Purpose

For this Spotlight, write a paragraph that makes a point about the book, and uses a scene or example from Ghostbread to support that point.

Content

Again, there are several jobs you’ll need to do in this paragraph, and in this case, I’d recommend approaching them in a particular order.

First, you’ll need to make a point about Ghostbread. This means that your paragraph should probably start with “I Say”—a topic sentence explaining what your point is. What do you want me to believe about the book?

Second, you’ll need to include an example from the book that supports your point. This part can use the tools we’ve talked about for working with “They Say”—summary, quotation, and paraphrase. Remember, as always, that your reader may not have read the book, so you’ll want to make sure that they understand what happened in the scene—don’t just plop a quotation in without explaining it. And, because you’re including someone else’s ideas, you’ll need to make sure that you’re providing correct citations.

Finally, you’ll need to explain the example, and how it supports your point. Why does this scene show that what you say is true? Why does this example support your argument?

Where It Fits

This paragraph represents a common pattern, no matter what you’re writing about.¹ It’s a paragraph that most commonly happens in the middle of your paper, somewhere—after you’ve introduced your sources and ideas, while you’re in the middle of your argument. You might do this a whole bunch of times in an essay, and even in Writing Project 3—which is only 3-4 pages—you might still have four or five of these.

While we’ll only look at one paragraph in our Paragraph Spotlight—as always—I’d encourage you to use this pattern whenever you’re using a specific example in your paper to back up your argument. That’s what these Paragraph Spotlights are for, after all—to help us learn the patterns of college writing.