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Analysis: Topic Sentence

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Analysis: Topic Sentence
Timed Writing Preparation – Before, During, and After

Before:

Marking the prompt
Marking the passage
Class or small group discussion
Practice connecting device to meaning
Practice incorporating text
Examine Sample essays or similar topics

During:

Read prompts and passages aloud together
Discuss prompts before students write at the beginning
Students work in small groups to discuss prompt and passage before writing
Provide rubrics at the student’s desk
Provide a hints or notes page
Begin with more time and slowly decrease time to 40 minutes

After:

Examine sample essays and review the rubric
Compare student essays to rangefinders
Allow time for peer evaluation
Debrief individually, with partners, or as a class
Students highlight elements in their essays
Students revise portions of their essays
Organizer III – Debrief, Revision, and More Practice

The goal of Organizer III was to move you away from discussing each of Capote’s rhetorical choices in isolation and toward a more cohesive analysis. This is all in preparation for a timed writing you will complete individually. Today, we will review the work you have completed and practice writing body paragraphs one more time.

THINKING ABOUT THE BIG PICTURE…
Consider the following prompt for a timed writing:
Read the following chapter from the end of Part III of Truman Capote’s nonfiction work In Cold Blood. Then write a well-organized essay in which you discuss the rhetorical strategies Capote employs to achieve his purpose for including the scene. In your analysis, consider such strategies as: organization, point of view, selection of detail, figurative language, and syntax.

BRAINSTORMING and PREWRITING…
Remember the Easter Egg Analogy:
BIG question? little question?
What is…
?
What…
?
Capote may seek to… criticize the townspeople for their _____________ behavior suggest an impression of the criminals that is both ominous and sympathetic question the
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