To the Instructor:

The goal of this exercise is to help students develop thesis statements, topic sentences, and ideas that belong in their respective paragraphs. I developed this idea after reading the text, Writing in College: From Competence to Excellence, found here, as part of O.E.R. In this exercise, students will read chapter 3, “Constructing the Thesis and Argument—From the Ground Up” and then, they will develop arguments based on two different exercises. In the first exercise students will build arguments based upon a thesis statement already given to them. The second exercise allows students to build their own thesis statement, topic sentences and ideas for each respective paragraph they have created topic sentence for. Finally, the last exercise asks students to write a brief paragraph describing what they learned from the OER textbook chapter as well as what they learned from completing this low-stakes exercise.

Low Stakes Assignment: “The Three-Story Thesis”

Name_____________________
Date______________________
Course/section______________

Directions: In this first low-stakes assignment (worth 20 points), you will learn how to develop and integrate topic sentences and ideas sequentially in body paragraphs based on an already prescribed thesis statement.

First, you must read chapter 3, “Constructing the Thesis and Argument—From the Ground Up” from the text, Writing in College: From Competence to Excellence, found here and also in our Google Classroom.

Learning Objectives:

• Enable students to read and identifying a text’s major assumptions and assertions and evaluating its supporting evidence.
• Provide students with opportunities to write clearly and coherently in varied academic genres (in this case, forms of argumentation) using standard written English

First, let’s look at this example:

Thesis: Eating at home has more benefits than eating out.

Some of the reasons are:

1. Saves money
2. Healthier
3. Catered to your taste
4. Food can be stored for days
5. Make the amount you want

Now, look at the diagram in the textbook on page 27. This is a diagram that we will use to work through this exercise. As you can see, this diagram is built based off a 5-paragraph model, starting with a thesis statement. What follows are topic sentences. A topic sentence is what opens the body paragraph. The topic addressed in each specific topic sentence is what you will develop further with ideas and examples.

Let’s go back to the ideas about how eating at home is better…

Exercise 1: Adding ideas to a pre-existing thesis and topic sentences

Your first topic sentence will be: Eating at home is better than outside because it helps us save money.

How would you develop this topic sentence? What points will you add? Write them down here:

• Do the same with the next topic sentence: Eating at home is better because it is healthier
• Finally, eating at home is better because the food can be catered to our taste

Exercise 2: In this exercise, you will create your own thesis statement, topic sentences as well as add ideas to your topic sentences in each paragraph.

Your topic is: Getting a college education is beneficial.

Come up with a few ideas here as to why getting a college education can be beneficial:

Now, what would be your first topic sentence? Write it down here:

What are some ideas you would add to this paragraph?

Write out your second topic sentence here:

What are some ideas you would add to this paragraph?

Write out your third topic sentence here:

What are some ideas you would add to this paragraph?

Exercise 3: What did you learn by doing this exercise? What did you learn from the chapter from the textbook? Write a paragraph here: