What it is. Body paragraphs carry the argument and the evidence together.
Why our test works. By Grade 8 children can support a point; what they cannot yet do is keep every paragraph WORKING on the claim, so papers accumulate true and irrelevant material. The test is the Grade 6 unity question raised to the level of the whole piece, and it is the difference between a report and an argument — which is the difference Grade 9 will assume they know.
Leans on. Grade 7 lesson 29 attributed support. This makes it argue.
Watch for. True, interesting and irrelevant is the hardest paragraph to cut and the most necessary. Cut it with them, not for them.
Draft the middle of the explanatory project. The worked example is the one you build on the board: Teacher shows the road map with today's slot named, and models draft the middle on the cla The class reads Writing Book 8, p.67 — our own page, so a child who was absent can still get the lesson.
You open by saying where this sits — what it follows and what it is part of — in one sentence, and then you give them the reason it matters, in your own words, for about ten seconds. Before anything new, sixty seconds of retrieval on U8 set 1, U17 set 1: ask, take the answers from boards rather than hands so you see all thirty, and do not re-teach — note who has lost it and carry on.
Then you do one yourself, building it on the board and leaving it up: Teacher shows the road map with today's slot named, and models draft the middle on the class piece — one slot only, so the model is followable. The board copy is what they look back at when they stall, so it stays there for the whole lesson.
The We-do is the main whiteboard moment of the lesson — short answers, boards up on your signal, every child visible at once. Class works the same slot on the shared piece, then reads two versions aloud and says which is clearer and why. If the answer is a whole sentence rather than a word, take it on their notebooks instead, because a sentence written on a whiteboard is written once and destroyed.
They open Writing Book 8 to page 67 and read it with you. Stop at the worked example and let them look at it.
Exit directions in full, standing still, before anyone moves. Then they work alone: In your notebook: draft the middle for your own piece, double-spaced so there is room to correct.
You close on the exit direction — Read the one sentence you are most sure of. — taken from every child before anyone stands, and then the line you want them to still have tomorrow: Every point supported, every support sourced, every source findable.
True, interesting and irrelevant is the hardest paragraph to cut and the most necessary. Cut it with them, not for them.