How do you organize information prior to drafting an essay?

In this lesson you will learn how to organize your

information for an argumentative essay

by usingboxes and bullets.

Let’s Review

Planning To Write

Finding Supporting Evidence

Choosing a topic

A Common Mistake

Lack of organization leading to misplaced information in essay.

School lunches do not offer good tasting food to students. The food is not very healthy. There are many times when students choose not to eat the food. The cafeteria does not give enough food to students.

Core Lesson

Write claim in first big box with three supporting reasons in bullets below.1

2 Rewrite each reason into the body paragraph boxes below.

Fill-in the bullets with evidence to support your argument. Ask, “Do I have enough evidence to make a strong argument for my thesis?”

3

Core Lesson

Claim / ThesisSchool lunches need to be improved.

How do I use boxes and bullets to organize my

essay?

Reason #1

Reason #2

Reason #3

The food is not tasty

There are not options

The food is not healthy

Core Lesson

Reason #1 The food does not taste good.

25% of school lunch food is thrown out (thislunchrox.com)

I’d rather pack instead of eating the school’s food (Me)“The food has no flavor.” (Seth Smith)

How do I use boxes and bullets to organize my

body paragraphs?

(Topic for Body Paragraph #1) Examples

Personal Experiences

Supporting statistics

Do I have enough evidence to make a strong argument

for my thesis?

✓

Core Lesson

Write claim in first big box with three supporting reasons in bullets below.1

2 Rewrite each reason into the body paragraph boxes below.

Fill-in the bullets with evidence to support your argument. Ask, “Do I have enough evidence to make a strong argument for my thesis?”

3

In this lesson you organized information for an

argumentative essay by using

boxes and bullets.

Guided Practice

Practice by using boxes and bullets to organize your own reasons for why school lunches need to be improved. Then use evidence to support one of the supporting details.

Improve School Lunches Reason #1 Reason #2 Reason #3

Reason #1 Supporting evidence Supporting evidence Supporting evidence

Extension Activities

Extension Activities

With a partner, read an article from the op-ed section of the local newspaper. Use the boxes and bullets method to breakdown the author’s claim and the evidence he/she uses to make the argument.

Extension Activities

Extension Activities

Think of a time that you really wanted something. Now, use boxes and bullets to diagram your argument along with supporting details.

Extension Activities

Extension Activities

Come up with a topic you would like to argue. Use boxes and bullets to organize reasons for why you are correct in your claim. Then, have a partner check to make sure that your argument is well organized.

Let’s ReviewQuick Quiz

On your own, use your thesis and the evidence for each reason in the boxes and bullets organizer to plan your essay.