Exploring How Authors Use Topic Sentences in Expository (Informational) Text

Our findings:

• Table of Contents- lets you know how the paragraphs are related
• Bold letters- important words
• Different lengths of sentences in a paragraph
• Opinions based on facts
• More than one paragraph on a page
• Include true facts
• Makes the reader feel like they are living in your writing
• Draw in readers/ audience
• Pictures help you better visualize the paragraphs
• Show then tell using pictures/ captions/ references to figures
• Important facts
• Long paragraphs can be divided into smaller paragraphs 
• Sometimes paragraphs look different like written in a comic form
• Diagrams, pictures, tables, charts, graphs, etc  help show what you're trying to tell in the paragraphs by adding information.
• Headings can have more than one paragraph on different pages.
• Topic/Main idea sentence

A paragraph has two jobs.

1. To tell you what you'll be reading about
2. Add details that help you tell it

Watch this video to learn more about how topic paragraphs are constructed.

Organizing our Informational Articles

Let's think about the structure of an informational article.  In all our mentor texts, we noticed that the structure falls into these categories:

Let's look at your research and begin organizing your article by completing a flowchart.  In google docs, open your draft then create a table and type the flowchart.

Review the research on your index cards.  Jot notes/ideas in the flow chart.  It is not necessary to cite anything or write complete sentences at this point.  Our purpose is to organize our thoughts.

Let's organize!

Researching and Taking Notes

After you've selected your topic and headings, it's time to research the answers to your questions.  Some things to keep in mind.

• Document what you've found.  Be sure to tell the location of the source (book, website-National Geographic, video) and then then the source (author, website address, video address). Below is an example of a note card.

• Make sure your source is reliable.  Stick to a .org, .edu, or .net. If you use a .com, make sure it's reliable.  Can you find the information in at least 3 other sources?  Is the date current? Does the author have quality experience?  

• Take lots of notes.  Use "quotation marks" if you are quoting an author word for word.  Do you need to do this?  Why are you quoting?  Paraphrase short pieces of information and summarize long pieces.  Click here to learn the difference.  Try to have all your research COMPLETE by Friday.  

Informational Research - Possible Headings

Animals

• What do they eat?
• Where do they live? (habitat)
• How do they defend themselves?
• What do they look like? (Physical characteristics)
• How many are there? Are they endangered? 

Famous Person

• Their life when they were younger? Where were they born/grew up? 
• Why are they important? 
• What did they do that affected their country/the world? 
• Decisions/ consequences they've made

Country

•   Characteristics of the land (mountains/ lakes/ rivers/jungle/coastal etc.)
• Government 
•  Economy
• Native People
• Natural Resources
• Conflicts 
• Religion
• Tourism/Fun
• Native Animals
• Global Connections (how do they interact with the world?)
• How do they travel/communicate?
• Challenges they face

Diseases  

• What is it? 
• How does it affect you?
• How does it spread?
• Major Outbreaks 
• Is in undercontrol or out of control currently?
• How is it treated?

Informational Report Planning

Think of a topic you'd like to research and write an informational report about.  We'd like to stay in the theme of Africa so ideas may stem from one of the categories:

• Country 
• Animals
• Endangered Animals
• Tribes and Traditions
• Diseases
• Famous People

Be ready to choose a topic by tomorrow.