Persuasive Writing and Debate Class Summary 3/17/14

Reviewing Essay Structure

We began class this week with a brief review of the structure and organization of the persuasive essay.  Students have been working on organizing their topic sentences (arguments) and paragraphs in the body of their essays for the past two weeks as homework. 

One area many students find challenging is paragraph development - keeping paragraph content focused and unified to support the topic sentence.  "Paragraph sprawl" occurs when digressions pop up in the form of irrelevant details or a shift in focus.  Each paragraph should contain logical, coherent thoughts that build toward supporting the main idea (argument) of that paragraph.  And, paragraphs should be arranged within the overall essay so that the order of ideas presents the strongest case to support the thesis. 

During class I met individually with those students that had emailed me copies of their drafts for review.  I provided my comments and suggestions for both organization and content.  I will continue to meet with students briefly each week until drafts are in final form.

The Power of Analogy

The type of argument most students have been using in their essays so far is what is generally known as testimony (expert opinion, facts, statistics, personal experience). Today we discussed the use of comparison - specifically analogy - as another effective tool.

An analogy supports a conclusion by examining the similarities between two examples and can be a very powerful device for constructing strong arguments.  Most often, analogies compare abstract or hard to explain concepts to something more familiar and provide the reader with an "aha!" moment.

Using our curfew scenario (from our first class) we discussed which of the following analogies best communicates the definition of curfew that students would wish to convey in their argument:

• A curfew is like a traffic signal  <-- implies a rule with a rigid boundary
  
• A curfew is like a fence around a playground <-- implies a safety zone that is flexible/movable
  
• A curfew is like a safety rail at the edge of a mountain <-- implies a violation with dangerous or deadly consequences
  

For our in-class writing exercise, students paired up and were asked to choose from four possible topics:

• If someone designed a formula that would enable us to live forever would that be a blessing or a curse?
  
• Who makes a better leader - someone who is loved or someone who is feared?
  
• What is the best day of the week?  Convince someone.
  
• Do people who have more have a responsibility to help people who have less?
  

Their assignment was to collaborate on preparing an outline for a persuasive essay, arguing one side of the topic.  They needed to formulate a hook, a clear thesis statement, and 3-4 topic sentences for the body of the essay, one of which needed to use an analogy as a line of argument.

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Homework

• Write the sections of the persuasive essay you were given by your team in class.  Each student should be writing several paragraphs - either the introduction, body paragraphs, or the conclusion.  Coordinate with your team members during the week to prepare for presentation of the essay in class next week.
• Read this excerpt from a famous persuasive speech and identify the analogy used.
• If you have not done so already, please email me a copy of your persuasive essay draft so that I may review and comment.  Continue to work on finalizing these essays!