Week 3 · Chapter

Chapter 3 — The Paragraph

English Composition Free sample edition

The module's primary reading · ~35–45 minutes · Objective 3 (develop an arguable, specific thesis and organize an essay around it — unified, coherent, well-developed paragraphs built from a point through evidence to explanation, with an introduction that lands the thesis, transitions that name real relationships, and a conclusion that synthesizes) · Read it first this week; the lecture, the tutorial, the quiz, and the Writing Studio all build on it.

In plain language

A paragraph is where a piece of writing does its real work: it makes one point and proves it. This week you learn to build that kind of paragraph on purpose. You open with a topic sentence (the sentence that states the paragraph's point) and keep every other sentence on that point, which is unity (every sentence serving one idea). Your sentences lead into one another, which is coherence (sentences that hand off smoothly), and they back the point with development (evidence plus an explanation of what it proves). You practice all of it on the running draft's body paragraph about phones in lecture classes, first in a weak form and then in a revised one.

Why you already care about this

You work 12 hours a week at the campus bookstore, and your class schedule is about to change. You email your manager four sentences: "I have 3 classes on my shift day now. My chemistry lab ends at 4. The bus from the science building takes 25 minutes. Can I switch shifts?" Every sentence is true. Your manager still has to guess what you want, which shift you mean, and why it matters to the store.

Now picture a second version. It opens with the point: you are asking to move your early shift to the late shift, because you cannot reach the store before it starts. Then it gives the facts, and then it explains them: the lab and the bus put you at the counter 25 minutes late every week. The late shift, you note, fits around every class. The facts did not change. The paragraph did. The second version tells the reader what the facts are for.

That is this week in one picture. College writing, workplace email, and a cover letter all reward the same move: one point, stated up front, supported with evidence, and explained so a busy reader does not have to do your thinking for you.

By the end of this chapter you will be able to:

write a topic sentence that states a controlling idea a reader could answer with "prove it";
find the sentence that breaks a paragraph's unity;
choose transitions that name a real relationship and place the two commas that help sentences hand off;
build a body paragraph with the PIE move or its twin, MEAL;
run a reverse-outline check on a single paragraph;
test a chatbot's "improved" paragraph with the same tools.

Carry this sentence with you: one paragraph, one point — proven, not listed.

Where we are

Already covered: Week 1, The Writing Process & the Rhetorical Situation, gave you the five questions every piece of writing answers and the habit of revising instead of trying to get it right once. Week 2, Critical Reading: Summary & Response, taught you to separate a text's topic, its claim, and its support.
This week: the paragraph as the unit of composition: the topic sentence and its controlling idea, unity, coherence, and development with the PIE and MEAL moves.
How they connect: last week you found the claim and the support in someone else's text; this week you build that same structure yourself, one paragraph at a time.
Where we're going next: Week 4, Thesis & Essay Structure, scales this up. The claim that controls one paragraph becomes the thesis that controls a whole essay.

Two ideas from Week 2 carry this chapter. A claim is the point a writer asserts, a position a reader could accept or dispute. Support is the reasons and evidence offered to make the claim believable. A good body paragraph is a small version of that pairing: its topic sentence is the claim, and every other sentence is support. Week 1 matters too. Turning a weak paragraph into a strong one is revision, a re-seeing of the point, not a pass over the commas.

1. Define the paragraph: one idea, fully made

When you read a page of print, you see the paragraph breaks before you read a word. Each break promises the reader something: a new point starts here. A paragraph keeps that promise when it delivers one point and finishes it.

A paragraph is the basic unit of composition: a group of sentences that makes one idea fully, from the sentence that states the point through the evidence and explanation that prove it.

"Unit of composition" means the paragraph is the building block. An essay is built from paragraphs the way a wall is built from bricks. A weak brick weakens the wall, however good the plan.

Worked example — the shift-swap email. Go back to the bookstore email from the opening, and run three checks on each version.

Does it state one point? The first version never does; the reader has to guess. The second version opens with it: move the early shift to the late shift.
Does every sentence serve that point? In the second version, yes: the lab time, the bus time, and the open late shift all bear on the request.
Is the point finished? The second version adds the sentence that explains the facts: they put you 25 minutes late. Without that sentence, the facts sit there.

