Writing Instruction

Week 3: Introductions

Weekly topic: Introductions
Objectives
Students will be able to:
·  Craft an introduction that poses an analytical question or problem that make the paper's argument necessary; logically and compellingly building to the thesis statement
Lesson Activity / Questions/Details/Descriptions / Student Actions
Reviewing paper assignment
(15 min) / Purpose of the assignment
Audience
Review the prompt & dissect it / Listen
Discuss
Offer interpretations
Writing Instruction: Introduction & Thesis statements
(40 min) / I want to talk about the order of writing, since we are in the business of improving your writing habits in this class. In college, I also would write my paper to see where it went, and then go back and write/re-write my introduction. We are going to work on rearranging that order so that you aren’t crafting an argument as you go—it won’t be as strong. The first step in writing is to look at your evidence, your prompt, and develop a hunch about the answer, then look at your evidence to refine your argument. Then you craft your thesis and then intro to build to it. Our class discussions are when we are doing the “thinking through the evidence” and “contemplating possible arguments” parts. The writing exercises that we do are the drafting part.
Today we are going to talk through successful introductions & talk a bit more about thesis statements. These two components work together to give your paper a strong start.
First, briefly outline arguments from the readings that one could use to answer this question.
In pairs, have students brainstorm the purpose of introductions. They can reference the Eisgruber reading as an exemplar if they’d like. Review the problem-intervention-thesis structure. Remind them that this can be followed explicitly, or just serve as a guideline.
·  Have students work in pairs to draft an introduction and thesis statement to the prompt.
·  Circulate to find a candidate that would be good to work with as a group; choose one intro and thesis to workshop together
·  OR you can have all groups write their intro’s and thesis statements on posters around the room, and then choose 1-2 to workshop as a group.

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