1. SUBJECT - ENGLISH
CLASS - VIII
CHAPTER - PARAGRAPH WRITING
MODULE - BASICS OF PARAGRAPH WRITING
[For MM] Show the conversation between characters
{A 17 year old boy, Akash, sitting on a sofa in his house reading a brochure. His
friend, another 17 year old boy, Raman, walks in.}
Raman : Hi Akash !
Akash : Hi Raman. What a pleasant surprise. How are you?
Raman : I am fine. Our family is planning a trip to Manali this weekend.
{ Akash’s 12 year old brother, Deepu and 10 year old sister, Nikki walk in. }
Akash : That is great news. But isn’t the Rohtang Pass shut during these
months? You will miss out visiting it.
Raman : Is it so? How do you know?
Akash : I read a paragraph about it a few weeks back. It said the Rohtang
Pass becomes dangerously snowy and so they shut it for tourists.
Raman : I should have read about Manali before planning the trip. Well, cant
do anything now. Next time I will be careful. See you later.
Akash : Enjoy your trip. Bye.
{Raman walks away.}
Deepu : Bhaiya, how did you know about Rohtang Pass?
Akash : I read a paragraph about it somewhere.
Nikki : A paragraph? What is that?
[Anchor 1]

2. Friends, today we will learn about paragraph writing. But before we discuss it in
detail, let us first set our learning objectives.
VO with Text on Screen
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
Upon completion of the module, learner will be able to-
• Explain the meaning of paragraph.
• Describe the structure of a paragraph.
• List the basics of writing a paragraph
• Apply the basic rules while writing a paragraph
[Anchor1]
Paragraph is the first step towards writing your own composition. Essays,
reports, articles etc consist of paragraphs. Let us first understand what a
paragraph is.
VO with Text on Screen
A paragraph is a short piece of composition elaborating a single thought or an
idea by a series of well-formed sentences.
A paragraph is a group of sentences that all help to express one idea. At times,
we have certain thoughts in our mind. Let us say, I give you the topic
‘Newspapers’. Many thoughts may come in your mind. You may remember that
the day starts with the newspaper boy delivering the newspaper. You may want
to say that newspaper tells us about events and incidents which take place
around the world. You may want to list some of the popular newspapers. How do
you express all these thoughts in the form of writing? It is by writing a paragraph
about newspapers. So a paragraph is nothing but a collection of thoughts written
together in a neat manner.
[For MM] Show the conversation between characters
Nikki : But Bhaiya, why will a person want to read our paragraph? If I write
a paragraph, who will read it? What will they gain by reading my
paragraph?
Akash : If I ask you to write a paragraph just now, what topic would you
choose?

3. Nikki : Right now? Hmm… I would choose the topic ‘My School’. I have lot
of things to say on the topic. I could put all those thoughts in the
form of a paragraph.
Akash : What all will you write in it?
Nikki : I would write about my school’s history, its records, its facilities, our
huge cricket ground and about our caring teachers.
Deepu : Hey, you missed out our canteen.
Nikki : Oh yes. Our canteen which serves delicious and hygienic food.
Akash : Now, consider the parents of a child who wishes to join your school.
The parents do not know much about your school and want to
enquire before they admit the child. Will the parents benefit from
your paragraph?
Deepu : Of course they will. They have all the information they need at one
place. Why wouldn’t they benefit? Right Nikki?
Nikki : Actually yes. My paragraph will be very useful since a lot of
information will be contained in just one paragraph. They will save a
lot of time and also get to know about my school.
Akash : So there you go. The parents wanting to admit their child in your
school will read your paragraph. You could also make your relatives
read your paragraph to tell them about the school where you study.
Deepu : So, a paragraph gives us information about the topic. Any person
who wants the information will read it.
[Anchor 2]
Yes friends, the basic aim of writing a paragraph is to give the reader a quick
idea about the topic. If the topic is about a place, then the reader should get a
rough idea about the place after reading the paragraph. If the topic is about a
thought, say for example honesty, then the person reading the paragraph should
get an idea of what honesty is and its different aspects. In very few words, we
must convey the message and give as much information about the topic as
possible.
The first step to writing a paragraph is developing the outlines. Outlines are basic
points which we want to include in our paragraph. They are not complete
sentences. They are just thoughts which arise in our minds. The outlines are just

