TEACHING PARAGRAPHING | ENGL 600 | 6 March 2017

1. Hands-on activity, based on Erika Lindemann, A Rhetoric for Writing Teachers, p. 156.
With partners, have students examine natural, real-life paragraphs. Discuss why writers or
speakers are grouping materials in these ways. What sorts of signals are being sent to the
reader/listener? What purposes does indentation (white space) serve in the text? [See model
paragraphs attached to this PDF. Each partnership will have one paragraph.]
If time allows, use the technique that Francis Christensen develops in Notes toward a New
Rhetoric (1978) to diagram subordinate and coordinate relationships in your paragraph.
[Project diagramming examples from Lindemann, pp. 153-54.] Does your paragraph follow the
inverted-pyramid, triangle, diamond, or hourglass patterns? [Again, project examples.]
Ill ask for two or three pairings briefly to share their paragraphs and notations.
2. [IF TIME] Working individually or with a partner, consider the sentence that you have been
given. [See sentences attached to this PDF.] Would your instinct be to place the sentence at the
beginning or end of the paragraph keeping in mind that you must use this sentence, verbatim,
somewhere in the writing? Does subordination or coordination make the most sense in
paragraph development?
If time allows, work individually or with a partner to draft a paragraph again, using the
provided sentence and analyze the paragraphing strategies that you chose.
Ill ask for one or two, if time allows, briefly to share their paragraphs.
3. Working with a partner, discuss the question that you are assigned. After five to 10 minutes,
well collect ourselves for a group conversation.
List of questions (one set assigned randomly to each student pair)
Given that writers typically dont compose paragraphs as textbooks tell us to (p. 148)
that is, using a topic sentence and preconceived means of development how do we
guide writing students, minus any clear structure, in achieving coherence at the
paragraph level?
What activities, modeling, peer review, or teacher guidance might be useful in having
students work toward complex internal relationships within a paragraph (p. 149)?
Consider the writing that we ask students to do in ENGL 203: literature review,
evaluation of sources, discussion of methods and results, persuasion.
Do all paragraphs make promises? Do these promises have to come at the beginning of a
paragraph? Do we need to keep these promises in mind while writing each paragraph?
How could this promise-keeping idea about paragraph development help students, say,
in a research assignment?
What influences have the famed five-paragraph essay format had on students? How
can we as writing instructors begin to encourage experimentation and some resistance to
the paragraphing encouraged in the five-paragraph and the related SAT and ACT
models? What structures can we offer to guide paragraph development?
Can William Irmschers metaphor of a writer sculpting (p. 150) a paragraph and
finding form while sculpting, rather than building a paragraph brick by brick, offer
students a process for forming paragraphs? Going further with this idea, how do we
teach paragraphing and not paragraphs (p. 151)?
 How do we help students develop awareness of their tacit knowledge (p. 152) of
subordination and coordination? What techniques will help students move from spoken
discourse to the rich, connected discourse of the paragraph?
Imagine that you are assigned to teach a developmental writing course, titled The
Paragraph. How do you imagine the content and sequencing of this class? How would
you shape the writing assignments? What would be the means of assessing how students
are making progress in their paragraphing skills?
Framing sentences for draft paragraph activity
These sentences may appear anywhere in the paragraph, but you must use them verbatim, in
their entirety.

Scenes like these turn characters into garbage that the hero has to bag up and toss.

Too bad she has to share it.

A young man wades through a flooded area, then drops in on a house full of friends, or perhaps
relatives.

He wallows in grief and survivors guilt, as well as anger, much of which is directed at God.

They should do what Santa Ana, California, has done.

Id like to go back to college and get a masters or Ph.D. and become a college teacher.

The odor was terrible, but I got used to it.

How do I feel about my work?

But for now, many are fighting arrest.

I can go shopping alone most of the time, pretty well assured that I will not be followed or
harassed.

I am never asked to speak for all the people of my racial group.

Each of the variables creates elements of shared experience that spawn shared beliefs and
values.

Being competent in multiple ways serves everyone.

We are happy to have you join us for one of our over 200 annual live performances.

Education is learning what you didnt even know you didnt know.

There is no social-change fairy.