In words: the first email is a pile of true sentences, and the second is a paragraph, because it makes one point and finishes it.

Misconception check — "a paragraph is five sentences." Students often think a paragraph has a fixed length, often five sentences. It is tempting because many of us were taught a five-sentence pattern early on. But a paragraph runs as long as its one idea needs. Some points take three sentences, and some take nine. The honest caveat is this: a two-sentence body paragraph usually signals under-development, not a broken rule. The cure is to ask "is the point proven yet?" instead of counting.

Pause and think. Choose one of these two options.

(a) think of an email, text thread, or notice you received that mixed several points together, and name the one point it should have led with.
(b) think of a paragraph you wrote for a past class and say, in one sentence, what its single point was.

2. State the controlling idea: the topic sentence

Imagine opening a group chat to forty unread messages. You scroll for the one that tells you what is going on. Readers do the same thing with a paragraph. They look for the sentence that says what the paragraph is about to prove.

The topic sentence is the sentence, usually the first in a body paragraph, that states the paragraph's controlling idea so the reader knows what every later sentence is there to prove.

The controlling idea is the claim a single paragraph sets out to prove, stated in its topic sentence; it is narrower than a topic and arguable, unlike a title or a bare fact.

Here is your test for a controlling idea. Could a reader answer your sentence with "prove it"? If the honest answer to your sentence is "okay" or "so what," you have a title or a fact, not a claim.

Worked example — the bus commute. Here are three illustrative candidate topic sentences for a paragraph about a student's commute, written for this course:

"My bus commute." This is a title. There is nothing to prove, so a reader cannot answer it with "prove it."
"The bus ride to campus takes forty minutes." This is a bare fact. A reader can check it, but nobody would argue with it, so the paragraph would have nowhere to go.
"My forty-minute bus ride is the most useful study time of my day, because it is the one stretch nobody can interrupt." This is a controlling idea. A reader could say "prove it," and the rest of the paragraph would.

Now apply the test to the running draft. Its weak body paragraph opens: "Phones are a problem in lectures." That sentence is a complaint that names a topic. "Problem" is too vague to prove; a problem for whom, and in what way? The revised paragraph opens with a real controlling idea: "The strongest reason for a phone-free default is that the benefit is not spread evenly." A reader can say "prove it," and the next sentence does.

In words: the revised topic sentence names a specific claim, so the paragraph knows its job.

Misconception check — the topic sentence as a title. Students often think a topic sentence only needs to name the subject, like a heading would. It is tempting because the subject is the first thing you know about your paragraph. But a subject gives the paragraph nothing to prove. The cure is the Week 2 split: the topic is what you are writing about, and the controlling idea is what you are saying about it.

3. Hold every sentence to the point: unity and the find-the-breaker test

Think of a recipe card that stops halfway through the steps to tell you the history of the pot. Every word may be true, and the cook still loses the thread. A paragraph loses its reader the same way.

Unity is the quality of a paragraph in which every sentence serves the controlling idea; staying near the same subject is not enough, because a sentence on a related but different point breaks it.

A breaker is a sentence inside a paragraph that does not help prove the controlling idea; the find-the-breaker test reads each sentence against the topic sentence to catch it.

Worked example — a family recipe. Here is an illustrative paragraph, written for this course and attributed to no one. Run the find-the-breaker test on it, one sentence at a time.

"My uncle's lentil soup is the easiest weeknight dinner I know, because almost all of the cooking happens while you do something else. The lentils need no soaking, so the pot goes on the stove the moment you walk in. Once it simmers, it needs a stir about every ten minutes, which leaves time for homework between stirs. Lentils are also high in protein. By the time the reading is done, dinner is too."

Sentence 2 (no soaking): does it help prove the soup is hands-off? Yes.
Sentence 3 (a stir every ten minutes): yes, it is the heart of the "while you do something else" claim.
Sentence 4 (high in protein): it is about the soup, but it does not prove the soup is easy or hands-off. This is the breaker.
Sentence 5 (dinner done when the reading is done): yes, it lands the point.

Now the running draft. Its weak paragraph includes the sentence "My roommate's lecture hall has bad Wi-Fi anyway." Read it against any topic sentence about phones in lectures. Wi-Fi quality is a different subject, so it is the breaker. The revision cuts it.

In words: you remove the breaker, and the paragraph gets stronger by getting shorter.

Misconception check — unity as "roughly the same subject." Students often think a paragraph is unified if every sentence is about the same thing, like soup or phones. It is tempting because a related sentence feels like it belongs. But unity is strict: every sentence must serve this controlling idea, not merely this subject. The cure is to ask "does this help prove it?" of every sentence, not "is this about it?"

4. Make the sentences hand off: coherence

In a relay race, the baton never crosses empty air. Each runner starts moving as the last one arrives, and the hand-off happens in a zone they both share. Sentences in a strong paragraph hand off the same way.

Coherence is the quality of a paragraph whose sentences lead into one another: they follow a logical order, use transitions that name real relationships, and move from information the reader already has to new information.

Coherence has three parts, and you can check each one.

Logical order comes first. Put the sentences in the order a reader needs: the point, then the evidence, then what the evidence means. Time order and order of importance are other common choices.

Transitions come second. A transition is a word or phrase, such as "but", "because", or "for example", that tells the reader how one sentence relates to the next: contrast, cause, example, or addition. A transition earns its place only when the relationship it names is real.

Here is a short list of transitions sorted by the relationship each one names.

Common transitions sorted by the relationship they name between two sentences
Relationship	What it tells the reader	Transitions that name it
Contrast	the next idea pushes against the last	but, however, while, yet
Cause or result	the next idea follows from the last	because, so, therefore, as a result
Example	the next idea shows the last one in action	for example, for instance
Addition	the next idea adds weight to the last	also, in addition, furthermore

Old-to-new flow comes third. Old-to-new flow is the habit of opening each sentence with information the reader already has and ending it with the new information, so each sentence picks up where the last one left off.

Worked example — the hand-offs in the revised paragraph. Look at how the running draft's revised paragraph connects its sentences.

The second sentence uses "while" to set two groups side by side: the gain was concentrated among the lowest-achieving students, while higher-achieving students were largely unaffected. "While" names a real contrast.
The third sentence opens with "That pattern." Those two words point back to the research the reader met a moment ago (old), and the sentence ends on something new: why the pattern matters for a policy decision.
The fourth sentence opens with "The same logic." It points back to the explanation (old) and ends on the new idea: why an exception for documented needs does not undo the policy.

In words: each sentence starts where the last one ended, so the reader never has to jump.

Two commas also help the hand-off. Two items from the course's sentence-error set show small punctuation moves that make a sentence's structure visible. Both pairs are illustrative.

Item 7, a comma after an introductory element. An introductory element is a word, phrase, or clause that comes before a sentence's main clause, such as "After the class finished its peer review"; a comma usually signals where it ends. "After the class finished its peer review the draft doubled in length." → "After the class finished its peer review, the draft doubled in length." The comma shows the reader where the setup ends and the main clause begins.
Item 8, a comma before a coordinating conjunction. A coordinating conjunction is one of the seven words for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so that join equal parts of a sentence; when one joins two independent clauses, a comma comes before it. "The claim is clear but the evidence is thin." → "The claim is clear, but the evidence is thin." The word "but" names the contrast, and the comma comes before it because it joins two independent clauses, two word groups that could each stand as a sentence.

Worked example — old-to-new in a lab report. Here is an illustrative pair of sentences from a lab report's methods section, written for this course. Weak: "We recorded the water temperature every five minutes. A digital probe clipped to the beaker's rim was used for the readings." Revised: "We recorded the water temperature every five minutes. Those readings came from a digital probe clipped to the beaker's rim." The revision opens the second sentence with "Those readings," which the reader already knows, and ends on the new detail, the probe.

