paragraph explosion

Like the paragraph-cutting exercise, this peer review activity will similarly get you thinking about the paragraph as a discrete unit. In addition, this exercise will require peers to consider the structure and content of the sentences in a single paragraph.

Follow the steps below to prepare your own work for the activity:

1. Open your essay on the google drive and select one body paragraph of at least six sentences. 

2. Copy and paste this paragraph into a new google doc titled "paragraph explosion activity" in your essay 3 folder.

3. "Explode" the paragraph by hitting return/enter at the end of each sentence. The end result should have each sentence on a line by itself. 

4. Alphabetize the sentences using the first word as a guide. In instances where first words are the same (i.e. "The") move to the second word. 

5. Add at least one extra line of space between each sentence to improve readability.

6. Share this paragraph with the peer whose email you have been given. Make sure that "can edit" is indicated in the sharing preferences.

Once you have traded emails and are able to see a peer's paragraph in your "shared with me" folder, begin the activity below.

1. Read through each sentence, making surface revisions and comments as you see fit.  

2. Comment on sentence variety and structure. 

• Do all of the sentences begin with the same word or phrase? 

• Are they all of similar length?  

• Do you see any instances of repetition or is there a healthy variety of phrasing and structure? 

• Do you see any quotations without integration or signal words? Can these be improved? Are any sentences "drop quotes"?

3. Now work on structure. Use what you know about body paragraphs to put the sentences in a logical order. How will you know? Think first about creating clusters of sentences, and consider the following:

• Is there a main idea that looks like it might be a topic sentence? If there are two sentences that express a main idea, one might be the concluding sentence of the paragraph

• Are there sentences with quotations and those that explain/interpret them that might be clustered together?

• Are there descriptive sentences and those that interpret them that might be clustered together?

• If you were using this information to create your own paragraph, how would you order the sentences?  

4. Write at least one specific, constructive (positive) comment about the information contained in the paragraph, being sure to include a "because" phrase: "This is a great phrase because..." 

5. Write at least one specific comment about one area the author might consider for improvement, again using a "because" phrase.