Task 2: Identifying Parts of a Paragraph

Part 1 - Essay Structure: Look at the following paragraph, which is an excerpt from a social
science textbook about family. Determine which part of the paragraph is the topic sentence(s),
the body, and the concluding sentence(s).

1. If parents’ social class influences how they raise their children, it is also true that the
sex of their children affects how they are socialized by their parents. 2. Many studies find that
parents raise their daughters and sons quite differently as they interact with them from birth. 3.
Parents help their girls learn how to act and think “like girls,” and they help their boys learn
how to act and think “like boys.” 4. That is, they help their daughters and sons learn their
gender (Wood, 2009). 5. For example, they are gentler with their daughters and rougher with
their sons. 6. They give their girls dolls to play with, and their boys guns. 7. Girls may be made
of “sugar and spice and everything nice” and boys something quite different, but their parents
help them greatly, for better or worse, turn out that way. 8. To the extent this is true, our
gender stems much more from socialization than from biological differences between the
sexes, or so many sociologists assume. 9. If theorist Carol Gilligan is right that boys and girls
reach moral judgments differently, perhaps socialization matters more than biology for how
they reach these judgments.

Part 2 - Expanding the paragraph to an essay: Imagine you were expanding this paragraph into
a three-paragraph essay. Which sentences would be part of the introduction paragraph? Which
sentences could become the body paragraphs? Which sentences would be part of the
conclusion paragraph? Note: There may be more than one answer.
 Introduction paragraph
. 2. Many studies find that parents raise their daughters and sons quite differently as they
interact with them from birth
5. For example, they are gentler with their daughters and rougher with their sons.
6. They give their girls dolls to play with, and their boys guns

© 2022 by English Language Programs. Task 2: Identifying Parts of a Paragraph for the Online
Professional English Network (OPEN), sponsored by the U.S. Department of State with funding provided
by the U.S. government and administered by FHI 360. This work is an adaptation of "Child, Family, and
Community" by Rebecca Laff and Wendy Ruiz, College of the Canyons licensed under the Creative
Commons CC BY 4.0 License, and can be found here
(https://drive.google.com/file/d/11EETGrZW8__4DYWI_78e89Ru9S4OvM13/view). To view a copy of
the license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. Adapted content is licensed under the
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License, except where noted. To view a copy of this license, visit
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
  Body paragraphs
3. Parents help their girls learn how to act and think “like girls,” and they help their boys
learn how to act and think “like boys.”
7. Girls may be made of “sugar and spice and everything nice” and boys something quite
different, but their parents help them greatly, for better or worse, turn out that way.
8. To the extent this is true, our gender stems much more from socialization than from
biological differences between the sexes, or so many sociologists assume.
 Conclusion paragraph
1. If parents’ social class influences how they raise their children, it is also true that the sex
of their children affects how they are socialized by their parents
4. That is, they help their daughters and sons learn their gender (Wood, 2009)
9. If theorist Carol Gilligan is right that boys and girls reach moral judgments differently,
perhaps socialization matters more than biology for how they reach these judgments.

© 2022 by English Language Programs. Task 2: Identifying Parts of a Paragraph for the Online
Professional English Network (OPEN), sponsored by the U.S. Department of State with funding provided
by the U.S. government and administered by FHI 360. This work is an adaptation of "Child, Family, and
Community" by Rebecca Laff and Wendy Ruiz, College of the Canyons licensed under the Creative
Commons CC BY 4.0 License, and can be found here
(https://drive.google.com/file/d/11EETGrZW8__4DYWI_78e89Ru9S4OvM13/view). To view a copy of
the license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. Adapted content is licensed under the
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License, except where noted. To view a copy of this license, visit
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/