4. brief mentions of what all must be written in the paragraph. All the thoughts are
on the same topic, hence the outlines revolve around the topic of the paragraph.
We must not include random thoughts into our paragraph.
VO with Text on Screen
RULE 1: Write only about the topic. Stick to the outlines.
[Anchor 3]
We can write about different aspects of the same topic. We can present different
views that people have on the same topic. But, we cannot talk about different
topics in the same paragraph. For example, look at the following two sentences.
VO with Text on Screen
Education is a must for every child. I like listening to music.
[Anchor 4]
Is there any connection between the two lines? Can you guess the topic of the
paragraph from these lines? No, because there is no common link between the
lines. Look at these lines now.
VO with Text on Screen
Education is a must for every child. Every child likes to go to school.
[Anchor 5]
Is there a topic now? Yes. Both the lines talk about education and children. We
should not write about one topic in one sentence and about something totally
different in the next sentence. So, our paragraph should have a clear topic and
the whole paragraph should talk only about that and nothing else.
In the case where outlines are given, we must stick to the outlines. We must not
include any other random thought into our paragraph. Our aim should only be to
construct a paragraph out of the outlines given to us.
[For MM] Show the conversation between characters
Akash : The best way to learn is to write a paragraph yourself. What topic
will you like to write on?
Deepu : Bhaiya, you read a paragraph about Manali which gave you
information about the place. Wouldn’t it be nice if we wrote a
paragraph about our colony? Many people are not aware about our
colony.

5. Nikki : In fact even the residents of our colony are not aware about some
of the facilities available here. Even they will like to read about our
colony. Let’s write a paragraph about it.
Akash : That’s a great idea. Write a paragraph titled ‘My Colony’. What is
the first step?
Nikki : To write the outlines.
Akash : Right. Outlines are not complete sentences. They only guide us in
writing our paragraph. Developing these outlines into complete
meaningful sentences is our aim.
Deepu : But we don’t have the outlines with us. What do we do?
Akash : Why don’t you ask the colony residents to give you the outlines?
Nikki : Wow. We could go house to house and ask them about the colony.
That will be fun.
Deepu : Yes. Let’s go.
{ Nikki and Deepu leave the room. }
[Anchor6]
When we are given outlines, we need to make sense out of them. These are just
points, not complete sentences. We need to figure out what these incomplete
sentences mean. But since we know the topic, this is not a difficult task. For
example, look at the following incomplete sentence.
VO with Text on Screen
…shout in full voice…
[Anchor 7]
When we look at this sentence alone, we are not able to guess its meaning and
context at all. But when we are told that this is a part of the outline for a
paragraph titled ‘Street Hawker’, then this sentence begins to make sense.
VO with Text on Screen
Topic : Street Hawker
…shout in full voice…

6. The street hawker shouts in full voice.
[Anchor 8]
Now knowing the topic, we are able to connect both, the topic and the incomplete
sentence and write a meaningful complete sentence. This is called developing
the outlines. When we are given a topic and many incomplete sentences about it,
we need to make sense out of them, understand what they must mean and then
write the points in the form of complete meaningful sentences which the reader
can easily understand. Let us look at another example.
VO with Text on Screen
Topic : My annual exam
My last exam… very nervous… forgot my pen… reached late for exam…
[Anchor 9]
The first thing to do while developing outlines is to look at the topic. Do not read
the outline before reading the topic, otherwise you wont be able to make sense
out of the outlines. In our example, the topic is ‘My annual exam’.
VO with Text on Screen
Topic : My annual exam
[Anchor 10]
Immediately, note that all the points that you are going to read now in the outline
are related to your annual exam. Interpret the sentences with regard to exams.
After reading the topic, move on to read the first sentence of the outline. In our
example, it is
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My last exam…
[Anchor 11]
So, the sentence must be
VO with Text on Screen
This was my last exam.
[Anchor 12]
Let us look at the next sentence in the outline.
VO with Text on Screen

7. … very nervous…
[Anchor 13]
Now, think. Who can be nervous? Can exam be nervous? No. Common sense
says that since you were giving your exam, you are the one who must be
nervous. Since the outline does not mention any other person, it must be talking
about you. When the outline talks about a particular person in one sentence, it
continues to talk about the same person in the next line too. If the person being
talked about is different, then it will be mentioned. To make this point clearer,
look at the following two outlines.
VO with Text on Screen
Topic : My annual exam
My last exam… very nervous… forgot my pen.
Topic : My annual exam
My last exam… my friends were very nervous... I was calm
[Anchor 14]
In the first outline, the first sentence talks about you since it says it was your last
exam. So the next sentence ‘very nervous’ must mean that you were very
nervous. But, in the second outline, although the first sentence talks about you
since it says it was your last exam, in the next sentence, it clearly mentions that
your friends were nervous, not you.
In such cases, looking at the next line also helps. For example: The first outline
says
VO with Text on Screen
…very nervous…forgot my pen.
[Anchor 15]
The next line ‘forgot my pen’ confirms our interpretation that you were nervous
and that is why you forgot your pen. On the other hand, look at the other outline.
VO with Text on Screen
… my friends were very nervous... I was calm
[Anchor 16]
‘I was calm’ tells us that while your friends were nervous, you were not. In fact
you were calm. Thus looking at the next sentence in the outline helps us confirm
if our line of thinking is correct or not. If our logic and the next sentence don’t
match, we must go back to the previous line and try to understand what it must
mean. Making sense out of these incomplete sentences by relating them to the

