ABSTRACT
Ah, “the main idea and supporting details.” Students could generally care less about this important concept and hence the teaching of how to write a coherent paragraph can be frustrating. A solution? Have students diagram or map an existing paragraph by placing the idea or topic in a box and writing the supporting examples in dangling boxes below (refer back to Appendix Figure A.6). Then with the paragraph out of sight, ask them to rewrite the paragraph from the diagram. Some of their work may even be an improvement on the original. Practice this several times and then have them write their own paragraphs and practice the mapping process on these. The results in organized written thinking should be impressive.
