The document provides guidance on developing paragraphs through different writing strategies such as description, narration, exposition, and argumentation. It discusses how to organize ideas and support points for each strategy. Description involves creating vivid pictures using details, while narration relates a series of events. Exposition explains ideas and viewpoints using examples, classification, processes, causes and effects, or comparisons. The document offers examples and questions to help effectively employ each strategy in paragraph development.

2. • How do I organize
my message so that
readers can follow
my line of thinking?

4. • A developmental paragraph is a unit
of meaning, a group of sentences all
focusing on one main organizing point.

5. How to develop a
paragraph
Explain and/ or expand each of your
support points
To clarify the central ideas that you
have articulated in your topic
sentence.

6. What will I write about?
• Knowledge of the topic taken from:
• books, magazines, newspapers, and
most especially, observations and
experience.

7. Adequate development
means…
1. Explaining your support points in a
concrete and specific manner
2. Providing enough factual details to
satisfy your reader
3. Answering any question that has been
posed in the paragraph
4. Drawing a conclusion from the fact that
have been presented.

8. • An adequately developed paragraph is
as long as it has to be, and no longer.
So when the main idea has been
sufficiently explained, it is time to
end the paragraph.
• Thought organization is the key to
paragraph development.

9. Major Development
Strategies
• A development strategy is simply a
plan for achieving a goal.
• Specifically, it is a plan for coming up
with the details, events, examples,
explanations and readers that enable
readers to grasp your exact meaning.

10. Four major strategies
for developing a
message:
• 1. description
• 2. narration
• 3. exposition
• 4. argumentation

11. DESCRIPTION

12. Description
• Concentrates on creating a picture
with words.
You help your readers
You help your readers
visualize details!
visualize details!

14. Description
• can either be:
1. objective
- provides factual picture of something
- observable facts: not colored by writer’s
emotions
2. subjective
- contains observable details colored by
impressions or feelings
-creates a mood or shares a feeling

19. Questions to ask:
• What is it?
• What does it look like?
• What does it make you feel?
• What is your impression of it?
• How could I recognize it?

20. Examples…
• Share with a friend your sensations about vacationing
in the Chocolate Hills
• Describe with a friend the geology of Chocolate Hills
• All day, we had a temperature of 20 degrees Celsius
and heavy rains were driven by winds at 180 kph.
• All day, the weather was dismal.
• The freezing rain and forceful winds made our first
day of vacation dismal.

21. • Now, as I write to you, it is raining in torrents and
we have closed the house against the thunder and
lightning. It is an unusual April, I told you; we
didn’t have a dry season at all and everything is
fresh and green. The pink shower has never been
so lovely with its red and white blossoms as
anything tropical can be. The golden shower is
covered with bright yellow sprays. Like the
tamarind, it is a tree of character, and will not
yield to the blandishments of a capricious
weather. It will bide its time, and when that
comes, and no sooner; it will burst into bloom.
Virginia Benitez Licuanan,
from “Introduction”
in Paz Marquez Benitez(1995)

22. Assume that your best friend
has been missing for three
days, and the police had been
called in. Because you know
this person well, they have
asked you for a written
description. Write an
objective description that
would enable the police to find
this person.

23. p.249-253
p.257
p.261-263
Guidelines..
• 1. Although some descriptions have no
topic statement, they always begin with
some kind of orienting statement.
• 2. The choice of details in a description
depends precisely on the writer’s purpose
and reader’s need.
• 3. All details are at a level that is concrete
and specific enough to convey an
unmistakable picture

24. NARRATION

25. Narration
• Unfolds a series of related events as they
happen
• Is usually in chronological order in order to
tell a story.
• Also relies on descriptive details to make
the story vivid but it’s central function is
to enable readers to follow events

27. May either be factual or
fictitious
• Novels or fictional stories – stimulate
our imagination and entertains us
• Newspaper stories – report
newsworthy events objectively
• Essays- make a definite point

28. May be linear or
non-linear
• ELEMENTS: setting plot, structure

29. • A paragraph of narration is often
found in articles and essays.
• In this case, the paragraph would
explain, emphasize, confirm, or
illustrate a main idea.
• Narration relies heavily on details to
make the event vivid

30. Example:
• Yesterday, I got home from school at around 4
o'clock. My mother prepared dinner which we ate
as soon as Dad came home from work. After eating,
I helped mother clear the table and clean the
dishes. After we got the kitchen cleaned, I had to
sit and do my homework as I remembered my
mother say, "No television until your homework is
done.” And so, I had my chemistry homework
finished first before turning on the television. I
was watching Walang Hanggan when the phone rang.
It was my best friend, Amy. I talked to her for
awhile; then, it was time for bed. I put on my
pajamas and turned on my favorite cd. I finally
started to get sleepy around 9:30, and the next
thing I knew, mother was calling me to get ready
for school.

