this lesson so far, the body paragraph for this particular essay prompt (with its topic sentence and two different supporting details) might look like the following:

Based on the paragraph above, a possible concluding/transition sentence might be:

Notice how this sentence provides a sense of completion in terms of the controlling idea and supporting details shared throughout the paragraph? Do you also see how the sentence transitions the reader from the controlling idea of that paragraph back to the controlling idea—or thesis statement—of the entire essay (in other words, scripture study fostering the companionship of the Holy Ghost)?