Lesson 12: supporting your ideas
In lesson 11 we learned about the idea of supporting evidence--which means including details and examples from a text (story) to help convince your audience that you are 'right.'
The quiz you asked you very specific questions about essays, paragraphs, supporting details, thesis, and conclusions!
It might seem a bit scattered, but hold tight! Hopefully, all this stuff will become crystal clear by the time you finish this course!
Lesson 12 continues the idea of support, using facts and 'evidence' to support (strengthen) your idea (thesis).
NOTE: You could think of a thesis as a hypothesis! Hypothesis is a term used in science, and thesis is a term used in English--but they are BOTH a fancy word for YOUR IDEA or opinion about something.
Lesson 12 begins to get into some pretty technical rules for using support in your writing.
Let's take a look!
The quiz you asked you very specific questions about essays, paragraphs, supporting details, thesis, and conclusions!
It might seem a bit scattered, but hold tight! Hopefully, all this stuff will become crystal clear by the time you finish this course!
Lesson 12 continues the idea of support, using facts and 'evidence' to support (strengthen) your idea (thesis).
NOTE: You could think of a thesis as a hypothesis! Hypothesis is a term used in science, and thesis is a term used in English--but they are BOTH a fancy word for YOUR IDEA or opinion about something.
Lesson 12 begins to get into some pretty technical rules for using support in your writing.
Let's take a look!
use supporting evidence in your paragraphs
When you write a paragraph (or an entire essay) about one idea, it's highly recommended that you include evidence to support your thesis.
Ok, so where do we get this 'evidence'?
The support that you should use depends on what kind of paragraph or essay you are writing.
if you are writing to a thesis essay about a book or other piece of fictitious literature--then you'll want to use words and lines directly from the story. You've already done this in this course! Do you remember? When you completed the Annotated Notes assignment in lesson 6--you took information from 'The Cold Equations' and put it in the worksheet.
If you are writing a thesis essay about research that you've done on a topic, then you'll want to use the facts that you've found in your research.
But NO MATTER what type of essay you are writing, there are ALWAYS THREE ways to include the facts or examples from the book or the research into YOUR essay:
Ok, so where do we get this 'evidence'?
The support that you should use depends on what kind of paragraph or essay you are writing.
if you are writing to a thesis essay about a book or other piece of fictitious literature--then you'll want to use words and lines directly from the story. You've already done this in this course! Do you remember? When you completed the Annotated Notes assignment in lesson 6--you took information from 'The Cold Equations' and put it in the worksheet.
If you are writing a thesis essay about research that you've done on a topic, then you'll want to use the facts that you've found in your research.
But NO MATTER what type of essay you are writing, there are ALWAYS THREE ways to include the facts or examples from the book or the research into YOUR essay:
summarizing, paraphrasing and direct quoting
SUMMARIZING: this means to provide a summary (recap the highlights) of an idea or event IN YOUR OWN WORDS.
PARAPHRASING: when you paraphrase, you give a shortened version of something somebody said IN YOUR OWN WORDS.
DIRECT QUOTING: this is the one that is different, when you direct quote, you write EXACLTY WHAT SOMEONE ELSE WROTE, NOT CHANGING ONE THING ABOUT IT.
Please do the activity on slide 2 to practice identifying and using these three types of support.
Quotations (AKA DIRECT QUOTES)
On slide 3 of the lesson we are guided in how to best use a direct quote (also known as: direct quotation) in our written paragraph.
Think back to lesson 11's video when you are reading this slide and taking notes on how to use a direct quote.
Basically, the skill of using a direct quote in your writing involves the fact that you introduce the quote, you document the quote (more on that later), and you explain the quote. Avoid, 'dropping a quote' in your writing with out surrounding it with a signaling phrase and following it with a explanation of why it's important or what it's saying--IN YOUR OWN WORDS.
Sophisticated writers can embed a direct quote, which means they can just use important phrases or words of support in to a sentence they write. See slide 3 for an example of an embedded quote.
Using direct quotes in the "real world"
The ideas and directions presented to you in these last two lessons may seem difficult to understand, but fear not!
You are probably much more familiar with using supporting evidence (paraphrasing and direct quoting) than you are aware of!
For example:
Take a listen to this three minute audio clip about kids and screen time. Notice how the writer of this report uses direct quotation to support his topic (note, you'll hear the change of voices during the direct quotes):
See how people use the exact words of others to help support their own ideas?
It's an important skill in writing, and one that you'll be expected to be comfortable with from now until you get to college, and far beyond!
You are probably much more familiar with using supporting evidence (paraphrasing and direct quoting) than you are aware of!
For example:
Take a listen to this three minute audio clip about kids and screen time. Notice how the writer of this report uses direct quotation to support his topic (note, you'll hear the change of voices during the direct quotes):
See how people use the exact words of others to help support their own ideas?
