Imagine walking into a heated conversation between two people and you have no idea what they're talking about. After a couple seconds, you start to realize that it's about a friend of yours and you start to understand what the argument is about and then they bring up another name and they bring up another topic and you're lost all over again. That's not how you want your readers to feel when they step into your essay.
So today we're going to be talking about line of reasoning. Hello. My name is Carlos Escobar and I'm so excited to be with you once again from Miami, Florida. Today, like I mentioned, we are going to be talking about line of reasoning, but I want you to understand specifically what it is, why does it matter, and how we develop our line of reasoning in an essay.
Let's review, but before we review, I want to show you this. It's some of my daughter's yarn. And it probably looks, or at least it represents, what our thoughts and our mind looks like when we first start writing an essay or when you first start reading a passage. You have so many jumbled thoughts. They're all over the place.
But can you imagine trying to follow this, trying to pick out the pink or the white or the purple? And it's really all over the place. And we don't want this craziness when we're writing our essay.
We want to have a straight. line between our beginning and our end. And that's precisely what our line of reasoning looks like or what it does within the essay. The anchor for all of this is our thesis.
This is what tells us precisely what we're going to be talking about. And from this thesis, we make claims. We make claims in each of our body paragraphs. These are topic sentences.
How we open the body paragraphs should rely on what we said in that thesis statement. And because we open our body paragraphs with these claims, we know by now that we need to have evidence, right? These claims need to be different. Therefore, the evidence that we provide should not be the same.
So now we're developing paragraphs. And I want you to notice how everything is connected, interrelated, and yet they all stem from the thesis. After we provide the evidence in each body paragraph, now we need commentary. And this commentary is really the place where your voice comes in and you explain how all that you have brought up, these claims, this evidence, and this exploration of the significance of the evidence, how it all ties back to your original position, that defensible thesis you provided in the beginning. This...
visual here is precisely what the line of reasoning is about. A clear direction from beginning to end of what your argument is all about. And why does this matter?
Why should we think about line of reasoning? Well, we have to ground ourselves on the scoring guidelines because there's tons of good advice that teachers can give you. There's tons of good advice that I can give you.
But I want us to focus specifically on the requirements. What is it that will earn you points on the scoring guideline? And I want us to focus on these two statements here. To earn all four points in row B, you need to provide specific evidence to support all claims in a line of reasoning. And you have to consistently explain how the evidence supports a line of reasoning.
So clearly this notion of line of reasoning, this see-through line in your essay is significant if you want to maximize your points in row B, which is truly going to be the most significant portion because that's where you're going to earn the most number of points, provided that you have a solid thesis that you have started from. So how do we develop this line of reasoning? Clearly, it's significant. Clearly, it's something that we have to focus on, and we saw the progression, but now let's explore it a little bit more closely.
Like I said earlier, we begin with the thesis, and from this thesis, and we're going to see this as an example later on, from this thesis, we determine what our topic sentences should be. Then, when we're in the middle of this body paragraph, defending... the thesis, defending this topic sentence.
We provide evidence and we provide commentary. And this is where my students struggle sometimes because they say, Mr. Ashkabar, I... I can write my thesis. I can provide an answer.
I'm not sure if I'm right or wrong about my answer. And then, you know, I tell them there's no right or wrong. There's so many different interpretations. But then they say, when it comes down to the commentary, I just don't know what to say. I've already asserted my claim.
I've already given you evidence. What is left? So let's explore that very carefully for a few minutes.
You need to discuss the significance of textual evidence. You are selecting what to quote. You're selecting what from the poem, from a passage, from a novel or play that you read for question three. You're selecting what from those pieces you're bringing into your essay. So if you're quoting this, it's got to be significant.
You thought that it was important enough to bring it into your essay. I want you now to tell me what that significance is. I don't need for you necessarily to tell me what the quote means. I don't need for you to restate or summarize or paraphrase the quotation. I want you to speak to the function.
And if you've watched any of my other videos, I always talk about the importance of function. For every single element you bring into your essay, you want to discuss how it's working towards supporting. or defending that thesis.