Misconception check — transitions as decoration. Students often think a paragraph sounds more polished with a "Furthermore" or "Moreover" at the start of every sentence. It is tempting because those words sound academic. But a transition makes a promise about how two ideas relate, and a reader notices when the promise is false. "Furthermore" before a contrasting idea misleads. The cure is to name the relationship first, then pick the word that names it, and to leave a sentence bare when old-to-new flow already does the job.

5. Develop the point: evidence plus explanation with PIE and MEAL

Picture a friend telling you, "That new taco place is great." You ask why. They say, "It is on Third Street." That is a fact, but it is not a reason. A point needs support, and the support needs a sentence that says why it counts.

Development is the evidence and explanation a paragraph gives its controlling idea; a paragraph is developed when a skeptical reader can see both what supports the point and why that support proves it.

Two classroom models give names to the parts. They are models, simplifications you can hold in one hand, not rules every real paragraph follows.

PIE is a classroom model for building a body paragraph: Point (the topic sentence), Illustration (the evidence), Explanation (what the evidence proves), and a closing Link.
MEAL is a classroom model with the same four jobs as PIE under different names: Main idea, Evidence, Analysis, and Link.

Two of those parts need their own definitions, because they are the parts writers skip.

An explanation is the sentence or sentences in a paragraph that say what the evidence proves and why it matters for the point; without it, a paragraph lists facts and stops.
A link sentence is the closing sentence of a body paragraph that ties its point back to the essay's larger argument or prepares the move to the next paragraph.

Worked example — mapping the revised paragraph. Here is the running draft's revised body paragraph (illustrative, written for this course; the draft has no named author), mapped with both models.

P, Point (MEAL: Main idea): "The strongest reason for a phone-free default is that the benefit is not spread evenly."
I, Illustration (MEAL: Evidence): "Research on schools that banned phones found the gain in exam results concentrated among the lowest-achieving students, while higher-achieving students were largely unaffected."
E, Explanation (MEAL: Analysis): "That pattern matters for a policy decision: a rule that costs most students little and helps the students with the least slack is a rule a college can defend."
L, Link (MEAL: Link): "The same logic explains why an exception for documented needs does not undo the policy — it protects the students the policy exists for."

In words: the point makes a claim, the illustration gives a reader something to check, the explanation says what it proves, and the link ties it back to the whole proposal. The evidence sentence points to real research on school phone bans; in the research weeks you will find that source, judge it, and cite it properly.

Worked example — a cover letter that lists and stops. Here is an illustrative cover-letter paragraph, written for this course: "I worked at a hotel front desk for two years. I answered about forty calls a shift. I trained three new staff members." Every sentence is evidence, and none of it is explained. Here is one way to develop it:

Add a point: "My front-desk work taught me to stay calm and accurate when the phones do not stop."
Keep the evidence: two years at the desk, about forty calls a shift, three new staff members trained.
Add an explanation: "Training new staff meant I had to explain our check-in steps well enough that someone could follow them on a busy night, which is the same skill a help-desk role asks for."
Add a link: "That is the experience I would bring to your support team."

In words: the facts stay the same, and the two new sentences tell the hiring manager why the facts matter for this job.

Misconception check — "enough facts make a paragraph developed." Students often think a paragraph is developed once it has plenty of facts. It is tempting because facts feel like proof. But a fact proves nothing in particular until a sentence says what it proves. The cure is the explanation sentence: after every piece of evidence, ask "so what?" and write the answer down.

6. Check one paragraph with a reverse outline

When you clean out a closet, you take everything out and look at each item alone. A reverse outline does that for a paragraph. It takes each sentence out of the flow, so you can see what each one is doing.

The reverse-outline check is a test run on a finished paragraph: beside each sentence you note what it says and what job it does, then read only those notes to find any sentence with no job.

Worked example — the weak paragraph, sentence by sentence. Here is the running draft's weak body paragraph (illustrative, written for this course): "Phones are a problem in lectures. Everyone has one. I check mine a lot. My roommate's lecture hall has bad Wi-Fi anyway. Some students say they take notes on their phones. So phones should be banned." The reverse outline below gives each sentence two notes.

