English 1301

Sample Discussion Post

Our Module 9 discussion is intended to help you start Paper 3. Paper 3 is going to use
multiple sources, and that sort of paper can be problematic. It often leads to students writing a
paper relying solely ON the sources. Sometimes, when students use sources, they don’t think
about their own opinion, or they let the articles determine their opinion for them. We don’t want
that. We want Paper 3 to have at its core your ideas, so the work we do this will is going to set
up that foundation. We will add sources next week, like leaves on a tree, but this discussion is
the trunk of the tree, and it’s all you.

If you follow directions for this discussion, it will

• Help ensure that Paper 3 is driven by your own ideas
• Help ensure that you use a variety of personal examples in addition to the external
examples that you will add next week, making the final version of Paper 3 much livelier
and more engaging than it would be if you just had quote after quote after quote.

Here is what to do:

1. Remember that you must engage in the prewriting process. Spill all of your random ideas
about college onto a piece of paper—don’t try to come up with ideas AND write the
discussion post all at once. It’s much harder that way.
2. Once you have your messy ideas somewhere, look through them and think about what
you most want to say about this topic. Pull out the points that you like and discard the
rest. Maybe do some more prewriting about those points in particular.
3. Then look at what you have to say and what the deeper point is. What do your main
points have in common? What is your ultimate point about college? THAT is your
working thesis.
4. Now write an informal outline, which will include
Working thesis
Topic sentence for paragraph 1
Topic sentence for paragraph 2
Topic sentence for paragraph 3
Topic sentence for paragraph 4
(you can have anywhere from 2-4 body paragraphs, remember)

5. Now under each topic sentence, think of a personal example that illustrates the point.
This is not necessarily a personal story! Try to include a variety of the examples we have
discussed:
Personal anecdote
Hypothetical situation
Descriptive detail
Common knowledge

This will be what you turn in.

Here is a sketch of what it might look like:
Working thesis: A college education is X … (this will be a clear claim)

Body 1: One reason a college education is X is …

Descriptive detail: When a student walks on campus at STC, they see… (descriptive detail that
relates to point 1)

Body 2: Other than point 1, a college education is X because …

Common knowledge: Over the last few years, college has become… (common knowledge—
NO RESEARCH OR DATA—that supports point 2)

Body 3: Beyond point 2, a college education is X because …

Personal anecdote: For example, my first semester of college was … (a short personal story
that illustrates point 3)

Body 4: Despite point 3, college is X …

Hypothetical scenario: Just imagine what might happen if colleges were to… (a short scenario
that illustrates point 4).

This example is left extremely vague on purpose because the temptation is to copy examples, and
you should instead construct your own outline with your own thoughts. It should be much more
detailed than this.

Remember:
• You can have 2-4 body paragraphs—you don’t have to have four just because the
example does
• You don’t have to use one of each “type” of personal example, though you can.
• Each example has to be related directly to the point of the paragraph; it can’t be just a
random college-related example (recall our discussion of this in the lectures).