 Congressional Record
E PL
UR M
IB NU
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U
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115 th CONGRESS, FIRST SESSION

United States
of America PROCEEDINGS AND DEBATES OF THE

Vol. 163 WASHINGTON, WEDNESDAY, MARCH 1, 2017 No. 36

House of Representatives
The House met at 10 a.m. and was also known as El Sexto, was arrested faces. Will they be brave enough to do
called to order by the Speaker pro tem- for writing hes gone on a wall after so, to march with these defenseless la-
pore (Mr. ROTHFUS). Fidel Castros death. dies, or do they just want a junket to
f Mr. Speaker, the Cuban people lack glamorize Cuba?
the most basic of human rights, and Not to mention the many human
DESIGNATION OF SPEAKER PRO they are punished for any sentiment rights abuses that go unreported, Mr.
TEMPORE that is not in accordance with the Cas- Speaker. Instead, the Cuban people
The SPEAKER pro tempore laid be- tro regime. The former administration risk their lives to record abuses, to re-
fore the House the following commu- of this wonderful country failed the port them to outside organizations.
nication from the Speaker: people of Cuba. The Ladies in White, Las Damas de
WASHINGTON, DC, Since the change in the Cuba policy, Blanco, march every Sunday, peace-
March 1, 2017. reports show that the humanitarian fully protesting the unjust and bar-
I hereby appoint the Honorable KEITH J. crisis has only gotten worse on the is- baric imprisonment of dissidents.
ROTHFUS to act as Speaker pro tempore on land. The 2017 Freedom in the World re- Look at these images, Mr. Speaker,
this day. port put out by Freedom House showed and the stories of the women on these
PAUL D. RYAN, that arbitrary arrests were at the high- posters. They are regularly beaten and
Speaker of the House of Representatives. est level in 7 years. The Cuban Com- arrested, yet they continue fighting for
f mission for Human Rights and Na- the freedom of their country. Pro-
MORNING-HOUR DEBATE tional Reconciliation documented a testers like Xiomara de las Mercedes
monthly average of 862 arbitrary deten- Cruz Miranda, who has been in prison
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursu- tions between January and November since last April; or Maria del Carmen
ant to the order of the House of Janu- of last year. Cala Aguilera, in prison since April of
ary 3, 2017, the Chair will now recog- Raul Castro tries to silence the 2015; or Juana Castillo Acosta, who was
nize Members from lists submitted by Cuban people by subjecting human beaten in her own home, and then sen-
the majority and minority leaders for rights defenders, journalists, and tenced to 5 years in house arrest.
morning-hour debate. peaceful protesters to arbitrary arrest There are so many women to high-
The Chair will alternate recognition and short-term detentions. Castro also light, so I will flip the posters.
between the parties, with each party tries to cut any relation between the Here are some other faces and other
limited to 1 hour and each Member opposition and outside groups. names: Yunet, Marieta, Jacqueline,
other than the majority and minority Just last week, Mr. Speaker, Luis Marta, and Aymara Nieto Munoz, right
leaders and the minority whip limited Almagro, the Secretary General of the over here, just a handful of the many
to 5 minutes, but in no event shall de- Organization of American States, the women who are in prison today in Cas-
bate continue beyond 11:50 a.m. OAS, was denied entry to Cuba. He was tros gulags.
f to receive the first Oswaldo Paya Lib- Mr. Speaker, these are just a few of
erty and Life Award. Paya was a the many who are persecuted daily for
HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS IN human rights activist murdered by the opposing the Castro regime. That is
CUBA Castro regime just 5 years ago. their crime. They are simply tossed in
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Almagro was to be presented with the jail in Castros effort to silence the
Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from award by Payas daughter, but the Cas- people. But the Cuban people remain
Florida (Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN) for 5 min- tro regime called this an unaccept- strong in the face of the repressive Cas-
utes. able provocationreceiving an award. tro regime. They do not give up hope of
Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Mr. Speaker, Similarly, the former Education Min- seeing a free and democratic Cuba.
appalling human rights violations take ister of Chile denied entry to Cuba and I see that same hope, Mr. Speaker, in
place in my native homeland of Cuba former Mexican President denied entry the eyes of my constituents, Cuban
on a regular basis and have only gotten to Cuba simply because they planned Americans like me and my family, who
worse in the past few years. Just last to meet with true human rights activ- were given the opportunity to create a
week, the Castro regime sentenced a ists and defenders on the island. life in a countryour countrythat
man to a year in prison. What was his I challenge these U.S. congressional stands for everything that Castro is
crime? He did not watch Fidel Castros delegations that go to Cuba to march against: freedom of speech, assembly,
funeral on the television. And just a with the Ladies in White on any given petition, the rule of law, and democ-
few months ago, Danilo Maldonado, Sunday. Here they are. Here are their racy.
rfrederick on DSKBCBPHB2PROD with HOUSE

b This symbol represents the time of day during the House proceedings, e.g., b 1407 is 2:07 p.m.
Matter set in this typeface indicates words inserted or appended, rather than spoken, by a Member of the House on the floor.

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