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English 9 · Unit 01 · Week 02 · Day 7 of 10

Build a Paragraph of Analysis

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Day 7Analytical paragraphW.9-10.2L.9-10.1

Build a Paragraph of Analysis

Today’s Question: How does a paragraph prove rather than merely state an interpretation?

Learning Target

I can build an analytical paragraph in which every sentence contributes to a claim, evidence, explanation, or significance.

I Do · C-E-E-S
  1. Claim: answer the interpretive question.
  2. Evidence: provide precise textual support.
  3. Explanation: explain how the evidence supports the claim.
  4. Significance: explain why the interpretation matters to the text’s larger meaning.

This is not a rigid four-sentence formula. It is a reasoning sequence. Strong paragraphs may use multiple evidence-explanation pairs.

Model

Claim: Lena’s changing relationship to the key shows that responsibility becomes meaningful when she stops performing it for an audience.

Evidence: Early in the story, Lena notices that the key feels “heavier when someone else could see it.”

Explanation: The weight is not physical; it reflects her awareness of judgment. She is concerned with being caught rather than with repairing the mistake itself.

Significance: By the final paragraph, she no longer checks whether anyone is watching, showing that her motive has shifted from avoiding embarrassment to accepting responsibility.

We Do

Take your strongest Day 6 claim. Identify the best detail, not merely the first relevant one. Complete this reasoning chain: This detail shows ___ because ___. This matters because ___.

You Do

Write one 180–250 word analytical paragraph using at least two details from Text A. Highlight or label C, E, E, and S after drafting.

Language Lab · Subjects, Predicates & Clauses

In the sentence Although Lena could have hidden the key, she returns it because her understanding of responsibility changes, identify the subject and predicate of the independent clause and both dependent clauses. Then combine two short sentences from your paragraph using although, because, or while without creating a run-on.

Evidence of Learning

Reflection

Which sentence in your paragraph does the most intellectual work? Which sentence could disappear without weakening your reasoning?

Support

Use visible C-E-E-S labels while drafting. Remove the labels before submitting.

Core

Draft a unified paragraph with two evidence-explanation pairs and a significance sentence.

Extension

Anticipate one reasonable alternative interpretation and add one sentence that qualifies your claim without abandoning it.

Open Text A · The Key on the Windowsill

Text A · The Key on the Windowsill

Lena found the key in her coat pocket two days after the rain. It belonged to the old greenhouse behind the school, a narrow iron key with a square bow and a stripe of green paint near the teeth. She remembered borrowing it from Mr. Vale to bring in the seed trays before the storm. She also remembered telling him, with complete confidence, that she had returned it.

For two mornings she carried the key back to school and carried it home again. Each time she reached the greenhouse path, someone seemed to be nearby. On Monday, the groundskeeper was trimming the hedge. On Tuesday, two students were filling watering cans. Lena told herself she was waiting for privacy because an explanation would take too long. Yet she noticed that the key felt heavier when someone else could see it.

Wednesday arrived clear and cold. The greenhouse door stood chained because Mr. Vale had begun using the side entrance. Lena could have slipped the key under his office door. Instead, she walked to the greenhouse and placed it on the stone windowsill where he always left his gloves. The gesture felt absurdly small. No bell rang. No one stepped from behind the hedge. Nothing announced that she had corrected anything.

She had almost reached the building when she turned back. The key was still there, bright against the dark stone. Lena looked at it for a long moment, then kept walking. For the first time all week, she did not check whether anyone had seen her.

Interactive practice · Formative only

Build a Paragraph of Analysis · Reasoning Check

Five questions, 4/5 = 80%. These do not grade the literary analysis or confer course mastery.

Independent writing tool

C–E–E–S Reasoning Builder

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Prepare Day 7 evidence

Uses learner-specific Week 2 progress · Day 10 still requires evaluator-reviewed 8/10 written mastery.