Body paragraph format example

Here's the example body paragraph we did in class for the thematic essay.

BODY #1

Topic Sentence (what is this body paragraph about?):

The message that technology can cause people to become braindead is shown in the way the setting is written in Ray Bradbury’s “The Pedestrian.”

CD1:

“On his way he would see the cottages and homes with their dark windows, and it was not unequal to walking through a graveyard”(47).

CM1 (explains CD1):

The protagonist walks through the land where people are plugged in to their televisions, and it is compared to the dead waste of a graveyard.

CM2 (explains how CD1 proves the thesis):

Bradbury’s comparison of the empty street to a graveyard suggests that the people inside the homes are dead, silent in their homes because of their TVs.

CD2:

“They passed one house…in an entire city of houses that were dark, but this one particular house had all of its electric lights brightly lit, every window a loud yellow illumination, square and warm in the cool darkness”(51).

CM1 (explains CD2):

The house of Mead, the protagonist, is the only one bright and warm.

CM2 (explains how CD2proves the thesis):

Since Mead is the only person not addicted to the mindless entertainment of the TV, the setting of his house reflects this and is warm and alive while the houses around are cold and dead because their inhabitants have been “killed” inside.

Anchor: The contrast between the empty grave-like homes of the TV-addicted and the warm and lifelike home of the individualistic Mead show that technology, in the form of television, can cause people who succumb to it to become braindead and lifeless.