English ( Week 3 )

Welcome to this week’s Discussion Forum (DF). Please post your responses and respond to at least one classmate by 2/7/21. Please note that you must post your own replies before you can see your classmates’ answers.

This week’s DF covers the following module and materials. Use them to answer the questions below:

Reading Module 2
Organizing Your Ideas
Connecting Your Ideas
Keeping Your Writing Engaging
Celling Your Soul
Essay 1 assignment
IMPORTANT: You must answer ALL questions for credit. Where indicated, write at least 250 words. Post the word count ts for all of your answers.

1. By now, you have a pretty solid grasp on Essay 1, at least having outlined, drafted your introduction (paragraph 1), and your first body paragraph (paragraph 2). You may need to make some changes for your final draft, but most likely you know your direction. Now is the time, before you polish your final draft and submit it, to make sure it’s well organized, cohesive, and engaging.

“Paragraph Structure” (in Organizing Your Ideas), notes, “Each paragraph is a self-contained portion of your argument. Each paragraph will begin by making a claim (the topic sentence) that connects back to the thesis.” Again, you’re writing a narrative — telling a story for the purpose of moving your audience — rather than writing an argument; however, the rules of paragraph structure still apply. Instead of making a claim, just make sure each body paragraph connects to your thesis and pushes your story forward. Your conclusion should be satisfying. It should leave your audience with a good understanding of why you told the story in the first place. Beware of merely restating your thesis. Try to leave your audience with something more to think about, the moral of your story, or even a projection of where the story might have gone if it hadn’t ended where it did. When it comes to conclusions, there are many ways of restating the thesis. For sure, don’t do it verbatim.

For a 1000-word essay, you should have about 6-8 paragraphs. Do the following to ensure that your paragraphs constitute a well-organized paper (and to answer this question):

a. List your final thesis statement
b. List the topic sentences for each of your body paragraphs
c. List the topic sentence for your conclusion
Read this list to make sure the topic sentences connect to the thesis like they’re supposed to. Also check that they flow well. Do they need to be switched around? Do they indicate that you will express an appropriate number of ideas in the paragraphs? If not, you may need to divide a topic into more than one paragraph. For your concluding topic sentence, does it convey that the end is near without using tired words like, “In conclusion”?

If you make any changes to the above topic sentences, re-do the list here.
2. What is the point of transitions in essay writing? From your paper, give some examples of transitions between sentences, paragraphs, and in your conclusion.

3. Now go through your paper for variation, according to Keeping Your Writing Engaging. Which of the 7 options for variation did you employ, and why?

4. Write your conclusion. (Write at least 250 words.)

Pay attention: Question 4 requires at least 250 words.