Monday, Feb 25, 2013

Paragraph Writing - an Evaluation

here is my opinion
here is my evidence to support my opinion
here is my restatement of my opinion

Restate from the question

eg Prove that Mr. Lobb is a bad teacher.

How do we restate?

“I think that Mr. Lobb is a bad teacher for three reasons.”

In a regular paragraph you may not have to use three pieces of TEXT SUPPORT or REFERENCES or PROOFS or POINTS or EXAMPLES

Body of my paragraph - I have to show that my topic sentence is true. I have to back it up with reasoning. And I have to show the reasoning in an example or reference.

We need to see a difference between a REASON and an EXAMPLE.

A difference between a POINT and a REFERENCE.

A difference between a PROOF and TEXT SUPPORT.

Let’s see how this works -

I think that Mr. Lobb is the worst teacher at GDCI.  (topic sentence)

Yesterday he punched Laine Fincher in the eye and she is blind. (example)

If you write this EXAMPLE, you may need to have some explanation as to what this means as a REASON.

Maybe this is an example of him being irresponsible. Or, being cruel. Or, not caring about the health and safety of his students.  Hey, these sound like REASONS.

Writing the example without any reasoning is not giving the reader a full idea of the point you’re trying to make.

The reasoning is the CONNECTOR between your topic idea and the example.

IT IS THE WHY. THE EXPLANATION. THE REASONING IS THE LEVEL 3+

That flow of logic - “this makes that” and “this proves that” and “this shows that” is what makes a paragraph or an essay or an answer or an argument work.

Here is an EASY WAY to remember this pattern:

What am I saying? (topic) Mr. Lobb is a bad teacher.

How do I know that this is true? (reasoning) How is this a sign of something bad? How is this behaviour a bad teaching practise? What is the negative?

Can I prove that reasoning with a real life example? (reference) Humiliates Laine when she ventures an answer - actually describe that time.

Then I guess what I am saying was right.