Once you get past your introductory paragraph, you can then begin with the body paragraphs that you will write to support and defend your thesis. If you are looking to structure these paragraphs, we suggest the following steps, known as SPEAC (“speak!”) Paragraphing.

State a Claim (AKA: Topic Sentence)

The first sentence of your body paragraph is your Statement (of a claim). Treat this sentence like a mini thesis – something that tells what the rest of the paragraph will aim to prove. Like a thesis, a Statement has to be something debatable and provable, otherwise, your paragraph will not have any direction and will likely just point out plot points. Aim to have your Statement be one sentence long, and your lead-in does not have to have a literary device in it, although that *is* a fine way of ensuring that your argument will be debatable and provable. If you are writing a WHAT/HOW/WHY essay, your first Statement will essentially be the WHAT&HOW part of your thesis, your second Statement will be the WHY portion.

For a much more in-depth discussion of what a Statement of a claim (or: a topic sentence) must do, CLICK HERE.

Point

The first step in proving your topic sentence is to raise a point from the text that you will explore and use as proof that your topic sentence is correct. Like with any argument, once you raise your main argument that you want to prove (in this case, your topic sentence), you then have to have smaller, more precise and more manageable points that you must prove to win the argument. The point part of a body paragraph is when you bring up those smaller arguments that you will use to prove your claim, which in turn helps prove your thesis. At this step in the essay, you are finally able to begin to transition from the argument to the evidence that you will use to prove that argument.
IMPORTANT NOTE: In this part of your essay, avoid the temptation to summarize the plot of the novel. You should point out a scene or a moment or pattern that helps your argument, but you should also work under the presumption that your reader knows the book pretty well. If you talk about the scene where Simon crawls under the creeper vines, you don’t need to explain who Simon is or what a creeper vine looks like (unless it is relevant to your interpretation).

Evidence

In this second step, you bring the text into your argument as proof that you are right – you need to provide evidence to back up your point. Whatever you just raised in your point needs to be proven with support from the book, otherwise, it might feel like you are simply building an argument out of air. Most of the time, your evidence will be a quote from the text. If you are quoting the text, only include the essential part of the quote; don’t let your quote dominate your paragraph. Occasionally, though, you might be able to support your point by indicating something concrete from the story that isn’t a quote, but is still evidence. For example, if you indicate that Jack first appears in Lord of the Flies wearing a choir boy robe and a black cap, but later has lost nearly all of his clothing, you don’t necessarily need a quote for that. We suggest that you use the non-quote evidence sparingly though.

Analysis

The final step is to look into the specific quote or plot reference that you raised in your evidence and analyze the particular elements of it – your job is only partially done once you’ve found that strong quote, that interesting element of the text. If you don’t analyze why that quote works so well, then you are abandoning your argument *right before the finish line*. For a reminder on the many, many ways you can extract meaning from a quote, CLICK HERE. With your analysis, be sure that you are not simply restating the original point, as in the following example: Lennie offers a small complaint about their situation in chapter one saying, “I like beans with ketchup” (Steinbeck 8). In saying that he wants ketchup that they do not have, Lennie brings up a complaint about their situation. This is not a PEA, it is a PEP. Your analysis has to bring up something NEW, something INTERESTING about the quote or plot point that you just introduced. If you cannot do that, you likely need a better quote or plot point. In this example, you could say, Lennie offers a small complaint about their situation in chapter one saying, “I like beans with ketchup” (Steinbeck 8). By expressing his desire as a statement instead of a request, Steinbeck reinforces the pattern of the everyday denial of pleasure for the migrant workers like Lennie. For more suggestions on how to use a strong quote, CLICK HERE. And HERE.

Two other suggested strategies for quote analysis: The Five Steps Method and the DIDLS method

Once you have fully analyzed your quote, introduce your next point. Depending on the assignment, you might have some variety in how many PEA arguments your paragraph needs, but you must have at least two in order to have a balanced argument (two PEAs in a pod!), and your teacher may require three. That way, if one of your arguments is sort of flat, you still have two other ones to boost your thesis. And if you know that one of your PEA arguments is weaker, bury it in the middle of the paragraph.

Concluding Sentence

This part is not included on the graphic organizer due to space, but after your final PEA argument, you should add a sentence that wraps up your point and either (A) transitions into your next paragraph or (B) winds down your argument in anticipation of your conclusion. At the very least, you can paraphrase your topic sentence or your thesis here, but don’t just bail out of your paragraph.

Final Note

What we suggest here is the minimum that you should aim for in order to have a completed argument. But you can go further. In other words, you might have two or three ways to analyze a single quote (PEAAA!), or your point might have two completely different pieces of evidence to support it (PEAEA!!). You might be able to write a paragraph with more than three main points (FOUR PEAs IN A POD??! WHAT A VALUE!). But at the very least, each point should have evidence to defend it, and each piece of evidence should be analyzed.

As with any other skill, like artwork, or music, or athletics, once you master the basics, then you can stretch out and try to bend or break the rules. But it is much harder to gain proficiency without those basics. SPEAC paragraph structuring encourages you to measure whether or not you are fully defending your points. Once you have that down cold, then you can start to experiment with your structure more.

Please see THIS GRAPHIC ORGANIZER to map out a body paragraph using this format – this graphic organizer encourages you to have a thorough explanation of your argument.

Sample SPEAC Paragraph

UNDERLINED ITALICS = Statement/Topic Sentence.
BOLD = Point. ITALICS = Evidence UNDERLINE = Analysis (PEA Argument)
UNFORMATTED FINAL SENTENCE = Concluding Sentence

Through his descriptions of items in the story “The Things They Carried,” O’Brien introduces the theme of concealing himself through how he addresses the items of his fellow soldiers. During this story, the narrator begins his descriptions with something vague about what all of his fellow soldiers carried, ultimately offering images that carry little, if any, lasting value. O’Brien describes what the soldiers carried as “a function of rank”, “whatever seemed appropriate as a means of killing or staying alive”, “varied by mission”, and being “determined to some extent by superstition”, to indicate a few (O’Brien, 1163). These summaries are vague (“to some extent, “whatever”) and impersonal, and could be used to describe any of a thousand different troops in any given war. As the sections within the chapter progress, the descriptions of the “things” almost immediately begin to become more personal. Three of the four examples given above go on to mention a specific soldier by name within the next two sentences. These examples, while more individually specific, are still fairly general. Lee Strunk carries a slingshot as a last resort, and Rat Kiley, the medic, carries comic books and M&Ms. While these individual items give possible glimpses into their corresponding characters’ lives (Strunk is scrappy, for instance, and Kiley is immature) they still shy away from significant memories of the war. The final statements of these recurring sections of the chapter frequently close with intense and highly personal memories such as “In April, for instance, when Ted Lavender was shot, they used his poncho to wrap him up, then to carry him across the paddy, then to lift him into the chopper that took him away” (O’Brien 1165). In this line, O’Brien shows a closeness to the death, describing intimate details of his body’s removal. While the shift towards these moments of undeniable emotional turmoil is gradual, the retreat away from them is abrupt and brutal – he mentions Lavender’s dead body three times, then immediately follows it with: bug juice, a good-luck pebble and a memory of puppy love. These graceless pivots back into his lifeless, impersonal narration reveal the narrator’s close but uncomfortable connection with the personal events that he describes.
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