31. Assume that you have witnessed this crime.
Because you are an objective witness, the
authorities have asked you to write a short
report, telling exactly what you saw. Your
report will be used as evidence.

32. EXPOSITION

33. Exposition
• most common strategy for developing a message
• explains the writer’s viewpoint
• Although exposition contains description and
narration, its role is not merely to paint a word
picture or to tell a story, but to clarify the
writer’s exact meaning as this question is
answered:
“ What do you mean?”

34. Exposition:
• Exposition is explanatory writing
• Exposition can be an incidental part of a
description or a narration, or it can be the heart
of an article
• The purpose of an expository essay is to present,
completely and fairly, other people's views or to
report about an event or a situation.

35. Exposition
• Expository writing, or exposition, presents a
subject in detail.
• The writer elucidates a subject by analyzing it.
• Such writing is discourse designed to convey
information or explain what is difficult to
understand.

36. Expository strategies:
• Illustration or examples: showing examples of
something
Questions: What makes you think so?
Can you give examples I can grasp?
***Examples should be:
1) Specific
2) Relevant
3) Typical

37. • Student A: Whew! I had a lousy day.
• Student B: How’s that?
• A: Well, first of all, I got up late and didn’t have time for
breakfast. I decided to pick up something at McDonald’s
and eat it in the car on the way to school. I got an Egg
McMuffin, and when I took my first bite, the egg slipped
out and slid down my sweater. Now, I have egg stains on my
new sweater!
• B: That is a bad start.
• A: That’s not all. When I got to my first class -- late, of
course – I found out the teacher was giving a pop quiz. I
flunked it, I’m sure, because for the first time in the
semester I didn’t do the homework.
• B: Wow!
• A: That’s not the worst of it. When I saw my girl, she really
snubbed me. I had forgotten that I was supposed to pick
her up this morning!
• B: Wow! You sure did have a bad day!

38. Expository strategies:
• Division and classification: showing how something
can be divided into parts, or how parts can be sorted
into categories
Questions: What are its parts?
What is it made of?
In what categories do X, Y, and Z belong?

40. Expository strategies:
• Process analysis: showing the steps of an activity
or the stages of an event
Questions:
Explaining how to do something:
How do I do it? How does it happen?
Where do I begin? What do I do next?
Explaining how something happens:
How does it happen?
How is it made?
When and where does it happen?
What happens first? Next?
What is the result?
p.287

41. p.239-241

42. Expository strategies:
• Cause/ effect analysis: showing what caused
something or what the effects of something are
Questions: Why did it happen?
What caused it?
What are its effects?
What will happen if it is done?

44. Writing Suggestions
CAUSE AND EFFECT
1. The popularity of some modern singer or other
celebrity
2. The popularity of some fad of clothing or hairstyle
3. The widespread enjoyment of texting
4. Student cheating
5. The decision of some close acquaintance to enter
the religious life
p.291-292

45. x

46. Expository strategies:
• Comparison/ contrast: showing how two things
are similar or different
Questions: How are X and Y similar or alike?
How are X and Y different?
Two methods:
1) Block method – subject is tackled one at a time
2) Point-by-point/ alternating – moves from first
object to second object as it makes a
comparison

47. Writing Suggestions
COMPARISON AND CONTRAST
1. Two politicians with different leadership styles
2. Careers versus jobs
3. Two courses on the same subject: one in high school and one
in college
4. Two recent movies or music videos
5. The “rewards” of two different kinds of jobs

49. Expository strategies:
• Definition: showing the exact meaning of a term
that could have various meanings
Meanings of words
denotation connotation
-Dictionary meaning Overtones or suggestions
-What is it? What does beyond dictionary meaning
it mean? - What does it mean or
suggest to you?

50. TYPES OF DEFINITION
1. SIMPLE DEFINITION (included in the exam)
• Formal
• Semi-formal
• Non-formal
2. COMPLEX OR EXPANDED DEFINITION (not included)
• Definition by stipulation
• Definition by operation
• Definition by explication
p.131-134

52. Writing Suggestions
MORE…
DEFINITION
Develop a composition for a specified purpose and audience, using
whatever methods and expository patterns will help convey a clear
understanding of your meaning of one of the following terms:
1.Country music 11. Ignorance 21.Patriotism
2.Conscience 12. Cowardice 22.Equality (or equal
opportunity
3.Religion 13. Wisdom
23.Loyalty
4.Friendship 14. Integrity 24.Stylishness (in
5.Success 15. Morality clothing or behavior)
6.Empathy 16. Greed 25.Fame
7.Family 17. Social poise 26.Obesity
27.Cheating
8.Hypocrisy 18. Intellectual (the 28.Hero
9.Humor person) 29.Feminine
10.Sophistication 19. Pornography 30.Masculine
20. Courage

53. NARRATION AND
EXPOSITION
EXERCISE
p.189