The other thing that you can do as part of your commentary is explain how your analysis relates to the topic sentence and to the thesis. If we go back to that argument in the beginning that, you know, your friends are having and you step into it and you try to understand what it is that they're saying, we don't always follow because you weren't there for the beginning. You missed the setup. Now, your reader hasn't missed the setup, but because you're bringing in so much information, you're providing evidence, you're providing commentary throughout the essay. It's helpful sometimes to guide the reader, to hold the reader's hand and tell them very specifically, hey, this claim that I just made, which I just supported with this piece of evidence, relates to my thesis in this manner.
It tells us also that you haven't forgotten your thesis. It tells us that you know exactly what it is that you're defending. You know exactly what it is that you're arguing in this essay. What's the best part of AP English Literature in class?
Is it the test? Is it the essay writing? You know, I would venture to say that you'd probably think that it's the discussions. It's the interactions with your classmates.
It's the interaction with your teachers. The dynamics of what happens when people gather and discuss literature is nothing short of magical. But in a test examination, in a test, you're alone.
It's just you and that piece of paper. But the conversation has to continue. You have to have a conversation with yourself.
And the way that you do that is you build upon your commentary. It's okay. In body paragraph number three. for you to bring up something that you mentioned in body paragraph number one or number two, as long as you propel the argument forward.
So you might say, we already explored one aspect of Hamlet's character in paragraph two, where we noted that he was quite pensive, but this new evidence now demonstrates that he's also a strong leader. So you're hearkening back to something you mentioned, but developing it, moving the argument forward. That conversation with different parts of your essay is something that you can include and should include as part of your commentary. The conversation is not just about mentioning something you already mentioned, because we don't want you to be repetitive.
But it's about adding, like I mentioned in number three here, the nuances, the slight new insight that you develop. You know, we don't expect students to know every word that they're going to say that they're going to write about at the start of that essay. Discoveries happen.
And those discoveries, you share them in your commentary. You don't have to rewrite your thesis. All you have to say is, you know, this exploration of this character, this exploration of this setting.
The further that we look into it, This other aspect is now revealed. That sense of fresh realization is really insightful. It's really rewarding when we see it in students. And finally, in your commentary, we want you to discuss the literary elements.
Again, the function of these literary elements. You'll provide evidence. You'll tell us what line contains, let's say, the metaphor. But none of those references will earn you any points unless you speak to how the elements contribute to meaning. I think that if we look at an example, you're going to be able to see precisely what it is that I'm talking about in terms of the line of reasoning and the development of the commentary.
I want to share a student sample with you. Okay, this is the introduction. And what I want us to do with the student sample is think about line of reasoning.
What has the student included within the introduction? What has the student included within the thesis to give us a roadmap? And that's the key idea, I think.
You have to provide a roadmap for your essay. So if I read your introduction, if I read your thesis, I should have an idea as to what some of your body paragraphs will be. So let's see what this student gives us. In a scene from the novel Kiss and Tell, British novelist Alan de Botton humorously depicts the relationship between a set of socially oblivious, rather crass parents and their embarrassed adult daughter, Isabel. Using believable dialogue, detailed, vivid characterization, and an absurd situation, de Botton creates a scene that brings comic delight out of the universal experience.
of a child's humiliation by her parents. So think about this for a few seconds. What can we pull from this introduction that will give us an idea as to what the rest of the essay will look like? I focus particularly here.
This seems to be the main part of this thesis statement where we see Some of the language issues, right? Believable dialogue, detailed, vivid characterization. So these are the literary elements and techniques. And then we get these claims about the comic delight is coming out of the universal experience of a child's humiliation by her parents.
This student has recognized that the central part of all humor is being able to relate to it. Right. We've all had that experience of you're out and about with friends and you see your parents or your parents come to school or they you're just hoping that they don't say anything embarrassing.
And, you know, parents don't mean to say anything embarrassing, but we find them embarrassing anyways. So we take this introduction and we ask ourselves, where is this essay headed? And I pull these five. bullet points. I see that this student is going to talk about believable dialogue.
This student is going to discuss the detailed vivid characterization, the absurd situation, the idea of providing comic delight, and the universal experience of the child's humiliation by her parents. Each of these could lead, excuse me, each of these could lead to a body paragraph. All stemming from the introduction, all stemming from the thesis, and therefore there's that string between the thesis, the topic sentence that opens the body paragraph, and ultimately the support and the commentary that is provided within that paragraph.