Reverse-outline check of the running draft's weak body paragraph: what each sentence says and the job it does
Sentence	What it says	The job it does
1	Phones are a problem	A complaint that names a topic, so it cannot work as a controlling idea
2	Everyone has a phone	A bare fact that proves nothing
3	I check mine a lot	A personal admission with no explanation
4	A roommate's hall has bad Wi-Fi	The breaker, because Wi-Fi quality is a different subject
5	Some students take notes on phones	An objection raised and left unanswered
6	So phones should be banned	A conclusion the paragraph did not earn

Now read only the job column. No row says "point," "evidence," or "explanation." That is the diagnosis: a topic sentence that is a complaint, one unity break (the Wi-Fi sentence), no evidence, no explanation, and a conclusion the paragraph did not earn.

In practice (your tools). In your word processor, select a sentence and add a comment with its two notes, what it says and what job it does. Do this for every sentence, then read down the comment margin alone. That margin is your reverse outline.

Misconception check — the reverse outline as a summary. Students often think a reverse outline only restates what each sentence says. It is tempting because the "what it says" note is the easy half. But the job note is where problems show up: two sentences can say different things and still have no job at all. The cure is to fill in both columns for every sentence. One limitation is worth knowing, too: a sentence can do two jobs at once, and that is fine as long as both serve the point.

7. Revise the running draft's body paragraph

You now have every tool you need to rebuild the weak paragraph. Here are both forms side by side, then the list of what changed.

Worked example — weak form to revised form. Both forms are illustrative and written for this course.

Weak form: "Phones are a problem in lectures. Everyone has one. I check mine a lot. My roommate's lecture hall has bad Wi-Fi anyway. Some students say they take notes on their phones. So phones should be banned."
Revised form: "The strongest reason for a phone-free default is that the benefit is not spread evenly. Research on schools that banned phones found the gain in exam results concentrated among the lowest-achieving students, while higher-achieving students were largely unaffected. That pattern matters for a policy decision: a rule that costs most students little and helps the students with the least slack is a rule a college can defend. The same logic explains why an exception for documented needs does not undo the policy — it protects the students the policy exists for."

Here is what changed, step by step.

The complaint became a claim. "Phones are a problem" became a controlling idea a reader can test: the benefit is not spread evenly.
The breaker went. The Wi-Fi sentence is gone.
Evidence arrived. A reader can check research on schools that banned phones; nobody can check "I check mine a lot."
An explanation arrived. The third sentence says what the evidence proves for the decision.
The ending was earned. Instead of "So phones should be banned," the link ties the point to the proposal and its exception.

In words: the revision trades a complaint for a claim, cuts the breaker, adds evidence a reader can check, and adds the sentence that explains it, so a skeptical reader can follow your reasoning instead of being told the answer.

Notice one more thing. The weak form has six short sentences and the revised form has four longer ones. Length did not make the difference; the jobs did.

Misconception check — revising means fixing the commas. Students often think revising a paragraph means fixing its spelling and punctuation. It is tempting because surface errors are the easiest things to see. But every change above is about the point, the evidence, and the reasoning, which is revision. Commas come later, in editing. The cure is to run the big pass first: is there a claim, is it proven, does every sentence serve it?

Pause and think. Choose one of these two options.

(a) look back at the weak paragraph and say which single change in the list above you think helped a skeptical reader most, and why.
(b) look at a paragraph of your own and say which of the five changes it most needs, and why.

8. Check the machine: the same tests on a chatbot's paragraph

Chatbots are fast at producing smooth paragraphs. Smooth is not the same as unified or developed. When you ask one to "improve" a paragraph, read what it gives back with the tools from this chapter.

The writing course's rule for every chatbot moment is the same: the tool drafts, and the writer judges. A chatbot can be a useful drafting partner, but it is routinely wrong about writing. It praises without pointing to anything, adds sentences that sound good but serve no point, and can flatten your voice into boilerplate.

