L. Lennie Irvin, San Antonio College. Her Suggested Solutions Honing the central idea/controlling...

L. Lennie Irvin, San Antonio College

Essay Building

From Brainstorming to Developing Support for Writing

Argument/Persuasion Essays


Concepts guiding this activity

Most college writing requires students to present their ideas as “essays”

These essays are “arguments” that develop an idea or interpretation logically (rather than chronologically)

These essays also develop that idea with sufficient support to convince the reader or at least defend their idea as reasonable and plausible

How can we help students both structure their essay logically and develop sufficient support?


Victoria Young’s observations

about problems she saw in

students STAAR test writing Central idea/controlling idea/thesis statement so broad and nebulous that it caused us difficulty discerning which ideas in the essay actually functioned as support/development

Weak or evolving controlling idea led to inclusion of extraneous information

Essay “jumpy” from idea to idea—a result of too many ideas in one page and a lack of meaningful transitions (e.g., One reason that…, Another reason that…)

Student included a personal narrative that simply told a story rather than explained

(from a June 2012 presentation)

Her Suggested Solutions

Honing the central idea/controlling idea/thesis statement

Writing “narrow and deep”

Teaching the difference between personal anecdote that explains and personal anecdote that doesn’t


How Do We Get Students to…


Arriving at a Thesis


Identify

Subject

Issue/Question

Position/Thesis:

From an old TASP Test Prompt

Is some form of government regulation needed to limit the violence shown on TV? Many people today are saying that there is too much violence on TV. They believe that the amount shown causes children, especially, to be too violent. Opponents believe that this is censorship and even violates the First Amendment right to free speech. They believe that the market should determine whether a show stays on the air or not.

Write a persuasive essay taking a stand on the issue of whether the government should regulate TV violence. Your audience is a classroom instructor. Be sure to explain and defend your position with appropriate examples and logical arguments.


Identify

Subject

Issue/Question

Position/Thesis:


Brainstorming for Reasons


Try it yourself


Text Structures

Gretchen Bernabei’s outline of a sample STAAR response to the English III persuasive writing prompt


SampleBrainstorming


Developing Secondary Support

http://www.lirvin.net/WGuides/SSupport.htm



http://www.lirvin.net/WGuides/Support.htm


DiscussionHow could you use this in your classroom?

L. Lennie Irvin, San Antonio College. Her Suggested Solutions Honing the central idea/controlling...

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