So I want you to practice. I want you to take this idea and let's apply it to one of your essays. So go ahead and pause the video now and grab one of your essays or read. turn to this video once you have one of your essays because I'm going to walk you through a series of questions and topics that I want you to consider when you're analyzing your writing.
I want you to read the introduction to the essay that you've selected and consider, does your introduction provide a roadmap for the essay? Can I read your introduction and imagine what some of your body paragraphs will be about or is there no roadmap Is it simply a restating of the prompt? Is it simply a general statement without the different aspects or the nuances of your argument?
Then I want you to turn to your body paragraph. Go ahead and pause the video and read your body paragraph and then return to this slide. After you've read the body paragraph, I want you to consider these three questions.
Does your topic sentence align with the thesis? Do you see a direct relationship, a connection, an echo of the thesis in your topic sentence? And your topic sentence should be that first sentence, the opening sentence of the body paragraph. I want you to look at the evidence that you provide.
Is that evidence working to support? report the claim that you made in the topic sentence. And, you know, the beauty of it is that if the evidence is supporting the topic sentence and the topic sentence comes from an idea in your thesis, then all the evidence you provide in your essay will essentially be arguing or defending the thesis that you opened the essay with.
And I want you to look at the commentary that you provided. And we came up with a list of many things that you can provide as commentary. Let's look at those again, right? Read through these. I've written them here in green.
Read through them again and see which ones you're doing. If there's one that you're not too sure, you know, what it means, then go back through this video or ask your teacher to explain what I mean by one of those check marks and then see how you can develop it in your body paragraph. I want us to take a moment, though, for that final check and, you know, say a few words about the literary elements and techniques. I don't want you to worry about memorizing obscure, difficult, challenging terms. There's no point in doing that.
Stick to the ones you know. Stick to the ones that you're most comfortable with. But remember what I said earlier and what I've said in some of the other videos. You need to speak about the function. of those literary devices.
The scoring guideline tells us that you need to discuss multiple literary devices to maximize your points in row B. And here we see the bottom right explains how multiple literary elements or techniques in the passage contribute to its meaning. And I like a graphic organizer. I like something that looks like this, where you list the techniques on the left.
Then you provide the textual evidence, give the line number, and then probably the widest column should be that final column. What is the connection between that literary element or technique, that textual evidence that you provided, and the meaning? You know, that could also say, what is the connection to your thesis? Because that's essentially what we're doing.
If you want to watch a video where I detail this process, where we take the literary elements and we, you know, we start to... fill in this table, you might want to turn into review session number four, because in that video, I discussed this table using a different example. So what should we take away from this idea?
You know, there's this notion that the line of reasoning is something new, that you've never heard about this before, let's say. Maybe your teacher hasn't used that language, but this isn't anything novel. And it's also... It shouldn't be new.
You've been writing in this manner for a very long time. So let's visualize what this looks like again. You have a thesis.
And from that thesis, you develop topic sentences. We go from our introduction to our body. Once you have that topic sentence, you have provided a promise of what this body paragraph will be about. So now what we need is commentary. We need evidence and commentary.
And these three things come together to form the line of reasoning. Again, the thesis yields the topic sentences. The topic sentences instruct us as to what our commentary should be. And the topic sentences, remember, come from the thesis.
Therefore, our commentary is really an exploration of the topic sentences and ultimately an exploration of that thesis statement. Line of reasoning is not something novel. You know that you need your argument to be organized. We go back to that discussion that I opened with. It would help when you approach your friends and they're having a heated discussion.
If they took the time to say, oh, hi, welcome. Let me tell you what we're talking about. If they were to give you the thesis, then you would never be in the dark as to what their discussion is all about. I want to thank you for joining us.
I know that you have many, many responsibilities. You have so many things to do. encourage you to continue to watch these videos because, you know, after sitting in these classes for an entire year, just a little push at the end, watching these videos, going through the practices, going through the activities that we're talking about will make all the difference. Best of luck. Take care.
Nice to see you again.