Framing the red folsom prison blues

Handout created by Justine White www.richlandcollege.edu/englishcorner

The English Corner at Richland College

Paragraphing and the Tell, Show, Share Method Paragraphing is sectioning and organizing your essay into paragraphs. Paragraphs are a visual way of dividing your essay into sections organized by a unifying idea. Paragraphs help your reader visually know when you change ideas. Without paragraphs, the reader is overwhelmed by the sheer amount of words on a page. Paragraphing helps reduce confusion when reading by focusing on only one point at a time. How you organize a paragraph helps the reader understand what point you are trying to make in relation to your thesis. Focus and organization are the keys to a good paragraph. Focus Each paragraph needs to focus on one main idea or claim. Your introduction should focus on introducing your topic and providing a roadmap of what you will be writing about in your body paragraphs. Your introduction needs to include your thesis statement as well (See the handout on Creating Thesis Statements for more information about strong thesis statements). All of your body paragraphs need to focus on one idea that supports your thesis (your claim) stated in the introduction. For an argument essay, each body paragraph should be a reason that supports your thesis. For a literary analysis, each body paragraph should be a different aspect of the poem or literature (symbolism, metaphor, character, setting, voice, tone) that proves the thesis. For a visual analysis, each body paragraph should be an aspect of the visual (color, background, foreground, framing, juxtaposition, superimposition) that proves your thesis. See the handouts Ten Tips for a Visual (or Literary) Analysis for more help with writing those papers. Organization When putting your body paragraphs together, think about how they flow. Is the flow logical? You might organize chronologically or thematically depending upon your purpose (literary analysis versus visual analysis). Argument essays should be organized on the strength of your evidence. Begin with a strong claim, put your weaker claims in the middle, and end with your strongest evidence. That way your reader finishes your essay with your best argument. The Tell, Show, Share Method All body paragraphs include three main parts: the topic sentence, the evidence, and the explanation or analysis. The Tell, Show, Share method is a mnemonic device to help you remember the parts of a well-developed paragraph.

Tell: your claim (topic sentence) Show: your evidence (quotes, examples, statistics, analogies, anecdotes) Share: your opinion, explanation, or analysis (answer the so what, who cares, why does it matter questions)

The Tell, Show, Share method reminds you to open with a topic sentence and close with your own ideas. You shouldn’t have a quote opening or closing a paragraph. Opening with a quote means that you have forgotten to make a claim about what you will be discussing in your paragraph. A strong paragraph opens with a topic sentence that makes a claim.

Handout created by Justine White www.richlandcollege.edu/englishcorner

Ending a paragraph with a quote is called a dangling quote (other terms are quote bomb, quote suicide, hit and run quote, or orphan quote). You must always explain the purpose of another author’s words in your paper. Your job is to relate all quotes back to your main claim or thesis. It is important that you analyze your quote and explain its purpose. Answer these three questions after each piece of evidence you present: So what? Who cares? Why does it matter? Here’s an example paragraph that uses the Tell, Show, Share method of paragraph development. Each section of the method is identified in brackets.

[Tell] Most Americans will agree that our fundamental rights guaranteed by The Bill of Rights are the cornerstone of our democracy. [Show] In the book, The American Democracy (2009), authors Thomas Patterson, Professor of Government at Harvard University, and Gary Halter, Professor of Political Science at Texas A&M University, assert that citizens have constitutional rights and suggest that these liberties should be upheld at all times. Patterson and Halter are unwavering in their belief by emphatically stating, “A constitutional guarantee is not worth the paper on which it is written if authorities can violate it at will” (86). [Share] In other words, American citizens should demand no less than the liberties afforded them within the four corners of the Constitution. If a law violates the Constitution, it should be repealed. The question remains, though, whether these red-light cameras infringe upon citizens’ rights.

The author has a strong topic sentence that sets up her claim about democracy. She then proves it with evidence from experts. In this example, they are professors from prestigious universities. But she doesn’t stop there. She ends her paragraph with a relation back to her overall thesis about red-light cameras. Even though her stance is only implied, it is clear from her language that she disagrees with the validity of red-light camera tickets. Here’s another paragraph that uses several quotes as examples and switches back and forth between the Show and Share throughout the paragraph. The example is from Denise Noe’s article “Parallel Worlds: The Surprising Similarities (and Differences) of Country-and-Western and Rap.” Each section of the Tell, Show, Share Method is identified in brackets.

[Tell] While the differing attitudes toward law enforcement are real enough, much of the difference between violence in country-and western music and in rap lies not in the songs themselves but in the way they are heard. [Show] Thus, when Ice Cube says, “Let the suburbs see a nigga invasion / Point-blank, smoke the Caucasian,” [Share] many whites interpret that as an incitement to violence. [Show] But when Johnny Cash's disgruntled factory worker in “Oney” crows, “Today's the day old Oney gets his,” [Share] it's merely a joke. [Show] Likewise, when Ice Cube raps, “I've got a shotgun and here's the plot / Taking niggas out with the fire of buckshot” (“Gangsta, Gangsta”), [Share] he sends shudders through many African-Americans heartbroken by black-on-black violence, [Show] but when Johnny Cash sings of an equally nihilistic killing in “Folsom Prison Blues” — “Shot a man in Reno / just to watch him die” — [Share] the public taps its feet and hums along…It's just a song, after all.

Notice how smoothly Noe transitions between each quote (and song). After she presents a line, she immediately explains and analyses what the line means in relation to her topic sentence (and overall thesis, which can be identified from the title). The reader can follow her train of thought easily because she continuously explains herself throughout the paragraph and in the end.

Paragraphing and the Tell, Show, Share Method