This is similar to how one of my English TA's in college taught me to write essays. Perhaps this is standard advice, but to hear it so plainly put was new to me.

Paragraph 1: First sentence: Your thesis statement. Follow it with several sentences that back up different aspects of your thesis. Write a paragraph for each of those supporting sentences. The first and last sentence of each of those paragraphs should be the original sentence stated a bit differently. Last paragraph is a restatement of your first paragraph.

It sounds like a lot of repetition, but once I started following his advice, my writing quality improved vastly. It tends to impart a razor-like focus to the writing. Not to mention that the systematic quality of it almost makes it feel like the paper is writing itself.