Planning and Outlining Workshop

Please make sure the essay type is at the top of your outline.

While I am looking over them, take some time to work on your paragraph assignments. Check your evaluated folder and your revisions for my new comments and purple marks; look over the comments I left and then make a copy of P3.Evaluated so that you can revise it. Put the new file in the writing folder you made for this class. When you revise your paragraphs, make sure that you make numerous and substantial changes by next class period. Please work on your paragraphs in class until I am ready to work on the outlines with you.

Once I have checked your outlines, I will select a few to use as examples for the class so that each of you can think about the quality of your thesis statements and the quality of your two stages.

Outline and Write

The Outlining Stage

Make a copy of this outlining template and use it to fill in all the parts of your essay before you begin writing your rough draft. Place this document in your 0099 Writing folder in Google Drive and name it this way: ""LastName.FirstName.WhichEssay.Outline.Semester""

A few points to remember:

• When you bring an outline to class for a revision workshop, it must be typed in your Google Drive document.
• This template is a shortened form of the structure for your paper. But You might have THREE stages; if you so choose, you will need THREE middle paragraphs.
• When you fill in this outline template, abbreviate the CONTENT of what you actually plan to write in your paragraphs; each part of this outline should eventually be in your paper, in the same order. Whatever ideas you include on the outline should eventually be in the sentences of your essay.

The Writing Stage

For some, writing the paper is the easiest stage of all, but for others it is the most intimidating.

Here are some pointers to help you compose your paper with less stress:

• Write in your natural voice instead of forcing yourself into "essay" mode and trying to sound smart. If your natural voice leads to grammatical errors, you can deal with them during the editing stage.
• Use your outline as a guide for writing your paragraphs. Free yourself from holding all of your ideas in your head at once by referring to the ideas you have already laid out in your outline. If you feel more comfortable writing your draft before you compose your outline, you should write your draft first. But then come back and write an outline afterward and make adjustments to your draft if you discover gaps or find that your ideas need to be in a different order.
• Try not to overwhelm yourself with grammatical concerns at this stage. Over-monitoring yourself can lead to a robotic style of writing, which will be more harmful to your paper in the long run than grammar errors, which you can fix later on anyway.
• Focus on writing complete paragraphs and making your paragraphs connect to each other logically.

Parts of an Essay

In the color-coded sections below, the various parts of an essay are laid out for you. In the essays you write for me, you will need to be sure that all the parts explained below are included in the order I have presented them to you.

For more help, view a condensed, more visual model of this format.

Beginning: (create interest, orient the audience) [1 paragraph]

Reach out to your audience Start with a "real-life" detail of some kind, such as an incident you saw or experienced that is relevant to your topic. Your audience will feel involved if you are involved. So give them something real and familiar with your FIRST sentence. Show them that you are paying attention and that you are capable of describing something real and personal. Avoid saying anything general or opinionated because your audience has no reason to trust you yet (save your opinions for the ending). They do not even know you are going to discuss yet. You must speak to them in a way that lets them in, but do not address them with any form of the word "YOU" in your paper. Prepare your audience This part and the next two will set up your main idea for the essay. Imagine your reader asking, "Why should I listen to you? What do I need to know first?" Give background information that your audience needs to know up front. Make yourself trustworthy, and give the audience a sense that you are leading them to an important insight or choice. You cannot persuade unless you care about your audience and how they might perceive you. This part of the paper should naturally follow the details you used to "reach out" to them. Preview your argument The stages of your discussion should not be stated as a list IN your thesis but should be mentioned BEFORE your thesis. Each stage makes a point that helps your reader believe that your thesis statement is true and reasonable. There should be a logical connection between your stages (what KIND of connection depends on the type of essay you are writing); the stages should work TOGETHER to prove ONE main point: your thesis. Writing your stages here is a way to set up your paper for the audience so that your thesis statement does not sound like it comes out of nowhere. State your thesis, the MAIN point of your paper Make a statement that you think is both true and persuasive. It should direct the audience toward a choice or a way of thinking that they do not already agree with. So your thesis cannot be a statement of fact or a self-evident truth. A great thesis will be a single idea--it brings the topic to focus and tells the reader your position. To get a thesis that works with your stages, you will have to go through some trial and error.

