The quest for effective topic sentences reminds me of an old TV commercial—I think it was for tacos—in which people argued, “I like making them!” vs. “I like eating them!”  In the case of topic sentences, you must know how to FIND them before you can WRITE them.  So this section addresses both angles. 

Strategies:

1. Teach students to identify and underline the thesis/topic sentence.  Given passages, use “I do/We do/You do” approach to practice this skill.  
See How to Find the Topic Sentence in the Download Zone. 

2. Give students sample effective topic sentences for which they must generate relevant evidence (bullet points are OK to start; later they can add the rest of the paragraph).  Model this, then have groups try it and report back to the whole class.  Then students do it independently. 

3. Give students a range of effective and ineffective topic sentences and ask them to infer what makes them effective/ineffective.  Ineffective ones should suffer from these common problems:fact, not argument  too broad/general (“Everyone knows"…)  too specific (not much you could say about it)  irrelevant to the thesis (if one is given).

• See EVALUATING TOPIC SENTENCES-I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings in the Download Zone.  This handout reveals the most common problems, so you might want to use it first.  If your students haven’t read this book yet, create your own handout based on something they have read.
  
• See also EVALUATING TOPIC SENTENCES-The Street in the Download Zone for more practice. 
  

4. Give students paragraphs that include effective and ineffective evidence and ask them to infer what makes the evidence effective/ineffective.  Ineffective evidence should suffer from these common problems: irrelevant to topic sentence self-contradictory  inaccurate/imprecise (eg, hyperbole)  not convincing (relevant but not compelling as support—ie, “So what?”).

5. Give students effective topic sentences about texts they are reading or have read, and require them to write the rest of the paragraph, providing effective evidence for support.  See Paragraph Responses-Sample, When I Was Puerto Rican in the Download Zone. 

HINTS:

1. Use content that you want to reinforce, so the reading serves two purposes.
   
2. Use pre-existing texts and simply doctor them to suit your needs so that you won’t have to create sample paragraphs from scratch.
   
3. After students have written their own paragraphs, use their (anonymous) examples as teaching tools.
   

IN THE DOWNLOAD ZONE for Effective Topic Sentences:

• How to Find the Topic Sentence
• EVALUATING TOPIC SENTENCES-I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
• EVALUATING TOPIC SENTENCES-The Street
• Paragraph Responses-Sample, When I Was Puerto Rican