It's an important skill in writing, and one that you'll be expected to be comfortable with from now until you get to college, and far beyond!
The rules!
How many times have you heard from teachers that you MUST put things in your own words?? A million, right?
Well, here you are going to learn that you actually DO NOT always HAVE to put things in your own words, as long as you follow the rules!
When it comes to writing and using other peoples' EXACT words (so, a direct quote) there are VERY PICKY, VERY SPECIFIC rules you must follow.
As you are in a 9th grade English class, you can imagine that you are just beginning to be held responsible for knowing the rules. The rules are expansive and complicated, people spend their entire academic careers perfecting the rules--so the information on slide 4 is just the beginning!
NOTE: MRS. SCHWADE IS VERY INSITANT THAT HER STUDENTS FOLLOW ONE RULE IN PARTICULAR--AND THAT IS TO INCLUDE END PUNCTUATION INSIDE THE QUOTATION MARKS.
For example, I know that Mrs. Schwade is picky about the way her students punctuate their direct quotes because she wrote on the English weebly, "MRS. SCHWADE IS VERY INSITANT THAT HER STUDENTS FOLLOW ONE RULE IN PARTICULAR--AND THAT IS TO INCLUDE END PUNCTUATION INSIDE THE QUOTATION MARKS."
The period ALWAYS goes INSIDE the quotation marks*
*every rule has an exception--but we won't learn the exception today.
Well, here you are going to learn that you actually DO NOT always HAVE to put things in your own words, as long as you follow the rules!
When it comes to writing and using other peoples' EXACT words (so, a direct quote) there are VERY PICKY, VERY SPECIFIC rules you must follow.
As you are in a 9th grade English class, you can imagine that you are just beginning to be held responsible for knowing the rules. The rules are expansive and complicated, people spend their entire academic careers perfecting the rules--so the information on slide 4 is just the beginning!
NOTE: MRS. SCHWADE IS VERY INSITANT THAT HER STUDENTS FOLLOW ONE RULE IN PARTICULAR--AND THAT IS TO INCLUDE END PUNCTUATION INSIDE THE QUOTATION MARKS.
For example, I know that Mrs. Schwade is picky about the way her students punctuate their direct quotes because she wrote on the English weebly, "MRS. SCHWADE IS VERY INSITANT THAT HER STUDENTS FOLLOW ONE RULE IN PARTICULAR--AND THAT IS TO INCLUDE END PUNCTUATION INSIDE THE QUOTATION MARKS."
The period ALWAYS goes INSIDE the quotation marks*
*every rule has an exception--but we won't learn the exception today.
Assessment: portfolio
As if our brains didn't already have enough crammed into it, the assignment for this lesson is asking us to reach WAAAYY back to The War of the Worlds.
Do you remember reading the novel version of that story? Do you remember listening to the radio version of that story?
It's the story about the unknown thing in the pit and the crowd around it.
Your instructions for this lesson's assignment are to write a paragraph.
Write a paragraph addressing this prompt:
Which version of War of the Worlds is more effective in creating fear of the unknown?
Please include in your paragraph ONE DIRECT QUOTE that supports your answer to the prompt.
The direct quote must be placed in your paragraph according to the rules!
Here is an example of what you'd turn in for this lesson's assignment:
Do you remember reading the novel version of that story? Do you remember listening to the radio version of that story?
It's the story about the unknown thing in the pit and the crowd around it.
Your instructions for this lesson's assignment are to write a paragraph.
Write a paragraph addressing this prompt:
Which version of War of the Worlds is more effective in creating fear of the unknown?
Please include in your paragraph ONE DIRECT QUOTE that supports your answer to the prompt.
The direct quote must be placed in your paragraph according to the rules!
Here is an example of what you'd turn in for this lesson's assignment:
IGNORE: TURNITIN
Please ignore these instructions, "This assessment requires a TurnItIn.com originality report. Please visit the message board for tutorial on using TurnItIn.com. Failure to include the originality report with this work will result in a score of a 1 on this assessment."
Alternate Assessment
Instead of (NOT in addition to) this lesson's assignment to write a paragraph about The War of the Worlds,
you may answer the following three questions based on the audio file hyperlinked on this weebly page about kids and technology:
1. How many direct quotes are in this report?
2. How many different sources (people) are used to give support in this report?
2. Write down one signaling phrase the author uses in the report.
3. Write down one of the explanation sentences the author uses following a direct quotation.
EXTRA CREDIT (10 points):
Create a sentence of your own using an embedded quote from this podcast.
you may answer the following three questions based on the audio file hyperlinked on this weebly page about kids and technology:
1. How many direct quotes are in this report?
2. How many different sources (people) are used to give support in this report?
2. Write down one signaling phrase the author uses in the report.
3. Write down one of the explanation sentences the author uses following a direct quotation.
EXTRA CREDIT (10 points):
Create a sentence of your own using an embedded quote from this podcast.