Worked example — testing an "improved" paragraph. Suppose you paste the weak paragraph into a chatbot and ask it to improve it. Here is the kind of reply such tools often produce, written for this course as an illustration and attributed to no product: "Great paragraph! In today's fast-paced digital world, phones have become an ever-present part of student life. Technology has transformed nearly every aspect of modern education. Many students struggle to stay focused, and phones can be a major distraction. Therefore, colleges should consider banning phones in lectures." Run the week's tests on it.

The praise: "Great paragraph!" points to nothing in the paragraph. It is hollow praise, so you ignore it.
The topic sentence: "phones have become an ever-present part of student life" is a bare observation, not a controlling idea. A reader cannot say "prove it" to something everyone already agrees with.
The find-the-breaker test: "Technology has transformed nearly every aspect of modern education" is about technology in general, not phones in lectures. It is a new breaker the chatbot added.
The PIE check: there is still no evidence a reader can check and no explanation. "Many students struggle" is a claim with nothing behind it.
The ending: "Therefore" promises a result, but nothing above it proves the conclusion. The transition names a relationship that is not real.

In words: the chatbot made the paragraph smoother and longer, but it fixed none of the problems the reverse outline found and added one more breaker. You keep the judgment, and you revise it yourself.

Misconception check — smoother means better. Students often think that if a chatbot's version sounds more polished, it must be the stronger paragraph. It is tempting because fluent sentences feel finished. But fluency is a surface quality; unity and development are structural. The cure is to run the find-the-breaker test and the PIE check on every machine version before you keep a word of it. An honest note: a chatbot can be helpful when you ask a narrow question, such as "Which sentence here does not support my first sentence?", and then check its answer yourself.

Key terms

paragraph — The basic unit of composition: a group of sentences that makes one idea fully, from the sentence that states the point through the evidence and explanation that prove it. (first used: 1. Define the paragraph: one idea, fully made)
topic sentence — The sentence, usually the first in a body paragraph, that states the paragraph's controlling idea so the reader knows what every later sentence is there to prove. (first used: 2. State the controlling idea: the topic sentence)
controlling idea — The claim a single paragraph sets out to prove, stated in its topic sentence; it is narrower than a topic and arguable, unlike a title or a bare fact. (first used: 2. State the controlling idea: the topic sentence)
unity — The quality of a paragraph in which every sentence serves the controlling idea; staying near the same subject is not enough, because a sentence on a related but different point breaks it. (first used: 3. Hold every sentence to the point: unity and the find-the-breaker test)
breaker — A sentence inside a paragraph that does not help prove the controlling idea; the find-the-breaker test reads each sentence against the topic sentence to catch it. (first used: 3. Hold every sentence to the point: unity and the find-the-breaker test)
coherence — The quality of a paragraph whose sentences lead into one another: they follow a logical order, use transitions that name real relationships, and move from information the reader already has to new information. (first used: 4. Make the sentences hand off: coherence)
transition — A word or phrase, such as "but", "because", or "for example", that tells the reader how one sentence relates to the next: contrast, cause, example, or addition. (first used: 4. Make the sentences hand off: coherence)
old-to-new flow — The habit of opening each sentence with information the reader already has and ending it with the new information, so each sentence picks up where the last one left off. (first used: 4. Make the sentences hand off: coherence)
introductory element — A word, phrase, or clause that comes before a sentence's main clause, such as "After the class finished its peer review"; a comma usually signals where it ends. (first used: 4. Make the sentences hand off: coherence)
coordinating conjunction — One of the seven words for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so that join equal parts of a sentence; when one joins two independent clauses, a comma comes before it. (first used: 4. Make the sentences hand off: coherence)
development — The evidence and explanation a paragraph gives its controlling idea; a paragraph is developed when a skeptical reader can see both what supports the point and why that support proves it. (first used: 5. Develop the point: evidence plus explanation with PIE and MEAL)
PIE — A classroom model for building a body paragraph: Point (the topic sentence), Illustration (the evidence), Explanation (what the evidence proves), and a closing Link. (first used: 5. Develop the point: evidence plus explanation with PIE and MEAL)
MEAL — A classroom model with the same four jobs as PIE under different names: Main idea, Evidence, Analysis, and Link. (first used: 5. Develop the point: evidence plus explanation with PIE and MEAL)
explanation — The sentence or sentences in a paragraph that say what the evidence proves and why it matters for the point; without it, a paragraph lists facts and stops. (first used: 5. Develop the point: evidence plus explanation with PIE and MEAL)
link sentence — The closing sentence of a body paragraph that ties its point back to the essay's larger argument or prepares the move to the next paragraph. (first used: 5. Develop the point: evidence plus explanation with PIE and MEAL)
reverse-outline check — A test run on a finished paragraph: beside each sentence you note what it says and what job it does, then read only those notes to find any sentence with no job. (first used: 6. Check one paragraph with a reverse outline)

