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Planning

The Write-Up

Powerpoints: 1. Source Integration; 2. Thesis

Handouts and Worksheets: 1. Source Integration; 2. Synthesis; 3. Thesis Examples

Templates: 1. Journal Template/Scaffold (specifically the outline); 2. Write Up Template

Topics covered & resources: 

  1. Thesis:
    1. Purdue OWL’s thesis tips
    2.  Sample thesis statements.
    3. Thesis statement checklist.
    4. More sample thesis statements here.
    5. Thesis statement generator.
    6. CCNY Writing Center’s thesis statements handout
  2. Outlines:
    1. CCNY Writing Center’s outline handout. 
    2. Purdue OWL’s “How To” for outlining.
  3. Source Use / Citation:
    1. CCNY Writing Center’s guide to incorporating sources
    2. Purdue OWL’s MLA style overview

Lesson Objectives: 1. Understand assignment criteria and requirements, and begin to plan and prepare a research-based paper; 2. Develop awareness of the rhetorical situation of your writing; 3. Learn to use research to identify your claims and evidence, and to persuade others of your findings

Connection to Major Paper/Project: These lessons lay the groundwork to prepare for completing the research write-up. We will discuss how to incorporate all of the journal items into the research paper write-up.

Connection to Course Goals: 1. In this lesson series, you will show your understanding of the various ways a rhetorical situation can influence a piece of writing; 2. The journal will allow you to build the research paper over time, using best practices for determining the topic and research questions,  close-reading of sources, and identifying source material to support your claims; 3. You will practice identifying and engaging with a variety of credible sources to help you make your argument; 4. In these lessons, you will learn to use conventions appropriate to standard U.S. academic writing.

Day 1 Activities:

1. Review Write-up Part 3 and the outline. Students will consider what sources they will use in their write-up papers, and where. This is just to get an idea of how the papers will flow. We will discuss “why outline?” and look at sample outlines via Purdue OWL. You are also most welcome to use the outline template in the journal scaffolding doc. That’s what it’s there for! This current events outline is also great!

2. In-class review of introductions and their thesis.

First, we will define “thesis statement”: A thesis statement captures the main idea of a paper in one or two sentences. Your thesis statement points the reader to your interpretation of the subject under discussion and is a vital answer to the research question. You will begin thinking about what your thesis statement WILL BE based on the research you’ve already conducted. We will briefly discuss what makes an appropriate thesis statement. 

We will review the Purdue OWL’s thesis tips and sample thesis statements. More sample thesis statements here. We will play with the thesis statement generator to see what comes up for us. We will review a step-by-step process to writing thesis statements. Students will then review their research and free-write their own potential thesis statements.

Group work: Thesis statements practice. 

We review hooks and will free-write “good” and “bad” hooks. We will discuss what kind of background information will be helpful to include in the introduction.

Homework, due by Sunday at 11:59pm: 

1. Complete an outline for Write-up Part 3. This can be any outline (see above) and it can be as in-depth as you want to get – but must mark your thesis and where your sources will go.

Day 2 & 3 Activities:

This week, we are deconstructing a model essay so the students know how to build their own essays using their research journals. 

1. First, we will review the structure of student Write Ups (There are four parts!). 

2. Next, we will review two model essays. Essay 1. Essay 2. Using the annotated model essay, we will examine how you can put all of the pieces from your journal into your paper.

3. We will practice using MLA style and formatting our Works Cited page.

As you’re putting your paper together, you might find the following useful for each stage of the drafting. 

Introduction:

Think of the introduction as hook + background information + thesis statement

Hook:

  1. Just about every type of hook out there (with examples).
  2. More fun hook ideas.

Thesis:

    1. Purdue OWL’s thesis tips
    2.  Sample thesis statements.
    3. Thesis statement checklist.
    4. More sample thesis statements here.
    5. Thesis statement generator.
    6. CCNY Writing Center’s thesis statements handout

Body:

Think of the body paragraphs as topic sentence + source introduction + quote + your analysis of what the quote means and its connection to your thesis

Topic sentence:

  1. How to write a topic sentence.

Source introduction + quotes + analysis:

  1. Rhetorical precis (PPT and template) (and which you have in your Comparative Source Report).
  2. Integration of quotes (handout)
  3. “The Art of Quoting” (reading from “They Say, I Say”) and a bunch of templates for quoting / synthesizing your sources.
  4. In-text citation rules 
  5. How to paraphrase / quote / analyze.

Works Cited:

This is simply the list of works you’re quoting (citing) in your paper. The formatting is specific, though, so please adhere to the beauty of MLA.

  1. Sample Works Cited page from Purdue OWL
  2. MLA Template w/sample Works Cited page.
  3. Citation generator

Sign up for a conference for next week: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1E6_GWe_HPWm-7VoRKYttnwzNluGTC305fQO6P2q55D0/edit?usp=sharing