Determining Your Claim & Developing Your Supporting Argument

Monday 27 October 2014 for Periods 2, 5, & 6 and Tuesday 28 October 2014 for Period 7

Devotional Text: Galations 5:22-23

Students returned their journal to the cabinet if they had taken it home to complete the two summary paragraph entries for the book report (BR1SP1 and BR1SP2).

Determining Your Claim from Your T-Chart
Mr. Stone presented a colored diagram of the book report essay on the board. Ultimately, a student is recommending whether his/her audience should read the book the student has read. Such a recommendation would be considered a claim of policy. The writer is answering the question: What should we do?

To determine whether the student will recommend the book, the student needs to determine whether the book he/she has read is good or bad. Such a determination makes a claim of value, answering one of two questions: How good is it? or How bad is it?

Mr. Stone directed students to use the T-chart they completed for homework to help them answer these questions. Students were to have listed a minimum of five strengths of the book/five aspects the reader liked and at least five weaknesses of the book/five aspects the reader disliked. Which list turned out longer? Which list was easier to make? Usually, the list you made longer and often with less effort indicates the viewpoint the student should chose to take.

Mr. Stone directed students to highlight in purple (the color used in this course to indicate thesis) the heading at the top of the column of the T-Chart that named the perspective they were choosing. Then, Mr. Stone asked the students to highlight in blue (the color used to represent topic sentences) the strongest four points they had listed in the column they had chosen. To determine which four to highlight, students should think about whether they can easily come up with three examples to illustrate this point. If they can't, they should pick a different supporting point.

Developing Your Supporting Argument

Once students had highlighted their T-Chart, they moved to completing the expository body paragraph prewriting charts.

For "Essay Topic," Mr. Stone directed students to write the title of the book they read for the report.

For "Your Viewpoint of the General Topic," Mr. Stone directed students to write two things: a word indicating the student's claim of value (e.g. great, good, mediocre, bad, horrible), and after a slash, a phrase indicating the student's claim of policy (recommend to read, recommend to avoid, etc.) Students should put the same answer for these two prompts at the top of each of the four body paragraph prewriting sheets provided.

Mr. Stone asked students to highlight purple the essay topic and their viewpoint of the general topic.


For "Subtopic," students consulted their blue highlighting on their T-chart. Each prewriting chart should address a different subtopic (e.g. suspense, character, plot, setting, descriptive details, etc.)

For "Your Viewpoint of the Subtopic," students need to express how that subtopic contributes to the quality of the novel, e.g.

Conrad Richter skillfully shapes the readers perceptions by changing the focus of which character's thoughts and feelings he presents while maintaining a third-person point-of-view.


Homework: Complete two of the four body paragraph prewriting sheets.