4: 12 Angry Men- Body Paragraph Structure- Lesson Plans and Activities

Body Paragraph Structure

SLO: Establish a clear framework of essay and paragraph organization appropriate to the writing task and the thesis.

Incorporate reasoning and explanations appropriate to the thesis and its supporting claims.

This class will be more lecture based, going over the structure of a body paragraph, once again using Twelve Angry Men as a model.

The instructor will start by presenting this video:

Essay Writing | Body Paragraphs | 07 Topic Sentences

The instructor will present the basic body paragraph structure:

• Topic Sentence

• Introduce Evidence

• Present Evidence

• Analyze Evidence

• Closing Sentence

Instructor will clarify that these five parts of the body paragraph do not necessarily equate five sentences, and that especially the presentation and analysis of the evidence is often developed over multiple sentences.

The instructor will then present explanations for each part of the body paragraph with examples. 

Topic Sentence

• A clear sentence that begins a body paragraph which states a reason to support the overall thesis.

• States what the body paragraph is about

• From Integrated Reading and Writing: “The job of the topic sentence is to control the development and flow of the information contained in the paragraph. The topic sentence takes control of the more general topic of the paragraph and shapes it in the way that you choose to present it to your readers. It provides a way through a topic that is likely much broader than what you could ever cover in a paragraph, or even in an essay. This more focused idea, your topic sentence, helps you determine the parts of the topic that you want to illuminate for your readers—whether that’s a college essay or a thank you letter to your Aunt Martha.”

https://archive.org/details/readingsontwelve0000unse/page/96/mode/2up?q=12+angry+men&view=theater

Introduce Evidence

• Sometimes called a “lead in”, this step acknowledges what source the evidence comes from.

• The first part of a “Quote Sandwich”

• States the name of the article/book/interview/editorial, etc., the author’s name, and a signal/reporting verb (“states”, “says”, “writes”, “argues”, “asserts,” “claims,” etc. 

  • Example: “In the article  ‘Twelve Angry Men Presents an Idealized View of the Jury System’,  David Burrell Smith states, . . .”

Present Evidence

• Types of evidence (from Integrated Reading and Writing)

  • Facts. Facts, such as statistics, are the best kind of evidence to use because they often cannot be disputed. They can support your stance by providing background information on or a solid foundation for your point of view. However, facts still need explanation. For example, the sentence “The most populated state in the United States is California” is a pure fact, but it will require some explanation to make it relevant to your specific argument. Always be sure you gather your facts from credible sources.

  • Judgments. Judgments are conclusions drawn from the given facts. Judgments are more credible than opinions because they are founded upon careful reasoning and examination of a topic. Use judgments from experts in the field as they are the more credible sources for the topic.

  • Testimony. Testimony consists of direct quotations from either an eyewitness or an expert witness. An eyewitness is someone who directly observed an instance of what you are writing about; testimony adds authenticity to an argument based on facts. An expert witness is a person who has extensive experience with a topic. This person studies the facts and provides commentary based on either facts or judgments, or both. An expert witness adds authority and credibility to an argument.

  • Personal observation. Personal observation is similar to testimony, but personal observation consists of your testimony. It reflects what you know to be true because you have experiences and have formed either opinions or judgments about them. For instance, if you are one of five children and your thesis states that being part of a large family is beneficial to a child’s social development, you could use your own experience to support your thesis.

Analyze the Evidence

• Explain why the evidence is relevant

• Explain why the evidence support the thesis

• From Integrated Reading and Writing: “In addition to supporting details, college level paragraphs add quite a bit of explanation and elaboration in body paragraphs. Development of explanation and elaboration is one of the big differences between high school and college-level writing. Rather than just appearing in one paragraph all by itself -- possibly in a conclusion -- explanation and elaboration should appear through your essay. Some sentence stems you can use to help you develop your explanation and elaboration appear in the following list.”

• Sentence Stems for Elaboration

  • X matters because ___________.

  • X is important because ___________.

  • X is crucial in terms of today’s concern over ___________ because ___________.

  • Ultimately, what is at stake here is ___________.

  • These points have important consequences for the broader discussion about ___________.

  • The discussion of X is in fact addressing the larger matter of ___________.

  • These conclusions have significant implications for ___________.

  • X should in fact concern anyone who cares about ___________.

Concluding Sentence

• Last sentence in body paragraph that wraps it up

• Often starts with transition words/phrases like “Therefore.” “To sum up,” “As a result,” etc.

  • Example: “Therefore, justice is served by Reginald Rose’s fictional jury because they consider and reflect on every possible detail presented to them.”

The instructor will then project or hand out an example modeling a body paragraph:

https://docs.google.com/document/u/0/d/1xskG6BrlPncI3au6raJ1fbmSMueQ6wp7Y9qE-EHJoZ0/edit

Overall Thesis Statement:

Despite the film/play’s often inaccurate portrayal of how the criminal justice actually operates, the jurors of Twelve Angry Men still serve appropriate justice to the accused, realistically or not. 

First and foremost, the jurors are able to appropriately exonerate the accused because they establish clear reasonable doubt. While it is unclear if the young man accused of murdering his father is innocent exactly, the jurors analyze and uncover enough details about the evidence that compromise any certainty of his guilt. In his article, “Twelve Angry Men Produces Critical Thinking About the Jury System”, Henry F. Nardone claims, “The jury’s inability to recognize that the evidence against the defendant is in some ways ambiguous, capable of generating a reasonable doubt, is perhaps the moral of the story. . .their certainties dissolve into a reexamination of the ‘facts’. The film is practically a primer in the definition and clarification of those important words ‘reasonable doubt.’ The entire action is concerned with establishing it” (85,86).  Nardone acknowledges that the jury is so positive about the verdict at face value that they initially do not bother to examine possible uncertainties; once they do, however, the uncertainties pile up and it becomes impossible to convict someone on that evidence alone. Their own prejudices created reasonable doubt because they did not bother to uncover the flaws in the evidence presented to them.  For example, Juror # 4 (E.G. Marshall) maintains his vote of “guilty” due to the eye witness testimony of a woman across the street who claimed to have gotten “a good look” at the boy killing his father. This juror labels this “unshakable testimony” (1:22:19). However, this testimony is shaken when the elderly Juror # 9 (Joseph Sweeney) points out how Juror #4 rubbing the pockmarks created by his glasses reminded him of the same eyewitness doing the same on the stand. This implies she might usually wear glasses herself, and, since she was coming from bed wear she likely was not wearing them, there is a high chance she was not wearing them when she witnessed the crime as well. This creates considerable reasonable doubt because the eyes of the eye witness are now in question. Even if one dismisses all the circumstantial evidence that comes before, this compromise erases any certitude that the boy is a hundred percent guilty. “You can’t send someone off to die on evidence like that,” the soft spoken Juror #2 (John Fiedler) exclaims (1:28:14). Therefore, the jury could not ignore all the reasonable doubt they discovered through out and came to a suitable conclusion as a result.