Tonight
your student will be finishing their body paragraphs in their argumentative
essay. In class we already did the research, introduction sentence, and text
evidence sentence. Your child's homework is to finish up the Explain and Expand
the Evidence and the Conclusion Sentence for all 3 body paragraphs. Here is
some examples and ideas.
Explain and Expand the Evidence:
Elaborate
in your own words why the text evidence supports your argument. (2-3 sentences)
After you introduce evidence into your writing, you must
say why and how this evidence supports your argument. In other words, you have
to explain the significance of the evidence and its function in your paper.
As writers, we sometimes assume that our readers already
know what we are talking about; we may be wary of elaborating too much because
we think the point is obvious. But readers can’t read our minds: although they
may be familiar with many of the ideas we are discussing, they don’t know what
we are trying to do with those ideas unless we indicate it through
explanations, organization, transitions, and so forth. Try to spell out the
connections that you were making in your mind when you chose your evidence.
Here are some questions you can ask yourself about each
text evidence. Answering them may help you explain how your evidence is related
to your overall argument:
1. O.k., I’ve just stated this point, but so what? Why is
it interesting? Why should anyone care?
2. What does this information imply?
3. What are the consequences of thinking this way or
looking at a problem this way?
4. I’ve just described what something is like or how I see
it, but why is it like that?
5. I’ve just said that something happens-so how does it
happen? How does it come to be the way it is?
6. Why is this information important? Why does it matter?
7. How is this idea related to my main idea? What
connections exist between them? Does it support my main idea? If so, how does
it do that?
8. Can I give an example to illustrate this point?
Conclusion Sentence:
End
each paragraph with a concluding sentence that summarizes or restates the main
idea that is expressed in the topic sentence. A concluding sentence pulls
together or summarizes the main idea of the paragraph, usually in a single
sentence. The concluding sentence also provides a definite ending point for the
paragraph.
