Cause and Effect: Bulosan's Essay

Today we talked about types of evidence or ways to support your claims.

1) Numbers/ Data/ Statistics:
Use numbers to establish a pattern that supports your claim.
Example: The rainforest used to cover 14% of the earth's surface, now it only covers 6%.

2) Expert
Using the findings or opinions of someone with a lot of training/experience in this field.
Example: Maria, the famous biologist and author of Dying Earth, believes that the earth is in peril. She says, "Humans are killing the earth slowly."

3) Anecdotal Evidence
Using a short story or experience to illustrate your point.
Example: The neighborhood where I grew up used to have many trees, but now most of those trees have been replaced by new homes and parking lots.

I also introduced the 4 Steps of Academic Writing:
1) Identify the Topic
2) Define Key Terms
3) Explain
4) Give Examples

These steps are useful because they create a formula that every academic essay follows. It can help you to understand a difficult essay. This formula can also help to provide structure when you are writing your own essay.

We then applied these steps to Bulosan's essay.
1) the topic
how capitalists exploit laborers
the thesis statement (thesis = subject + claim) is "wealth is produced and privately appropriated" (342)

2) key terms/ideas
Bulosan defines "private appropriation" as "wealth of the United States is produced by the people...and distributed by the industrialists"

3) Explain & Example
A. Bulosan explains how industrialists neglect/ignore/take advantage of laborers
Example: a rich girl wasting money on a dog
(while laborers have no money to waste)
B. He claims that capitalism depends on competition, which results in the inevitable failure of certain groups, creating futher exploitation.

In the Google Doc (below), we identified the topic sentence of every paragraph in the essay.
The topic sentence will introduce the subject of that paragraph (and it will always relate to the thesis).
Now it is your turn to identify how each topic sentence is supported. Make sure you use your own words.

Bulosan Google Doc

We will continue reading the Bulosan essay on Monday. (Though, if you would like to get ahead in the reading, you may begin the McGuire essay "Growing Up with Two Moms")