1. Writing Discussion Responses.

There was once an assignment to write a 300 to 500-word discussion response. It was clear that most of the students were taking the assignment seriously and were intent on earning a very good grade. Indeed, the submissions met the length requirements and had several citations. But, they were missing one or more fundamental elements of a discussion response that were needed to achieve the highest quality requirements. The students had the desire, but lacked training in the skills needed to develop a critical thinking writing assignment that could earn an optimal grade. The good news is that these are skills that can be learned and practiced.

It is very easy to say 'write a discussion response' but it isn't necessarily easy to do. Each of the parts of the response needs attention to detail. If the opening doesn't engage the reader they may not read the rest. If the author doesn't tell the reader what the response is about, they may not understand the points. In the body of the response each of the points raised in the opening have to be convincingly developed. Finally the response has to finish strong! If it fizzles at the end it can be quite a let down.

The primary objective of this writing is to empower you to create discussion responses that earn better grades. A secondary objective will be to develop the thinking discipline. The approach will be to break down the writing to its components. We will build from the basic unit - the paragraph. Next we'll discuss having a topic for the essay which will be a critical element of the length of the essay. The topic can provide ideas for an interesting opening which will lead to the building of the supported body and, finally, an effective conclusion. So, let's get started.

2. Elements of a Paragraph

Why isn't a paragraph an essay? If I can say all I need to say in a single paragraph, why isn't that enough? If I can say it in a single sentence why isn't that a paragraph? The type of writing impacts the lengths of both paragraphs and critical thinking writings. In a novel there might be undeveloped thinking in conversations, so a unit of thought - a paragraph - can be complete in a single sentence. In business writing, such as project plans, the portion of the essay actually written into the plan is the conclusion paragraph. Hence, business and project plans often have single paragraph sections.

In critical thinking writing, a paragraph is at least three sentences and rarely more than six sentences. Why? At least two reasons. 1. Because that is the typical length needed to develop a single idea to a reasonable depth. 2. More than six sentences create a block of text that is too difficult for the human eye to decode. This is especially true when the instructions are to write in single-spaced block-style (no initial indent) format.

A fully developed paragraph has one or more sentences to introduce the concept presented in the paragraph. It then develops that concept with body sentence(s) that provide the detail(s) or makes the point(s). Finally it re-enforces the point made in a closing or transitioning sentence. For example, this paragraph was originally written as 2 sentences comprised of the opening sentence and the next 3 as a single sentence. It could actually have been written as simply as a single sentence: Tell them what you will tell them; tell them; tell them what you told them. There is a good tutorial on paragraphs: EngVidEnglishTeacherAdam: Writing Skills:

The Paragraph

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IFDuhdB2Hk