Working on Context With Modifiers and Placement

Read over the following, and use to help you revise Portfolio Essays for stronger contextual detail, more effective use of descriptive language in main idea sentences.

1. Start simple:  S-V-O

• T.S. shows his spirituality through his emotions

2. Then, to make more thoughtful, ask questions to help yourself better describe your subject and object:

• Who is he as a character--normally? What is most important about them to highlight for claim?
• What does "through his emotions" mean? When and how do emotions show?

3.  Expand the subject anew

• The constantly-thinking T.S.
• or….  T.S., who is obsessed with facts,  

4. Expand the object

• shows his spirituality through his desire for there to be an afterlife and his frustration of not knowing what happens in death.

New topic sentence:
T.S., who is obsessed with facts, shows his spirituality through his desire for there to be an afterlife and his frustration of not knowing what happens in death.

• See how one shows more thought to the reader; the second shows a clearer point. Plus, now one can brainstorm clearer examples to fit that point because one has given him or herself a focus...

• Now, the example paragraph has other questions to answer to support that clear claim

• Why do desire and frustration make sense for a person who loves facts?  (reasoning)

• Where does he show desire for an afterlife? (example)

• Where does he show frustration with not knowing? (example)

 A writer always needs to work on how we discuss our subject(s) in our introductions.

• You need to show more variety in the sentence that introduces text. 

• Too many of you are getting robotic as writers, and no wonder your confessing to writing being more difficult. For Essay 3, therefore, you are not allowed to use the same sentences over and over that too many of you have used to open up the first two essays. 

• Give new framing summary sentences. What is your larger topic on? Contextualize, or frame, your subject text based on that prompt. [This is part of your transition from the hook to introduction of text and essay subtopics.]

• For instance, if your essay is on secret societies, frame your subject in terms of what your essay has to do with secret societies. If your essay prompt ask you a question about evil in society, frame your text around the content in it that directly or indirectly deals with that question.

• Be original, and do not rely on the cliche template of  "In x by y, Z verbs... " ( In the novel The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet by Reif Larsen, T.S. is a boy who makes maps.) You are unoriginal in your writing, and math is not this mathematic, where each of us is simply trying to find the same sentence equation that will work for all of us. Be original, use grammar rules to make up your own voice.

• Sentence variety includes using DEP clauses and transitional phrases that illustrate to your reader that you are more than plugging in transitions, etc. Be creative.

• Your essay title. There were three essays titled "Spirituality and Faith" and one that was "Faith and Spirituality." Again, right off the bat, when you ignore your title as a writer, you have shown a lack of individual thought and individual voice. You must work towards originality in your pursuit of being a writer whose work sticks out from your peer scholars. Good titles may do one [or some] of the following:

• What is your thesis? Borrow the idea, or key words, and use to frame essay.
• What are your main examples? Reference, or allude to, those places you support points.
• Frame the essay by foreshadowing subtopics.

• Frame your subject in regards to the text.  You may even name your subject(s) in the title.
• T.S. Spivet: Man-child of Science and Faith
• Spivet's Maps Uncover Our Way Of Life
• The Evolution of Man and Planet--The Maps of T.S. Spivet