TEEL — Building a Body Paragraph that Develops One Reason

Teacher reads aloud one paragraph from Brown Girl Dreaming. Children name the topic, the evidence, the explanation, and the link in turn.

• Read with paused pacing
• Ask 'what is the topic-sentence?'
• Ask 'where is the evidence?'
• Ask 'where is the link?'

Today you meet TEEL — the structure of every body paragraph. Four bands. T = TOPIC-SENTENCE (purple): names the paragraph's REASON. E = EVIDENCE (orange): fact, quote, statistic, or example with IN-TEXT CITATION. E = EXPLANATION (blue): how the evidence supports the reason. What it MEANS. L = LINK (green): a sentence connecting this paragraph BACK to the thesis. Watch teacher build on 'verse form works because pace, pause, rhythm.' Body paragraph 1 develops REASON 1 (pace): TOPIC: 'First, verse line breaks slow the reader's pace and force attention on each phrase.' EVIDENCE: 'In Brown Girl Dreaming, Woodson writes "Words have always been my magic" on its own line (Woodson 2014, 24).' EXPLANATION: 'The line break forces the reader to dwell on "magic" — a single line carries the weight of a paragraph in prose. The verse pause does the work of pacing.' LINK: 'This pace-slowing is the first reason verse form works for memoir: it gives memory space to land.' All four bands present. Each sentence does one job. LINK pulls back to thesis.

• The TOPIC names the reason. EVIDENCE has a citation. EXPLANATION explains WHY the evidence supports the reason. LINK names THIS reason and ties to thesis.

  model See narrative — 4-band paragraph on verse-form-pace reason.

  prompt Teacher builds one TEEL body paragraph live.

• What are the 4 TEEL bands?
• Why does the LINK sentence matter — what does it do for the reader?

M-5-F-WR-03-A Chart

Reproduction of MG-3 at 11x17: 4-band stacked card (TOPIC purple / EVIDENCE orange / EXPLANATION blue / LINK green) with worked example paragraph using Brown Girl Dreaming evidence. Print-ready, dyslexic-friendly font.

MG-3 Chart Physical / non-image

TEEL body-paragraph anchor chart: a 4-band stacked card — TOPIC-SENTENCE (purple, anchor icon — 'this body paragraph's reason for the thesis'), EVIDENCE (orange, magnifying-glass with quote-marks — 'a specific fact, quote, statistic, or example with in-text citation'), EXPLANATION (blue, lightbulb — 'how the evidence supports the reason — what it MEANS'), LINK (green, chain-link — 'a sentence that connects this reason back to the thesis'). Worked example below: 'First, Brown Girl Dreaming uses verse form to slow the reader down and let memory unfold. (TOPIC-SENTENCE) Woodson writes "Words have always been my magic" (Woodson 2014, 24) to mark the moment she found her own voice. (EVIDENCE) The short verse pause forces the reader to dwell on the word ''magic'' — a single line carries the weight of a paragraph in prose. (EXPLANATION) This is the first reason verse form works for memoir: it slows time so memory can breathe. (LINK)' Print-ready 11x17.

• Take your thesis. Use the color-coded TEEL sentence-strip kit to build a body paragraph for REASON 1. Arrange 4 bands before transcribing.

  scaffold MG-3 anchor at desk; color-coded sentence-strip kit; signal-phrase deck
• Share with a partner. Partner identifies the 4 bands by color.

  scaffold Sentence frame: 'My topic is ___. My evidence is ___ (cite). My explanation is ___. My link is ___.'

M-5-F-WR-03-B Illustration

Reference image of a Grade-5 child's handwritten TEEL body paragraph with each band color-highlighted (topic purple, evidence orange, explanation blue, link green). Print-ready 8.5x11 notebook page.

• Color-mark your TEEL paragraph (topic=purple, evidence=orange, explanation=blue, link=green).
• Move status-tile to PLAN or DRAFT.

• Star your TEEL paragraph.
• Predict: tomorrow we use the 5-paragraph planner and meet Tier-2 Set 11.

• At home tonight, draft TEEL for REASON 2 on a sticky note. Bring tomorrow.