Exercises — Week 23: Week 23 — Exposition Models III: Claim Then Support
2 hands-on tasks. Do them in order; each one feeds the Canvas item it names.
35 min · written
1. Claim-Then-Support Paragraph
- Write a topic sentence about a behavior, pattern, or condition you have observed directly — something specific and arguable.
- Write four to six supporting sentences: one with a specific example, one with a piece of evidence drawn from your reading or experience, one explaining the connection between the evidence and the claim, and a closing sentence that reinforces (but does not simply repeat) the topic sentence.
- Label each sentence's function in the margin: topic sentence, example, evidence, reasoning, closing.
Turn in / bring: Complete labeled paragraph with each sentence's function identified.
20 min · analysis
2. Structural Comparison
- Find one paragraph that uses the particular-to-general structure (from Week 21) and one that uses the claim-then-support structure.
- Write two sentences: (1) describing what the reader experiences differently in each structure; (2) explaining which structure would be more effective for a reader who is skeptical of the central claim, and why.
Turn in / bring: Two-sentence structural comparison with reasoning.