8. topic is called developing the outline. Our aim is to write these outlines in the
form of complete sentences, well related to each other, so that the reader does
not have to strain himself to understand what is written. The sentences should be
grammatically correct and very clear in their meaning. So, going back to our
example, let us see how the outlines look after they have been developed.
VO with Text on Screen
Topic : My annual exam
My last exam… very nervous… forgot my pen… reached late for exam…
It was my last exam. I was very nervous. I forgot my pen. I reached late for my
exam.
[Anchor 17]
This is the simplest way of developing an outline. We will later learn how to
beautify the paragraph by connecting the lines to each other. But, for the time
being, we will just expand the outlines into complete meaningful sentences and
write them together as a single paragraph.
Meanwhile, our friends Nikki and Deepu asked the residents of their colony what
they would like to say about the colony. This is what they got.
[For MM] Show the thoughts of the characters
{Face of a 40 year old man with a bubble and voice over}
The colony has an excellent park for morning walks and exercise.
{Picture of a paper and a pen. It is written on the paper
Excellent park… for morning walks and exercise… }
{Face of a 5 year old girl with a bubble and voice over}
The parks have nice swings.
{Picture of a paper and a pen. It is written on the paper
Excellent park… for morning walks and exercise… has swings…}
{Face of a 30 year old woman with a bubble and voice over}
There is no problem of electricity or water.
{Picture of a paper and a pen. It is written on the paper
Excellent park… for morning walks and exercise… has swings… no electricity,
water problems…}
{Face of a 30 year old man with a bubble and voice over}
The security for the residents is very good.
{Picture of a paper and a pen. It is written on the paper

9. Excellent park… for morning walks and exercise… has swings… no electricity,
water problems… good security for residents}
[For MM] Show the thoughts of the characters
{Akash is sitting on the sofa. Nikki and Deepu enter the living room}
Akash : How was your survey? Could you get your outlines?
Deepu : Yes Bhaiya. We have got the outline to our paragraph.
Akash : Let me see.
VO with Text on Screen
My Colony
Excellent park… for morning walks and exercise… has swings… no electricity,
water problems… good security for residents… friendly neighbours… school and
hospital nearby… calm and peaceful environment
[For MM] Show the thoughts of the characters
Akash : You have got yourself a very nice outline. Now, the next step is to
develop it.
Nikki : We will write these points as complete meaningful sentences and
then show our paragraph to you.
[Anchor 18 ]
While, Nikki and Deepu develop their outlines, let us look at what all that we have
learnt today.
VO with Text on Screen
Summary
We have learnt that:
 A paragraph is a piece of writing that deals with a single thought or idea.
 A paragraph is made up of sentences related to each other by a common
topic.
 Outlines are incomplete sentences meant to guide us in writing the
paragraph.
 Writing the outlines as grammatically correct and meaningful sentences is
called developing the outlines.

10.  We must stick to the topic and the outlines given to us.
VO with Text on Screen
Question - Answer Session
Here are some topics along with outlines. Develop the outlines into meaningful
sentences.
{Question appears and after 3 seconds the answer appears.}
Topic : Visit to market place
Very crowded… noisy… lots of shops… banners for sale, discount… people
bargaining…
Answer:
The market place was very crowded. It was noisy. There were lots of shops.
Banners for sale and discount were put up outside the shops. We could see
people bargaining.
Topic : A day without electricity
Electricity went off in morning… very hot without fan… could not watch
television… people irritated… cool in the evening… got dark… lit candle…
Answer:
Electricity went off in the morning. It was very hot without the fan. We could not
watch the television. People in the house started getting irritated. The evening
was cool. Soon, it got dark. We lit a candle.
Topic : Computers
Very useful machines… very fast with calculations… store large amount of
data… great help in offices… reduce time and labour.
Answer:
Computers are very useful machines. They are very fast with calculations. They
store large amount of data. They are a great help in offices. They reduce time
and labour.
Topic : Books
Storehouse of knowledge… gain information sitting at home… novels provide
relaxation… makes us better people… improve vocabulary…
Answer:

11. Books are storehouse of knowledge. We gain information sitting at home. Novels
provide us a means of relaxation. Reading books makes us better people. We
also improve our vocabulary.
[Anchor 19 ]
So that’s all for today. Hope you will follow all the rules that you learnt today for
writing a paragraph. Next time, we will learn how to make our paragraph beautiful
by developing the outlines in a better way.
End of the episode