Middle: (Present stages, one paragraph per stage) [2-3 paragraphs]

For EACH middle paragraph: Transition and topic sentence The topic sentence starts the paragraph and represents one of your stages. If you need a transitional hook, ask yourself, "what is the relationship of THIS stage to the PREVIOUS one?" The answer is your transition. Of course, if your transitions are solid and true, you often won't need to write a hook. Details to support topic sentence Illustrate using concrete examples from real life, personal stories, logical deduction, etc. Closing statement to explain your support No writer should simply give evidence. Every paragraph should have a closing sentence or two to explain what the evidence is showing. No claim is self-evident, so proof must be demonstrated AFTER evidence is given. Ask yourself, "how is this stage related to my thesis?"

Ending: (Answer the crucial question "so what?") [1 paragraph]

Explain importance of proving your thesis Clarify why the point of your essay is important. In other words, discuss the significance of your thesis. Why is it relevant? Why does it matter? The WORTH of your thesis is not self-evident. DO NOT repeat your thesis; instead, imagine your audience asking, "Why should I care? How is this topic important to me and others I care about?" New information to help apply the thesis Save some recent developments or information to add body to your conclusion. Keep the attention of your reader. Do not use a bunch of general conclusion cliches to finish your essay; instead, apply the relevance of your thesis by extending your attention to the topic. Satisfy reader with a closing statement Discuss the benefits of taking your position; give a warning or call for action; suggest a solution or another problem. Or you can raise issues that leave your audience thinking and wondering. You have lots of choices, but you may not repeat.

The Writing Process

Most importantly, find a method that works best for your learning style. Here are some suggests for different stages of writing:

1. Pre-Writing: Discover valuable ideas by opening your mind to ALL ideas. Ask thought-provoking questions about your topic. You can write your ideas down in clusters, like an idea network. Or you can free-write in sentence form; then highlight the valuable ideas and brainstorm again, this time more focused.
2. Thesis Statement: As the main idea of your entire essay, this statement should be truthful and persuasive. In a paper, this thesis brings the topic to focus and tells the reader your position. The thesis should not be self-evident or factual, but something you have to explain.
3. Organization / Outline: Arrange your stages and details into the beginning, middle, and end of the paper. It is tricky sometimes to find 2 or 3 middle stages that fit with your thesis, so you have to use trial and error until you have a logical combination. Use my outlining template to arrange your main points and details. The outline will serve as a map or a list of instructions you can use to write your essay.
4. Rough Draft: Focus on content, organization, and style. Do NOT get sidetracked by grammar, but do take time to find the right words and an appropriate style. As you write, ask yourself, "who is my audience, and how should I write for them?"
5. Revising: Fix Logical mistakes, missing steps, clumsy transitions, confusing organization before fixing grammar and formatting. Use this guide.
6. Proofreading: Using a list of your common mistakes, read the paper BACKWARDS one sentence at a time and LOOK FOR ONE ERROR AT A TIME. Then have someone read the paper OUT LOUD to your while following the text with your pen. Use this guide.
7. MLA Formatting: Now make your essay PERFECT. Make sure the essay is formatted correctly. For the research paper, make sure it meets the MLA style requirements.

All of the steps are important, but you do not HAVE to do them in this order. In fact, you might go back to certain steps several times. You can write your rough draft and then reverse outline, for instance. Or what if you have writer's block? Most important is making sure that you include all the parts of an essay in your final draft.

A note on timed writing: You will follow an abbreviated version of this process for in-class essays, but you should not re-copy a rough draft when writing under time restraints. Instead, you should (a) skip lines as you go and (b) start each new paragraph at the top of a new sheet of paper. Both methods leave room for corrections. If you make a mistake, cross it out with a single line and write the correction above it. If you want to add sentences, use labels like a star or triangle to indicate where an insertion should go. THERE IS NO NEED to recopy an in-class composition simply to make it look neat. Recopying steals time away from planning, composing, revising, and editing.