Learning Outcomes

• Organizing essay to support a thesis with clear reasons and evidence
• Parenthetically Citing Evidence

Assignment

I want you to share your plan for your essay. Simple enough. When you respond, engage with each other and ask questions about the plan and offer feedback. In particular, I want you to read it like a reader. Yes, that sounds obvious, but I want you to read it critically for possible gaps in the information. After you read the assignment, this should make more sense.

For this discussion board, you will need to produce your introduction with thesis, then set out your supporting reasons followed by the quoted pieces of evidence you plan to use to support those reasons.

The introduction should be a minimum of five sentences. This provides a solid set for your essay. You need an opening line that sets the tone for the essay. Make sure the opening line is neither a question nor starts off with some kind of total assumption like “everybody” or “everyone.” If everyone knows this, then it is not new information and would do little to interest a reader. However, it should be something to capture the readers interest that does not require them to be an expert. Basically, avoid be super specific and starting with a thesis statement. Develop that point further using exposition an transitions to lead to the thesis. Going back to the “no hunger” food security issue, here is an example (albeit probably a bad one) of how I might start:

Not having the ability to put nutritious food on the table has long been a problem plaguing societies. In a modern world, where everything seems to be just a click away, it seems to have become even worse. Everything costs more and only seems to increase, especially the price and availability of basic food staples like fresh produce. It is a complicated issue with any number of compounding factors on leaves people struggling to afford to live. One contributing factor to this could be that most people rely on outside sources like grocery stores and supermarkets to provide that food. However, it is possible for people to work together at local levels and create greater food security by forming community gardens and urban farming.

Okay, I told you it was not the best but it has some good points. I name the broad topic in the first sentence. I follow that with a question and a generalized source of the problem. I use the transition “however” to prime the reader that the thesis could offer a possible solution to the issue. Your introduction should do something similar.

Next, I want you to lay out your argument with the reasons and evidence that go with them. An easy way to think through this is each reason is really a paragraph topic. For this you do not need to write a paragraph, but write the topic sentence of the paragraph you will most likely include in your essay. After that sentence, include at least two pieces of evidence you plan to use with the accompanying citation. This is what my first section might look like where I lay out the problem:

Reason 1: Food prices have increased since the beginning of the 21st century while access has remained the same or gotten worse.

With that reason, I lay out two subclaims or reasons to support the purpose of my thesis: 1) increased cost 2) decreased availability. Now two hypothetical pieces of evidence.

Evidence 1: In a study of rising food costs, Smith and Johnson report in “Too expensive to live” that “food costs have risen X% every couple of years due to changes in the market and climate influences on farming practices.” I introduce the source and authors in the sentence so I do not need the parenthetical.

Evidence 2: Even though there are supermarkets built for every new community, “food deserts still exist in historically undeserved areas” (Krakowski). This has the parenthetical at the end. You should always introduce your sources before you use the citations to provide the reader with the relevance of it. So before I used this last piece of evidence, I should have introduced the source and why it is credible for a reader: Leonna Krakowski points out in “Food Deserts in the United States” that food scarcity has long been a struggle for many communities. If I first introduce my source like that, the follow up quoted evidence makes more sense to a reader and does not read like some random voice jumping into the conversation. Protip: introducing the source like that also beefs up the word count!

You should have at least three primary reasons (paragraphs) to support your thesis, so I expect your introduction to be followed by three reasons, each with two pieces of evidence.

You do not need to include the conclusion for this assignment but feel free to do so; if you do, it just provides and opportunity for me and your group members to provide feedback on it.

When you respond to you group members’ posts, give feedback on how they have planned their argument. If you see a jump in logic. point it out. Or if you maybe the evidence is not clear in how it supports a reason, point that out. Provide suggestions or questions to help the writer. I want you to be active readers and critics of each others plans because it will help you, in turn, be come better at your writing.

Why I am making you do this

Planning before writing is essential to keep you on track and work out thoughts and spotlight problems before you commit to the work of writing. An excellent practice to improve your writing and planning is by analyzing how others do it. Providing that feedback helps you critically and honestly evaluate your own.

Checklist

1. Minimum 5 sentence introduction with clear thesis (20 points)
2. Included 3 reason statements (10 each; total 30)
3. Support each reason with at least two quoted and cited pieces of evidence (10 each pair; total 30)
4. Respond to at least two classmates’ posts with a fully developed response
5. Double-checked to make sure there is no lower case i for the personal pronoun I anywhere including your responses.

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