A textual paragraph gadget is defined by the paragraph command.

A paragraph gadget’s size may be specified explicitly in terms of width and height, or defined implicitly by the initial value, or content. Once it has been defined, the size of the gadget cannot be changed.

An initial value of a paragraph gadget can be set using the TEXT keyword.

You do not need to set the value in the layout form sequence: you can leave it until a value is assigned to its val member, but you must give a textual paragraph gadget an initial size if you do not give it an initial text value.