PARAGRAPH 1.6

Simón BolívarSimón Bolívar (1783–1830) was one of South

America’s greatest heroes and a very powerful man. In Spanish, Simón Bolívar is often called El Libertador, which means “The Liberator1.” Spanish is the national language in at least 22 countries. This name is a very good one because he helped six countries become independent from Spain: Bolivia (1809), Colombia (1819), Ecuador (1820), Panama (1821), Peru (1821), and his home country of Venezuela (1811). In fact, Bolivia is named for Bolívar. Not many people have countries named after them. Because these six countries together are approximately the same size as modern Europe, their independence was an important event in history. Although Bolívar’s name is not as well-known outside Latin America, many people there believe that he is the most important person in their history.1liberator: someone who helps others become free

1. What is the main idea of the paragraph?

2. Does the paragraph have a topic sentence? If so, write it here. If not, write one here.

3. Are all the sentences related to the topic? If not, cross out the unrelated sentence(s).

4. What is the concluding sentence? Write it here.

Mechanics: Capitalization and End PunctuationA capital letter indicates that the word is at the beginning of a sentence or is a name. Names are given to a specific person (Dr. Jenkins), a place (Japan), a company (Swiss Airlines), and a variety of other things (Hello Kitty, the United Nations,...).

End punctuation includes periods (.), question marks (?), and exclamation marks (!).

For more information, see “Capitalization and Punctuation” in the Writer’s Handbook.

Statue of Simon Bolivar in Mompox, Colombia

12 UNIT 1 • Paragraphs

002_023_GW_SB2_U1.indd 12 05/11/18 10:55 AM