Essay: is bullying an issue that should be addressed by schools or left to parents?

Project Topic: Elementary and secondary schools around the country are beginning to address actively the problem of bullies. Decide and respond–one way or the other is bullying an issue that should be addressed by schools or left to parents?

In essay format, explain your answer. ABSOLUTELY NO OUTSIDE SOURCES ARE PERMITTED. If you answer the topic question on your own, (come to your own conclusion about the problem and say why what you think matters) and then in the body, develop your own thinking about your thesis, without resorting to Google or other search engines, you will likely avoid ANY possible matches to outside sources. The overall page length for this essay is at least one full double spaced page (but no more than two pages)

This assignment will be filtered through a PLAGIARISM CHECKER and ANY UNAUTHORIZED USE OF INTERNET OR BORROWED SOURCES CAN RESULT IN YOUR RECEIVING A “0” GRADE FOR THIS ASSIGNMENT.

Writing Activity 1: Creating Thesis Statements

WRITING ACTIVITY: CREATING A THESIS STATEMENT FROM SCRATCH

To: ENG 119 Students

From: Shamane Bell, Instructor SB

Re: Writing Thesis Statements from Topics

Date: August 14, 2019

To write a thesis statement, the goal is to come to a specific conclusion about a topic (i.e., say conclusively WHAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT and say WHY your CONCLUSION IS IMPORTANT or matters to you. You can use more than one sentence to construct a thesis statement. When complete, a thesis statement reveals a discussable point (someplace to go in the body). Here’s how to do it:

Step One: Begin with a specific Noun (TOPIC) (Nouns are people, places, things, or ideas)

a. Ask HOW, WHY, and WHAT prompt questions to begin narrowing focus on the topic..

b. How much the focus is narrowed depends on how much overall room you have in the paper to develop an in-depth discussion about your topic.

Step Two: Come to a specific CONCLUSION

a. Keep asking prompt questions (how, why, and what) about your topic until you are saying something definite and firm about the topic idea. You must do more than merely define or comment (make general reflections) on the topic idea

b. Your goal in coming to a specific conclusion is to articulate clearly and succinctly exactly HOW, WHY, or WHAT you are thinking about your topic.

Step Three: Articulate the Significance or Importance of your conclusion about your topic

a) Start by asking yourself: Whydoes the conclusion I have come to matter to me?

b) Keep asking and answering WHY questions until the answers to your questions reveal a meaning deep enough to indicate the significance of your conclusion, i.e., why what you are saying is important/matters.

Step Four: Draft your (WHAT and WHY) parts to create PUBLIC RESONANCE (a broader way of thinking about your thesis).

a) PUBLIC RESONANCE means connecting the parts of the thesis (what you are saying and why you are saying it) in a way that resonates (connect with issues or concerns held by a broader set of readers), beyond your immediate audience.

b) To establish PUBLIC RESONANCE, ask HOW, WHY, WHAT type questions about your thesis, i.e., WHY should a general reader care about what I am saying? HOW does what I am talking about affect them? WHAT stake (concern) might they have in my topic?

c) How narrow or broad any part of your thesis (What you are saying, why you are saying it, and public resonance) goes depends on the total amount of room you have in the paper to fully develop your thesis.

Remember, thesis statements only come to a conclusion about a topic, says why the topic matters, and strives to connect to a broader set of readers. A thesis NEVER explains. Do that in the body.

· For example, consider the idea of “writing” as a topic:

· Conclusion:I write well. (I have come to a firm and definite conclusion about my idea)

· Significance:Being able to write well enables me to communicate effectively with diverse audiences. (I have said why my conclusion is important to me.)

· In crafting the significance portion of this thesis, my “diversity” idea addresses public resonance because writing as a means of achieving effective communication creates an opening for me to talk in the body about why being able to communicate with a broad range of people is important in society. Thus, my thesis has both an immediate audience (people interested in written communication) and offers appeal to a broader reading audience (people who are generally interested in communication goals).

a. Your thesis is “done” when you have a singlefluid and cohesive statement on the topic that reflects what you are saying, why what you are saying is important, and makes an effort to connect what you are saying to concerns held by a broader set of readers (beyond your immediate readers).

b. NOTE: Thesis statements can be more than one sentence, depending on topic complexity.

DIRECTIONS:

1. Use steps 1-4 above to help you write three thesis statements, one for each of the topics identified on DISCUSSION BOARD 1 in Blackboard.

2. Before you post, draft, revise, and edit until you have come to a definite (firm) conclusion about WHAT you are saying about each noun and have articulated WHY each conclusion you come to about the noun is important to you.

3. I only want you to submit (post) your finished product for this assignment i.e., your three thesis statements by clicking CREATE THREAD on the Discussion Board 1 Forum.

4. You are not writing a paper(s), only thesis statements—1 for each of the topics identified on the Discussion Board forum.

Center the Essay Title across the Top of the Page

Indent the start of the first paragraph one double space down from the title and start writing. Start each paragraph of the essay by indenting one tab space from the left margin. Do not label the sections of your essay (Introduction, Body, and Conclusion). The thesis statement is part of the Introduction. Do not separate the thesis statement from the rest of the introduction. Double space all sentences throughout the essay. The double spacing you see in this document is exactly how the lines and paragraphs in your own paper should be spaced.

Start each new body paragraph with an indented paragraph. Use as many paragraphs in the body of the essay as needed. Remember too, that sentence transitions serve the same purpose within the paragraphs as they do between paragraphs: use a transition wherever you need to move the reader from one part of an idea to another within the paragraph. Use transitions between paragraphs to move the reader from the discussion of one idea in a paragraph to the discussion of another idea in a new paragraph.

In each body paragraph, you must discuss only one specific aspect of the thesis. There should be no more than one main idea (some specific aspect of the thesis) in each body paragraph. Remember to vary both sentence and paragraph lengths. This means that there should be a variety of both paragraph and sentence lengths in your essay. Very long sentences should be broken up by shorter ones strategically placed in between. Similarly, very long discussions of the same topic should be discussed in multiple paragraphs. When you have completely discussed the entire thesis statement throughout the body section, the final paragraph in the essay should be devoted to the task of writing a conclusion.

Conclusion paragraphs are different from body paragraphs in that the only thing that should be in an essay conclusion is a re-statement of the thesis in summary fashion. If a paper is longer than one page in length, then you should select what you believe to be the most important points from the body and restate them as well. Do not add new arguments, examples, or points to the conclusion of the essay.

Note finally, that when you put your name, section number, assignment name, and due date in the header as required, rather than the top of the page, notice how it remains fixed at the top of the page and automatically copies into any subsequent pages of your work.