Writing a paragraph the right way! 1)Tell the following story: The man says, "Great, and this will help my seasickness?" A man goes to the doctor. He says, "Doctor, I am going on a sea cruise for my honeymoon, and my problem is, I get seasick!" Just before you get on the ship, eat all this stuff whole, without chewing." The doctor says, "No, but it'll look really pretty in the water." Doctor says "No problem, just slice up one yellow pepper, one green pepper, and quarter 4 tomatoes. Now that was supposed to be a joke: did it make you laugh? Why not--help me with my delivery. They will put the joke into its proper order, with the intro, the body and the punch line, with teacher's help on the board. It should look like this when it is done: A man goes to the doctor. He says, "Doctor, I am going on a sea cruise for my honeymoon, and my problem is, I get seasick!" Doctor says "No problem, just slice up one yellow pepper, one green pepper, and quarter 4 tomatoes. Just before you get on the ship, eat all this stuff whole, without chewing." The man says, "Great, and this will help my seasickness?" The doctor says, "No, but it'll look really pretty in the water." Here is the equation: Intro: Topic sentence Fill-in information: Supporting sentences Punch-Line: Concluding sentence The importance of these elements of a paragraph is thus illustrated by a joke told in its proper order. If you don't get all these elements in order, the joke won't fly. For consolidation, I ask the students to submit a(n appropriate) joke of their very own, complete with the topic sentence underlined in red, the supporting sentences underlined in blue and the concluding sentence underlined in black. I got some whoppers, I tell you. Michael Jursic