PARTS OF A PARAGRAPH
Supporting and Clincher
Sentences
Supporting Sentences
• Supporting sentences are the details that expand
on, explain, or prove a paragraph’s main idea.
• Details include:
▫ Sensory Details
▫ Facts
▫ Examples
Sensory Details
• Imagery!
• What we experience through our five senses
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Sight
Hearing
Touch
Taste
Smell
Facts
• Give information that can be true by direct
observation or by checking a reliable reference
source
• FACT: Great herds of buffalo once roamed the
western plains.
▫ How can this be proved?
Examples
• Give typical instances of an idea.
• Example: A creature with protective coloration
▫ A chameleon, a lizard whose coloring changes with
its surroundings
PARTNER ACTIVITY
Turn to the person sitting behind you
• List the supporting details for a FOOTBALL
GAME
▫ Sensory Details:
▫ Fact(s):
▫ Example(s):
Collecting Supporting Details-
p.480
• When you write paragraphs, you have to collect
details that support your main idea. List two
details for each of the following:
 #1- The time I spend with my friends on Saturday
nights is my favorite time of the week.
 #4- When I feel hungry, I can just imagine my favorite
meal.
• Details should include at least 2 sensory details!
Collecting Supporting Detail Exercise
#1- The time I spend with my
friends on Saturday nights is
my favorite time of the week.
#4- When I feel hungry, I can just
imagine my favorite meal.
We get together at the
bowling alley, which
smells of floor way and
popcorn.
Tamales are my favorite
meal. Our house smells of
the meat and masa
steaming in papery corn
husks.
We yell at each other over
the sound of the balls
crashing into pins an we
have a great time.
We serve the tamales with
rice and tangy salsa.
The Clincher Sentence
• Once you have written a topic sentence and
developed well-organized details that support
your main idea, the only thing left to do is wrap
it all up.
The Clincher Sentence
Helping the homeless helps the community. When
homeless people are given housing assistance and
job training, they can become our neighbors,
coworkers, and friends. Not only do they find work
and learn to support themselves, but they also pay
taxes and share their skills with others. Every
person we help out of homelessness is one more
person who can enrich our neighborhood and
community.
• Last sentence pulls together the preceding
information by echoing the topic sentence.
Every person we help out of homelessness is one more
person who can enrich our neighborhood and community.
Developing a clincher sentence
• Although many paragraphs have no clincher
sentences, you may want to cement your main
idea in reader’s mind.
▫ Summarize main ideas and end with a clear
conclusion
Write a clincher!
Eating food in the library is a bad idea. Crumbs
get on the floor and between pages when you
eat, even if you are careful. These tiny bits of
food may be impossible for you to see, but
insects know they are there and will raid the
books to find them. These insects will eventually
harm the pages.
Clearly, by not snacking in the library, we
actually help preserve the books.
Write a clincher!
Computers have made getting information faster and
easier. Almost all schools use them now, and they
are very helpful in doing homework or typing papers.
Before computers were available, most students had
to do research by going to libraries, which might not
be open. Now students can use computers any time
of day in their own homes or at a friend’s house.
Today computers are as much a part of learning as
books or pens.