Ignite Literacy Services

For opinion/argument and informative/explanatory essays

Body paragraphs are the meat of the paper, where students answer the prompt and support their ideas with evidence and commentary.

There are a lot of acronyms to help students remember what to do in body paragraphs (MEAT, OREO, T-BEAR, etc.) and I think whatever works for you in your classroom is fine.

When I taught 5th grade, I used “REC“:

• Reason: topic sentence of body paragraph that directly supports the thesis or claim
• Evidence: cite evidence from the text(s)
• Commentary: your own ideas that explain, expand, analyze, connect, interpret, illustrate, give examples, show relevance, state significance, etc.

Start with the Evidence

After analyzing the prompt so students understand exactly what they need to do in their paper, begin gathering evidence from the text. Have students read with a highlighter (real or digital) so they can read with a purpose, marking any evidence that may be helpful for them to use in their essay. If they are writing opinion/argument essays they could use different colors to differentiate between evidence that supports the different sides of the issue.

Once evidence is gathered, draft a thesis (for informative/explanatory writing) or claim (for opinion/argument writing). This will be stated in the introductory paragraph and will be the focus of the paper.

Then rank the evidence to identify which pieces best supports their thesis or claim.

Teaching Commentary

If writing is the hardest skill we ask students to demonstrate, commentary is the pinnacle of that struggle.

Commentary comes from their heads. When they choose evidence, they need to be able to articulate why and have something to say about it.

A good entry point for teaching commentary is two-column notes. Students can write down a piece of evidence (quote, paraphrase, or summary) in the first column, and then write down the commentary in the second column. This helps to clearly differentiate between the two.

Resources for Teaching Evidence and Commentary

My most-used handout in my classroom was this Commentary and Evidence Stems sheet. We kept it in a page protector and students got it out every time we wrote. Sometimes we got it out to guide our discussions. These come from the book They Say, I Say: The Moves that Matter in Academic Writing (Graff & Birkenstein, 2009) that I highly recommend. It is full of stems specific to the moves you want students to make, and would offer ideas you could tailor to your grade level and writing genre.

Analysis of a teacher model is also very beneficial so students can see specific examples of evidence and commentary along with the way they are structured. Students should be reading and analyzing whatever type of writing you want them to produce.

One reason I like the simple “REC” acronym is because you can teach that students need multiple pieces of evidence and commentary, but they can choose how to structure it. The first body paragraph of the Lion King teacher model shows all the evidence grouped together, followed by all the commentary, while the second body paragraph demonstrates a layering of evidence and commentary, like a lasagna. Yum. Both ways are okay and are a choice students should make based on what is effective for organizing their thoughts.

I would give students a copy of the essay on the second page and three highlighters, one color for the reason (topic sentence), a color for the evidence, and a color for the commentary. After students had a chance to read the essay independently, I would read the body paragraphs aloud, sentence by sentence. We would determine whether each sentence was a reason, evidence, or commentary, and highlight accordingly. There’s a teacher cheat sheet on page 3.

Reason is the topic sentence that directly supports the thesis or claim.

Evidence comes from the text and can be a quote, paraphrase, or summary. When we found a piece of evidence we would discuss and label the type. (Some kids will confuse summary evidence for commentary, so this helps.)

Commentary comes from the head of the author and explains, extends, expands, illustrates, give examples, makes an inference, connects, etc. There are a lot of possibilities and students need to see examples analyzed and you think aloud when you model writing in front of them. Once students have identified a sentence as commentary, you can ask, “What is this piece of commentary doing?” to help them learn the possibilities.

How long does it have to be?

This is a fair question. When I write an article for a magazine or a paper for a college class, there are usually guidelines about lengths.

Don’t Say:	Do Say*:
It has to be five paragraphs with five sentences in each.	It depends on what you have to say to be able to answer the prompt. I’m expecting between two and six body paragraphs. How many reasons do you have to support your thesis/claim? That’s how many body paragraphs you’ll need. Remember that we need multiple pieces of evidence in each paragraph, and our commentary should be twice as long as our evidence.

Students will need the thought process behind structuring a paper modeled over and over throughout the year as you show them how the structure is determined by the ideas that need to be expressed.

The reason we are moving away from the standard five-paragraph essay is because it’s formulaic and we want to start with ideas and then find a way to organize them, rather than forcing our ideas into a set structure.

Also, not all prompts and texts will offer enough points to support three body paragraphs, while some prompts and texts will support more paragraphs than it would be advisable to write. Teacher think aloud and modeling what to do in both situations is critical.

Essay Writing Series

Here are more posts that will help you get started with essay writing ICYMI:

• The Writing Process Explained in Memes
• 5 Types of Writing on the Mississippi State Test
• ChatGPT? Might As Well
• 18 Hook Ideas with Mentor Text
• Choosing the Best Evidence
• Revising
• Writing Conclusions

More posts coming soon about revising and editing, moves to notice and try out in informative writing, and how to write conclusions.

Additional Writing Resources

Here are some excellent resources I’ve collected that will further support your writing instruction.

Text-Dependent Writing Strategies Guide of All Modes of Writing

This comes from the Mississippi Department of Education and is geared towards K-3 but can be adapted to older grades. There are lots more acronyms, graphic organizers, lists of transition words, and strategies for each of the three types of writing (opinion, informative, and narrative).

Teach Write Now: National Writing Project Resource Hub

As a former Writing Project teacher consultant, I love all things NWP. This website contains texts, prompts, and ideas for all grade levels.

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References

Allers, R., & Minkoff, R. (1994). The Lion King. Buena Vista Pictures.

Graff, G., & Birkenstein, C. (2009). They say, I say: The moves that matter in academic writing. (2nd ed.). W.W. Norton.

Harste, J., Woodward, V., & Burke, C. (1984). Language stories and literacy lessons. Heinemann.

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