Paragraphing
The facts can be
put together in a variety of ways, but each paragraph should deal with
a particular set of facts. In the following sample composition, the first
paragraph deals with Mark Twain's early life, the second with his later
life and writings, and the third with his death.
Samuel Langhorne Clemens, born in 1835, spent his
boyhood in Hannibal, Missouri, on the Mississippi River. Incidents from
his childhood provided him with material for his books Tom Sawyer
and
Huckleberry
Finn. His experience as a pilot on a Mississippi steamboat provided
him with his pen name, Mark Twain, which came from a call used by pilots
to mark the depth of the water.
As a newspaperman and later as a lecturer, Twain traveled widely. His book
Roughing
It is based on his trip to a Nevada silver mine, and Innocents Abroad
was
inspired by his travels in Europe. Among his other works are A Connecticut
Yankee in King Arthur's Court and The Prince and the Pauper. Many
of his writings are still popular today, and he is often quoted.
Though this famous humorist was born in the heart of America, he made his
permanent home in the East, where he died in 1910 on the day Halley's comet
reappeared, just as it had appeared on the day of his birth.
