Macro-Structures and Making Knowledge (15-20 min)
In Learning Module 8, I wanted you to get some practice thinking about how academic writing is written and organized in different ways–and, thus, there is no One Way to write in your future classes and the readings you read will look different from class to class.
Based on your reading of the different macro-structures, why doesn’t everyone write the same way in academic writing? Why are things structured differently, do you think?
Some differences among Thesis-Driven, IMRD, Problem-Solution structures.
What structure do you think your Literacy Narrative and Rhetorical Analysis mostly followed? Why do you think that?
Persuasion and Research (10-15 min)
In Suhaib Qasim’s “Avoiding Misconceptions: Immigrants are Beneficial to Society,” Qasim utilizes research from other sources to think through claims about alleged harms caused by immigration and immigrants and responds to these claims in order to argue for the benefits of immigration.
What about that argument stood out to you most? What part? Why do you think?
Thesis and Synthesis of Research (25-30 min)
As a way to think about revising your research-driven writing project, use Qasim’s piece as a model to help you think through the following in your group:
- Developing a direct thesis that has a claim an explanation of a general way of arguing for that claim.
- Using each paragraph as a way to talk back to (and support) that thesis in different ways.
Like QSR3, you will label each paragraph of the Qasim essay with what the central topic is for that paragraph. In your group, think about these questions:
- What is this paragraph about? What is the central topic here?
- What is the paragraph’s goal for persuasion? What does it want the reader to think? What’s your best guess here?
- What is the paragraph’s goal for moving the piece forward? How does it help the text “make sense” in the current order of paragraphs that the paragraphs are ordered in?
In the Google Doc, find your group and the numbered list from 1-12. Each number corresponds to a paragraph corresponding to its order in the essay. Label each paragraph and write each of your labels corresponding to that number.
After deliberating labels, talk with your group about the following:
Unlike QSR3, focus on the thesis of the paper rather than focus on the organization of the paper as effective or ineffective. What I want you to do after you list the labels is to think through how each paragraph talks back to the thesis in specific ways that supports that thesis.
Something that can be hard to do in a research paper is to make sure you don’t drift too much into the research in such a way that prevents you from letting the research you are doing serve your argument. You don’t want to just summarize what the research says, you want to utilize all of it to tie back to the argument you are making.
So, in your group, spend some time identifying how each paragraph responds to the thesis. And, think about how the thesis may have been developed well in such a way that makes it easier to synthesize research in order to support the thesis.
Finally, think about your initial choice to what stood out to you most about the paper and whether that has any relevance to what you thought were particularly strong paragraphs that talked back to the thesis.
Next Time (2-5 min)
-Submit Research-Driven Writing Project by tonight at 11:59pm. Totally fine if not fully complete or polished. If not complete, leave me some notes/questions about parts that are not finished or totally polished yet.
-Learning Module 9 due by 5pm on Tuesday, 11/24
-Originally had a QSR due on Tuesday, but canceled it to lighten workload a bit. From survey, seemed like you all had a lot going on so, even if small, hopefully having to do one less assignment helps you catch your breath. Everyone gets full credit for it.