outlining-and-crafting-effective-thesis-and-topic-sentences-activity-69243 [wiki.modywzm.pl]

The following activity is designed for building a five-paragraph essay (introduction, three body paragraphs, and conclusion), which can be adapted in various course disciplines. Currently, it is catered to an English course, but it can easily be modified to meet the needs of a variety of paper structures. Often, the steps in the writing process are not adhered to by most of our students because they are too time consuming; most think that it will be faster to just begin drafting the essay, but this is not the case. One of the most important stages in the writing process is the outlining stage; this is the time to organize your brainstormed list of essay ideas into a more cohesive and formal document (outline), which saves time in the long run. To make writing a more enjoyable experience, the stages of the writing process need to be strictly adhered to: brainstorming, outlining, drafting, revising, editing, and proofreading. To Is Your Essay A Call To Action? of outlining and maintaining focus wihtin an essay, I created a fun activity to incorporate into my English composition courses. The activity is also appealing since it engages all of your learners, particularly the kinesthetic learners, while actively, and physically (who likes sitting in a seat all day?), engaging everyone in the class, as well as promoting teamwork and encouraging critical thinking. How did they feel about writing (stressed, worried that they were on the right track, frustrated, anxious, etc.)? Did they know what the main idea was that needed to be supported throughout? Did they have enough details to support what they wanted to say, or did they just try to fill up space with unnecessary information (fluff)? And, how many times have they read the essay during the revision stage and realized that they needed to remove a lot of the information that was already written since it didn’t directly support the content of the essay (this is never fun since we easily become very attached to our own writing - the delete key is quite intimidating)? After the discussion, be sure to review and discuss the steps in the writing process and stress the importance of outlining and maintaining focus. Be sure to review a formal, MLA formatted outline template on the overhead for everyone to see and focus on the sections and the information that needs to be included within; keep in mind that fully developed paragraphs should not be supplied in outlines since short phrases are more acceptable. An outline is a great tool for you to organize your thoughts, whereas drafting is the time to fill in the sections with complete sentences and paragraphs. To begin the activity, split the class up into four-eight groups (depending on the number of students) and assign each one of them a different, broad essay topic and genre: you can classify them as argumentative, compare contrast, explanatory, and/or narrative if you like (I like to create a mix for a better understanding of the different writing genres). 1) Once each group has been given a notecard with a specified genre and topic, inform them that they need to develop an informative thesis statement. Remind everyone that a thesis should be the last, single sentence of the introduction that introduces the main idea, purpose, and three supporting points that will be discussed. Ex: Forest Gump is a great movie due to the characters, plot lines, and cinematography. 2) When each group has created a detailed thesis for their topic, supply each table with an Expo marker and assign them each a space on the supplied white/chalk boards (or supply each table with a printed outline template) around the room. Inform them that they will begin creating a rough outline and developing their classmates’ outlines to understand the importance of outlining and maintaining focus through effective thesis and topic sentences (afterall, they are the building blocks of an essay). 3) Each table begins the activity by creating a three-pronged/part thesis statement and then they will rotate, clockwise, and review the thesis statement from the previous group. 4) Now, the next task is a bit different and they need to review their peers’ work. Does the thesis clearly identify the essay’s main idea/topic, if so, circle it? If you can identify the purpose, circle that as well. Post was created with the help of GSA Content Generator Demoversion . Then, underline the three supporting points in the thesis. If Which Strategy Will He Most Likely Use? determines that items are missing, or not effective, instruct them to make appropriate alterations. 5) Once the thesis has been revised, it is time for each group to create a topic sentence for the first body paragraph, while developing the original group’s (now revised) thesis statement. Keep in mind that a topic sentence should clearly introduce the main idea that will be discussed within the paragraph, while specifically developing the main idea/purpose from the thesis, to create further cohesion, and to remind the reader of the essay’s focus. Also, How To Write A Dissertation Summary should not be questions, and it is preferable that they are more debatable in tone. Ex: The characters in Forest Gump allow the film to stand out above the rest. 6) When the topic sentences have been created, the groups will rotate (clockwise) once again, and revise the previous group’s topic sentence, if necessary.