Summary

A paragraph makes one idea fully; its length follows the idea, not a sentence count.
The topic sentence states a controlling idea: a claim a reader could answer with "prove it."
Unity means every sentence serves the controlling idea; the find-the-breaker test catches the one that does not.
Coherence means logical order, transitions that name real relationships, and old-to-new flow.
Put a comma after an introductory element, and before a coordinating conjunction that joins two independent clauses.
Development is evidence plus explanation; PIE and MEAL name the same four jobs.
A reverse-outline check notes what each sentence says and what job it does.
Test any chatbot's "improved" paragraph with the same tools; the writer judges.

Check your understanding

Work these before looking at the answers — they are ungraded, and the answers (with reasoning) are at the bottom of the page.

A neighborhood newsletter needs a paragraph about the block's shared bike rack. Here are three illustrative candidates. Which one could serve as a topic sentence with a controlling idea, and why not the other two? (a) "The bike rack on our block." (b) "The bike rack holds eight bikes." (c) "Our block should add a second bike rack, because the one we have fills up before most residents get home from work."
Find the breaker in this illustrative paragraph about a transit route: "The Route 9 bus should run one hour later on weeknights. Its last trip leaves downtown before the evening classes end, so night students walk or pay for a ride home. A later trip would serve riders the route already carries. The Route 9 buses were repainted green last year. Adding one trip costs far less than adding a whole new route."
Decide which of these illustrative sentences need a comma, and where. (a) "Before the meeting started the club president handed out the agenda." (b) "The flyer was ready but the printer was out of toner." (c) "The flyer was designed and printed in one afternoon."
A volunteer writes this illustrative shift report for a food bank: "We packed 120 boxes this week. Twenty volunteers came. Last month we packed 70 boxes with the same number of people." Add a point and an explanation so the paragraph is developed, and name the PIE part each new sentence fills.

Answers (worked reasoning — read after attempting)

Sentence (c) is the controlling idea. A reader could answer it with "prove it," and the rest of the paragraph would, by showing how fast the rack fills. Sentence (a) is a title: it names the subject and claims nothing. Sentence (b) is a bare fact: a reader can check it, but nobody would argue with it. This item catches the misconception that naming the subject is enough.
The breaker is "The Route 9 buses were repainted green last year." It is about the same bus route, but it does not help prove that the route should run later. Every other sentence does: the schedule gap, the riders it would serve, and the low cost. This item catches the "roughly the same subject" misconception about unity.
Sentence (a) needs a comma after the introductory element: "Before the meeting started, the club president handed out the agenda." Sentence (b) needs a comma before "but," because "but" joins two independent clauses: "The flyer was ready, but the printer was out of toner." Sentence (c) needs no comma: "and" joins two verbs, "designed and printed," not two independent clauses, so a comma there would be wrong.
One good version adds a point at the start: "This week's new packing setup made our volunteers far more productive." That is the Point. It keeps the facts as the Illustration: 120 boxes with twenty volunteers, against 70 boxes last month with the same number of people. It then adds an explanation: "Since the crew size did not change, the 50 extra boxes came from the setup, not from extra hands." That is the Explanation. The arithmetic checks: 120 − 70 = 50. A Link could close it: "We should keep the new setup for every shift."

Next up in this module: the Readings & Resources page, the lecture tutorial, the practice set, and the quiz — and next week, Thesis & Essay Structure scales the PIE model up from one paragraph to a whole essay.

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