You should now be working on adding an introduction to your "Now" and "Then" paragraphs.  As you do, your first sentence may introduce your reader to the general or overall topic that your two paragraphs cover.  Look at the sample introductory paragraph in the book on page 107.  Notice how the topic in the first sentence of that sample introduction is wide-open-general, like the top opening of the funnel.  Then as the introduction moves down from sentence to sentence, the writer narrows the topic and focuses it.  Finally in the last sentence, the focus becomes very specific, introducing the reader not only to the particular topic of discussion ("my mother"), but also to a specific comment about how and why the mother has changed.  This final clause is the thesis!

            Notice how the thesis makes a comment about the topic.  The thesis does not simply announce the topic like this:  "This essay will look at how my mother has changed and why" or "In this essay I will show how my mother has changed."  Blecch!  Don't write thesis statements like that, statements that announce what you are doing.  Also don't write bland, general thesis statements like this: "My mother has changed."  A thesis like that is not specific enough.  It needs a comment that will be developed, explained, and supported by the specific details that follow in the body paragraphs.
            As you work on your introduction, try several variations of this "funnel" approach (moving from general topic to specific thesis) in your journal.

            Chapter 11, Step 3, offers some more strategies for writing introductory paragraphs (p. 134).  For even more introductory strategies and for strategies for writing concluding paragraphs, click HERE.