Operating Definitions and Guidelines for Writing

Sentence Essay Pattern

This information is designed to better help students reach the target of an expository essay whose content communicates effectively.

Each paragraph in an essay should have from 7 - 12 sentences in it with content that moves from general to specific as illustrated below. The sentences found at the beginning and at the end of a paragraph are more general. The further into the paragraph a sentence is, the more specific it should be. For more help on the parts of direct quotation, see the file here. For more help on the different types of essays, see the file here.

The italicized texts below are examples of how an essay on the topic of setting in an O'Connor short story might develop. If you write on O'Connor, your essay should differ.

Introduction

• Catchy grabber beginning sentence or quotation

• Bridge sentences with author’s full name, full title in one of them, followed by the date of publication. The date follows the title in the Roberts and Jacobs book.

• Analytical thesis – The setting in “First Confession” leads to O’Connor’s suggestion that everything is literally and figuratively going to come out all right.

Body paragraph 1

• Topic sentence - Jackie's tale starts with him literally below a table, but he emerges a winner.

• Bridge sentence(s)

• Direct quotation/specific detail

• Analysis/interpretation sentence(s)

• Concluding sentence(s)

Body paragraph 2

• Topic sentence - The fearful boy next finds himself in a confessional, but he tumbles out on top.

• Bridge sentence(s)

• Direct quotation/specific detail

• Analysis/interpretation sentence(s)

• Concluding sentence(s)

Body paragraph 3

• Topic sentence - When the priest accompanies Jackie out of the church building, the boy takes his first steps toward true security.

• Bridge sentence(s)

• Direct quotation/specific detail

• Analysis/interpretation sentence(s)

• Concluding sentence(s)

Conclusion

• Sentence that signals an ending

• Bridge sentences referring back to work(s)

• Bridge sentences recapping main points

• Sentence that restates thesis

• Ending sentence(s) that give a sense of closure

• Last sentence that carries an impact, perhaps with a direct quotation.

Example of body paragraph 3 on this topic

When the priest accompanies Jackie out of the church building, the boy takes his first steps toward true security. Leaving the chapel, the priest cheers Jackie up, at one point telling him that someone with a knife and good aim may come after Nora someday, "and he won't miss" (O'Connor 335). He also takes care of Jackie’s biggest fear, that the boy will die and damage the furniture. Armed with these and other encouragements, the previously-terrified seven-year old emerges from the experience of his first confession as whole, secure, and happy as true and sincere forgiveness can make a person: "Outside, after the shadow of the church, the sunlight was like the roaring of waves on a beach; it dazzled me; and when the frozen silence melted and I heard the screech of trams on the road, my heart soared" (319). O'Connor makes special use of darkness and light in this last scene. As Jackie and the priest leave the shadow of the building, the blazing sun melts the cold that has frozen the tongue of the child's heart, holding back his confession. As he leaves the shadow for the nurturing sunlight, Jackie begins to grow spiritually, blooming out of the confines of any earthly setting and on toward eternity.