Objectives:
- To reinforce the concepts of criteria, reasons and evidence
- To illustrate how the criteria, reasons and evidence generated in chart form in the brainstorming activities in Workshop Two can be transformed into prose
- To establish the qualities of good body paragraphs, especially unity and development
- Overhead projector
- Blank transparency and transparency markers
- The students’ Criteria-Reasons-Evidence (CRE) charts for their self-chosen essay topics, reproduced on transparencies
- Prior to this workshop, and with the assistance of the classroom teacher(s), students have selected evaluation topics and have worked on brainstorming in the chart format
- Collect the students’ CRE charts; select three to five charts which seem especially thorough. Talk through several criteria-reasons-evidence rows on each chart reinforcing distinctions between these three components. Draw complimentary attention to specific detail in evidence column.
- Explain that the students will now be working on using these pre-writing charts to write paragraphs in their evaluation essays. Explain, and list on the chalkboard, that there are three basic qualities of a good paragraph: unity, development, and coherence.
- After briefly mentioning that coherence will be explained and addressed in the revision process, explain that unity means that the main idea of the paragraph is expressed in the first (topic) sentence of the paragraph and that all sentences in the paragraph must support that main idea. Comparisons to newspaper headlines and textbook headings are helpful.
- Referring to one of the student’s charts, explain that the information in the “Criteria” column and the “Reasons” column will be used to provide the paragraph unity in the topic sentence.
- On a blank transparency, or on the bottom of the student transparency, quickly draft a topic sentence drawing from one row of the CRE chart. Drawing from the Taco Bell CRE on page 10 of the previous lesson: “The service at Taco Bell is quick and courteous.”
- Next, explain that paragraphs must be adequately developed with supporting detail, that the writer must convince the reader of his/her ideas. A sample illustration might be: “If I told you that my grandmother was the most generous woman who ever lived, you might not believe me. But if I told you about the time that she gave her coat to a homeless person as she walked to church . . . (Any vivid example can be orally “written” or narrated to illustrate this.)
- Explain that the detail needed to develop the paragraph will be drawn from the “evidence” column of the CRE chart. Continue drafting the paragraph using as much detail from the student’s evidence column as possible.
- Draft paragraphs from other students’ charts as time allows, continuing to stress the connection between the columns of the CRE chart and the elements of the paragraph.
Workshop 6 / Workshop 7 / Workshop 8 / Workshop 9 / Workshop 10 / Credits
