Composition: Paragraphing

It dawned upon me when I was teaching this week that students might know what a new paragraph is, but not when it is appropriate to start one.

I was teaching this primary six girl and was speaking to her before the lesson commenced, that she should keep in mind her paragraphs in her Situational Writing piece.  She replied by telling me that she was not sure when to begin one...

I stopped to think.  It seems easy for us to tell students to have paragraphs; do they know exactly when one is needed?  Hmmm...

When we were doing writing in lower primary, writing began by answering simple sentences.  We were told to repeat parts of the sentences in our answers.  If the question went: "Why did John kick the ball?", the answer had to be "John kicked the ball because..."  These days, answers have to be to-the-point.  It should be "He was feeling bored(reason)."  No need to repeat the question.  Copy wrongly and get marks deducted.  NIE's teacher training did not teach me this.  I had to find this out through my stint in tuition teaching about a year into it.  PSLE marking confirmed this fact I found out.

Then composition-writing set its roots in our primary school lives.  We were told to write in three paragraphs, with at least eighty words.  It seemed like a daunting task, but fortunately, we had the help of three or four pictures.

Moving on, it became four pictures, with a minimum of a hundred and twenty words.  At least four paragraphs are needed.  When do you start new paragraphs?  A guide would be to open a new paragraph with a new picture.  Fail to match the number of words?  You'll fail on content, which will carry ten or twelve out of your twenty mark total.

It was a blur for me in upper primary and I cannot seem to recall what it was like in writing then.  These days, primary five and six students write to a single picture, or a short one paragraph description of the situation / gist they are to write about.  The four paragraph minimum remains, but stakes are raised.  Content and language components take twenty marks each for a forty-mark piece of writing.  Students have to write with beautiful language to score well in laguage (more will be written on this part later).

So for a primary five / six student, it means four paragraphs, right?  Can they write less?  NO.  What about writing more paragraphs?  Definately possible!  I mean, you do not have teachers who penalise you for writing 'Too MANY paragraphs", do you?  When do they start new paragraphs then, without the aid of the four pictures??

I did a little search on the Internet and found this article by The Learning Centre too difficult to comprehend for young children.  For myself, I have a few 'cues' to move to a new paragraph when I write.

1.  Length.  There are approxiamtely thirty lines or so on a piece of foolscap.  You leave lines after every line that you write.  That makes it about fifteen writable lines.  Does your paragraph take eight lines?  That is almost half the page!  This is a trap, especially easy to fall into for students with handwriting as messy and big as an unkempt Bid Bird on his bad-hair-day.  Keep paragraphs to at most five or six lines (that is a lot already!).  That can translate into about five to eight reasonably long sentences.

2.  New scene/place/situation.  You are writing about being excited for a trip to the beach.  You write about the things we prepared.  A whole laundry-list of it.  You are going to write about reaching your destination next.  Use a new paragraph.

Or you are writing about falling asleep in class.  E.g.

      "Kerry...  Kerry!"  Miss Maria's shrill-pitched voice suddenly pierced the air and rang like a fire-alarm in my ears.  I shot up in my chair almost instantly, rubbing my bleary eyes while mustering only a meek reply.  Students from 'Primary 6A' tried their hardest to stifle their laughter when they spied drool hanging by a thin thread at the left corner of my mouth.

      "Sleeping in class...  again!"  I was 'sentenced' to detention without trial for committing one of the most vicious crimes in our form teacher's rulebook.  Sigh!  I had to go for recess ten minutes late.  Queues would have long formed by then.  It meant lining in queues as long as the River Nile, and only getting your food two minutes before the bell rang again for the end of recess.

      The ten minutes spent writing lines of "I promise not to fall asleep in class again" seemed like eternity.  Once the signal was given to me by my class monitor for the end of the ten minutes, I sprang, like a spring recoiled to its fullest and released, out of the classroom and cruised down the empty aisles towards canteen.  Determined, I wanted to join the queues at the earliest opportunity and still have enough time for a game of 'Ice-and-Freeze' with my buddies, Frank and Chad.

      The canteen was bursting at its seams. (End of example)

I kept number of lines in check as I write and start new paragraphs when I wanted to explore on a new area in my writing.  Especially the last paragraph in my example, when I reached a new place.

3.  Dialogue.  Some teachers make it a point that dialogue starts on new paragraphs.  Read commercial storybooks and they are written in that way too.  Helps to get you 'out-of-jail' if you forget where to begin a new paragraph after writing a little too much.

4.  Dramatic effect.  You are writing on a cookie stolen from the cookie jar.  You think of possibilities and weigh them in your mind.  Something then catches your attention.  A trail of crumbs.  You decide to follow the lead.  You come to a room and see a shadow on the wall.  You are about to disclose who the culprit is. 

You might wish to start a new paragraph at this point.  Let the reader catch his breath.  Let him predict who it may be.  Your new paragraph can reveal the culprit.  Or you may skilfully write that it was actually some misunderstanding and throw your reader off his feet.  Scores better on content.

Do pick up more books and read.  At each paragraph, ask yourself why there was a need for a new one.  See if they fall under my list of 'cues'.  If you can understand the 'cues' well and use them appropiately, I think you may be on the way to better pensmanship.  Happy writing!