As it is usually taught, the FPT requires (1) an introductory paragraph moving from a generality to an explicit thesis statement and announcement of three points in support of that thesis, (2) three middle paragraphs, each of which begins with a topic sentence restating one of the major ideas supporting the thesis and then develops the topic sentence (with a minimum of three sentences in most models), and (3) a concluding paragraph restating the thesis and points. (qtd. in Wesley 58)
The drawbacks of our educational system’s reliance on the FPT are clear; students sometimes have little experience in writing essays that give them an opportunity to develop much of an analysis or argument. And, ULWR students who haven’t done any writing since their FYWR class have had even less of an opportunity for practice.
Here’s the takeaway for you as a GSI: don’t assume that students understand precisely what you mean when you say “analysis” or “argument.” Be prepared to show them what you mean.
For more information about the FPT and its affect on student writing and learning, please read Kimberly Wesley’s “The Ill Effects of the Five Paragraph Theme.”
As a rule, the more time students spend on a variety of prewriting activities, the more successful the paper will be. In working out the possibilities an assignment suggests, students discover what they honestly want to say and address some of the decisions they must make if the paper is to express a message effectively. Writing the first draft become easier because some writing–notes, lists, freewriting–has already taken place. Drafting also becomes more productive because students are less preoccupied with formulating ideas from scratch and freer to discover new messages as the words appear on the page. (Lindemann 106)
There are many types of invention activities you can use at different points in your students’ writing process. We recommend Glenn and Goldthwaite’s “Teaching Invention,” Lindemann’s “Prewriting Techniques,” and Hedengren’s “Prewriting” as excellent resources for invention activities. Sweetland offers guidelines and resources for using GenAI when teaching and producing writing, including at the invention stage.
A simple way to include invention exercises in your classroom is through low-stakes writing. Low-stakes writing scaffolds high-stakes writing assignments (like major essays). You can also use low-stakes writing to reinforce course material or prepare for class activities. Low-stakes writing tasks could be anything from quick in-class exercises to longer assignments completed outside of class. For ideas about how to use low-stakes writing, please see Sweetland’s handout on Integrating Low-Stakes Writing.
Once your students have found their topic, some of them will put off drafting to the last possible moment. However, drafting early, and writing multiple drafts, vastly improves students’ essays and writing skills. Encourage your students to begin drafting early, no matter how rough their first draft may be.
Successful and relatively pain-free drafting relies on good planning. It’s easy to skimp on this step of the writing process. Mapping, grouping, and outlining are just three possibilities for exercises your students can complete prior to drafting. If possible, have your students do some planning exercises before drafting. Students can complete exercises in class and give each other feedback, or you could ask students to do some planning on their own.
For more ideas about how to support your students during drafting, please read Hedengren’s “Drafting.” If you’d like an exercise to help your students with paragraphing, have a look at Decent Body Paragraph Exercise.
Analysis places you in a situation where there are problems to resolve and competing ideas for you to bring into some kind of alignment. The starting point for analysis is a situation where there is something for you to negotiate, where you are required not just to list answers but to ask questions, make choices, and engage in reasoning about the meaning and significance of your evidence. (25)
One of the difficulties students encounter when crafting an analysis is remaining open to where a guiding question may lead them. In other words, to hold off on making a claim. Formulating a claim too early can prevent students from exploring an issue as fully as they should, and worse, “will just about guarantee papers that support overly general and often obvious ideas” (Rosenwasser and Stephen 26). If students become tied to an idea before examining all the evidence, they could gloss over-complicating evidence that should be attended to. A good analytical thesis reveals itself in stages, taking account of evidence along the way.
As students work through their analysis, a handy tool to use is the “So What?” question. As Rosenwasser and Stephen describe it:
The prompt for making the move from observation to implication and ultimately interpretation is: So what? (32)
For readings and student exercises on analysis, please see the links in the argument section below, including Rosenwasser and Stephen’s “Writing Analytically,” and “Strategies for Teaching Analysis and Argument.”
The best way to learn about thesis statements is to look for them in published writing. When you start doing this, you will find the single-sentence thesis as described in writing textbooks is a rare specimen (26).
Sharing and discussing examples of what good claims look like — drawn from your course readings in the disciplines — may be the most effective method of modeling good arguments.
As they suggest, it’s also important to remind students that in the process of writing, “the thesis is more likely to become evident in phases” (27).
Some overview of argument will help your students re-think their approach to argument and how they build claims that “enable exploration.” We also recommend Making Good Arguments from Wayne Booth, Gregory Colomb, and Joseph Williams in The Craft of Research. They consider argument as a conversation with readers and help simplify the components of argument into this heuristic that may help you with your students:
- What is my claim?
- What reasons support my claim?
- What evidence supports my reasons?
- Do I acknowledge alternatives/complications/objections, and how do I respond?
- What principle (warrant) makes my reasons relevant to my claims? ( 109 )
Though thesis and claim are interchangeable, the term claim may better enable your students to see and own their particular arguments.
We also recommend these short readings on argument in the disciplines: The Data Suggest- Writing in the Sciences by Christopher Gillen and Analyze This- Writing in the Social Sciences by Erin Ackerman. (from They Say / I Say : The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing by Cathy Birkensten and Gerald Graf; Norton, 2010.)
This 993 handout, Strategies for Teaching Analysis and Argument condenses many of these strategies into a useful one-page document you might use or share with your students.
Finally, Sweetland also provides two excellent handouts on argument that we highly recommend to you and your students: How Do I Decide What I Should Argue? and How Do I Check the Structure of My Argument? But let’s not argue about it.
We recommend her chapter, Revising, in which she stresses the “global level” revising practice of experienced writers.
“Rather than just changing words and sentences, global revision involves fundamental alterations, such as adding information, deleting unnecessary paragraphs or sentences, changing the overall structure, or moving sentences, paragraphs, or sections to more appropriate locations” (49).
She shows ways, utilizing peer review in this example, where “you can help your students understand the importance of global revision by requiring drafts to be written early enough that there is time for revision” (56).
Gottschalk and Hjortshoj’s Assigning and Responding to Revision also recommends ways of expanding students’ understanding of the revising process as they transition into more experienced writers. The authors suggest helping students expand the revising process into stages: “the term revision refers to changes writers make at different stages of the writing process and for different reasons” (65). They provide strategies to create opportunities for global revision through low-stakes writing, submission of drafts, responding to drafts for revision, and methods for structuring peer review, where we can motivate students to build time into their revising and, ultimately, help students reconsider how they revise.
“If we want undergraduates to view revision as a normal, essential part of the writing process, we must create circumstances in which revision seems normal and necessary” (66).
Other resources you might use to help your students consider the revising process more fully for upper-level writing include Sweetland’s The Revision Project: Students Talk About Revision. This collection of video interviews with UM students shares their revision concerns and approaches, and can be assigned individually or to a group of students.
We also refer you back to the Sweetland resource Using Peer Review To Improve Student Writing that you may find especially helpful in building drafts and stages for student writing that can promote an expanded practice of revision.
Write 200 words or more in response to the following prompt:
Draw from two or more of the higher order concerns presented above: which writing concerns are most relevant to the class and students you are working with this term and why? Which strategies do you think will be most useful to convey higher order writing goals to your students?
Write a reply to at least two other responses that fully engages with the issues and questions your peer presents. You might add another perspective, add another question, or contribute additional thoughts to your peer’s response.